69Rman

Alright, here goes my ramble... lol

I got laid off a few weeks ago (I'm already back part time two days a week) but that's another story that's quite complicated in itself.
Anyways, this has given me some "extra" time , (but little cash,) to do some work on the Olds. (Refresher, 1969 Cutlass Supreme with 1970 350)
I am getting ready to try and fire it up, but need to make a few other decisions first. The car is an original A/C car, but I am not going to run the A/C, thus I want to install the two grove pulleys that I have instead of the three groove ones.
Question, what do I need to do different with all of the hose routings etc from the A/C box on the firewall now that there will be no A/C compressor.
Does anyone have any pic of cars with the compressor not installed, but the A/C box still there hooked up however it would be?
Also, any other tips on what to make sure of before proceding to start it, like wiring etc. I'd like to fire it up just like on an engine stand, not using the complete wiring for the car. Just the basics needed ti fire it up. My wiring is kind of a mess righr now so I'll just use the necessary wires first. I don't want to use the ignition key to do it. Anyone know what i need to do?
All pointers and advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Duane

joe_padavano

If you plan to run the non-A/C pulleys, you also need the shorter non-A/C water pump and the non-A/C passenger side alternator bracket.

Firing the engine on a stand is very simple. You need power to the starter and you need power to the + side of the distributor or coil, depending on whether you have points or HEI. Be sure to put a switch in this wire, so you can turn it off.

69Rman

I've got the correct water pump and brackets, pulleys etc to do the job. That part should be pretty straight forward. Assuming it all lines up nicely.
I guess my main concern is with the wiring. The engine has an HEI setup on it, but I believe that my car was last ran with the original, non HEI distributor. I know I will need to change some things along the way, just want to find out from the right sources what I will need to change with my wiring.
Thanks
Duane

Yellowstatue

I tried to delete your thread, but you are still here...

69Rman

Noooooo!
Don't delete this one now.

No one replied to the other thread. I'll have to keep this one going.
I'll fix it up...

As Joe P had suggested earlier, I've got the Alt & its brackets for pass side mounted, Pulleys all attached, just going to put the PS Pump on next. All pulleys seem to be lining up nicely. This part seems to have gone well.

Anyhow, I am looking at a real mess of wiring now...
A lot of my wires are real brittle and cracking. I have a couple of other parts cars harnesses in boxes, I may have to "piece together" what I need from the three different ones. I have the original harness in the car (1969 with A/C, Auto Trans),
a 1968 Cutlass S (non A/C, auto trans) harness, and a 1972 Supreme (A/C Auto trans) harness.
So I'll need to do some work here.
Any electrical experts out there?
Duane

Yellowstatue

The '68 harness should work fine, just use the air wire stuff from the '69...the '72 harness would have an extra two wires for the vacuum controled spark thingy?? on the front right beside the comp. screwed into the intake.. but the basic harness of all uses the same wires...

German442

Looked @ your CarDomain pics & comments. Just 1 question:
Since you went to all that trouble, why didn't you sandblast the area before welding?

Ralph

69Rman

Hey thanks for chiming in Yellowstatue, I'll have to look at it in a few minutes to see about that vacuum controlled spark thingy, not sure if it's there or not. I am trying to use the original 69 Harness, as it has not been removed from the firewall. I am opening up the harness to get a nice clear look at the colors and gauges of each wire. Some will need to be repaired farther downline where they've gotten brittle, as well as a few that are now too short to reach with the alt now on the pass side. I think I have most of it figured out. I will be cutting up the 72 harness to use it for repairs etc. I actually can not find the 68 engind harness I had, oh well.
I'll have a few more questions about it, but I am in the house right now seeing the wife and daughter off for the day. I'll be out in the garage soon, and I'll get into it some more and come back with more questions and possibly pics.

German442,
to answer your question, I am an amateur I guess, lol
J/K, most of the real bad was cut out, anything that wasn't real weak was coated in a rust encapsulator product.
Keep in mind that as I was doing this all, I was trying to learn as well, so I really did not "expect" decent results.
I had it inmy mind that if this ended up as a disaster, or rotting back out in the near future, I'd just do it all over again but "do it right" using either a donor section from another car, or the repops that "aren't out there yet, but may be by then"...lol
In the end, I am actually about 80% satisfied with the results. I believe once it is all together with the window trim and trunk seal in place it won't look too bad.
Yes, I really do wish I had it all blasted first, I even have a blaster, but damn it's messy.
If I could have rolled it outside, I may have tried it but, oh well now.

