Well @REO442 and @Sugar Bear convinced me that pulling engine was a better way to do things than what I was doing. Originally the idea was to replace the timing chain and gear set and button it up and drive it