Thanks for the help guys!

be back soon, lol
Duane

Yellowstatue

My friend has a '66 Toro and he used crushed corn to clean his engine bay and it came out looking really nice...he offered to clean part of my '57 engine bay and when I called on his cell to find out when he says "we just pulled into the camp ground in FLA"... well maybe after Easter he also has a '57 that hopefully will be on the road late next year...fingers crossed

69Rman

Yeah, I guess it would be nice to have access to some type of media blasting.
On a side note, I seem to have it wired up "Redneck" style. It's cranking over, albiet slowly, even with a boost off of my truck. Fuel is pumping, it's getting spark at #1 at TDC at the correct time (roughly) timing seems correct there, I don't think it is out 180 degrees.
As far as wiring.
I have the engine side of the fuse block pulled off, to access all of the engine bay wire lugs from behind.
I have a switch wired (using good spade lugs, 10Ga wire) to the back side of the block on the Purple wire to the starter "S" post. This allows to (try to ) start engine while button is depressed.
I have the distributor wired, using the pink w/two blk stripes back to the block (I may replace this completely with 10Ga, it appears to be about 14 or 16 Ga stock) This is attached on the back of the block, to the positive posts of the stock horn relay, again with 10Ga and good spades.
The stock horn relay positive post is attached to the positive of the battery, and the battery Positive is attached to the large post on starter.
Battery Neg to Engine block, block is grounded to body as well.
I also have the altenator on there so I thought I should run it's positive wire to the positive posts on the horn relay as well. THe other wires are not hooked up. Not sure if I need them really yet or not. I also do not have the voltage regulator wired in, didn't think I really neede it yet.

I had initially tried it all wired up properly through all of the original harness/fuse panel, but there were issues I believe with the NSS and possibly other things under the dash, it's a bit scary under there.
I am just trying to simplify it for now to see if and how it runs first. I will perfect all of the other issues as I wire it all up properly later.

I am just kind of stumped right now with the thing. Getting spark, fuel, timing seems correct.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
Duane

69Rman

WOO HOO !!!!

Well, I got it to fire up finally. I only let it run for a very short time since there's no cooling system or coolant yet. That will have to be the next thing. Well, after I re-wire it all first. Then mount a rad and hoses so I can let it run for a bit and adjust timing and fuel etc.
Overall, it sounded pretty good, damn loud, but good. Just headers on it right now.
I think a few of the neighbours may have wondered what the %^*& for a minute or two... lol
I can't get at it again for another couple of days at least, so I'll report any progress if any.
Duane

oldzzy

Congrats Duane! I thought i heard something way over here! lol

citcapp

It's alive, It's alive egor. More power, more power!!!!

Yellowstatue

I thought that rumble was distant thunder!! We are sitting here impatiently waiting for that report...

69Rman

Ok, I'm ready to get going on this thing again. It's only been a couple of days since I was working on it, but it felt like a week.
It made it real hard to do my job as well. I couldn't stop thinking about "the Olds" and what steps i need to take next.
First, How long can I let this thing run as it is w/o coolant? I was scared to let it run for more than about ten to fifteen seconds on either of the two times I had it start up.
I would like to possibly bolt on the rad cradle to put the rad in and hook it all up but I would need to make some more room first. Maybe soon, we'll see.
This leads to another question. What T-stat temperature range should I get. There seemed to be three different ranges when I was looking at them the other day at Crappy Tire. Not really sure what temp it should open up at or which one to get.

I'm going to try and borrow a video camera and get a short clip of it running. That probably won't be until Tuesday though.
I thought I had the whole weekend to myself and the Olds, but the wife just informed me that we have dinner with her family today, and dinner with mine tomorrow. That will leave me a "bit" of time to get some things done, but probably not too much.

I'll report any more progress as it happens.

Hey Shane, if you read this, have you got any need for an engine hoist yet? I may need to move it out of here soon to get somemore space. I was going to store it in a buddies garage, but you're closer, and I thought that if you needed it and had the space over there for it for now...
Let me know.

Duane

69Rman

Alright, it's been a while, but some things have now changed.

Engine lift is gone to a friends house (finally), that makes some more room to work.
Rolled the car out and turned it around in the driveway, in garage now nose first. Hopefully I don't need to pull the engine again...
Semi assembled the front end, fenders rad cradle etc. to give me some frame structure to figure out all of the re-wiring I want to do.
Had to drain all of the oil out, some coolant got in there. I think, on the first start. I had a few external leaks right after that, so I re-torqued all of the head and intake bolts, some were quite loose. Made sure all other bolts etc were snugged up and now it seems to be not leaking. Of course it is not running yet.
I have all of the wire harness at the fire wall connected again, and I now am able to start it up with the key. Woo Hoo!!
Just waiting for a new fuel pump to arrive. I ordered the one with the return line spout so hopefully it will relieve the extra fuel pressure that my Edelbrock 1406 seems to not like.
I did pull the carb and open it up to check the float levels and to make sure there was no dirt anywhere clogging something up. All seems to be as it should. Float levels were as Edelbrock says they should be, and I couldn't find any obstructions in there.
I am not sure what else could cause the massive fuel consumption though.
Hopefully the new fuel pump, once hooked up to the return, will work out well.
I'll try to keep ya updated!
Duane

oldzzy

Hey Duane, sorry for the really late reply! I don't need an engine hoist anytime soon. My buddy that lives close to you will lend me his when i need one. Thanks for thinking of me tho. I am glad to see your making progress! I bet it feels awesome to have the motor in and running!

69Rman

No worries Shane,
If I was in a crunch, I have your number if it had of came down to it. It just goes to show that my Mopar buddy is a little slow to get going when I need him...lol
He FINALLY pulled through though.

As far as the engine and it's running condition, I think I have one bad cylinder now that I've had it running a few times. #5 seems really low on compression when I check it with my dad's "cheapo" compression tester. I am going to buy a new, better compression tester this weekend, then i will try some more to verify, but I am pretty sure it's gotta come back out now. I think the rings are gone by the compression numbers I got.
Dammit!
We'll see.
Duane

bulldog

Duane try doing a wet test to see if the compression comes up.
Could be many different things such as a sticky valve or a vacum leak and a wet test will help narrow it down.

69Rman

Well, it's official. Engine had to come back out.
I did a leak down test on all of the cylinders, and they all seemed ok except for #5, it had almost no compression resistance when I applied the air to it at tdc. Loud air flow coming from oil fill tube and valve cover breathers. No coolant gurgle on any of the cyl's during testing either thankfully.
The air loss seemed to be piston rings or something similar, so out the engine came. I was expecting a broken piston ring , but not this...
P1170055.jpg
P1170056.jpg
P1170057.jpg
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So now my question is what the hell do I do now???
The surprising part is that the cylinder wall seems perfect. I will investigate it further, but it seriously appears unharmed.
When I first pulled the piston out and set it on the bench, all of the broken pieces were still contained in their correct locations until I tried to remove the one ring that was obviously missing a 3/4 inch chunk. Then all of the other parts started to fall out of place. This is what must have saved the cylinder wall. Somehow the missing piece fell out during it's time running, without causing any damage.
I do re-call when I first opened this motor up, and I found all of the parts of an old timing gear in the oil pan, that I also found what appeared to be a piece of a piston ring. This should have made me think twice about continuing with the project without investigating further, but I didn't, and here we are now looking at the aftermath... lol
So again, what rhe hell do I do now?
I do have another engine that I could rob a stock piston from....
All input greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Duane

oldzzy

Damn that sucks!

70 cutlass s

Holy piston Batman. I have feeling your going to have to bore it out. Man that piston is bad. Really bad. I wouldn't trust your eyeball when looking at the cylinder. I would take measurements. Cylinders with high miles are tapered most of the time, and cylinders have to bored to make them round, strait, and true. With that bad of a piston that bad I would count on boring.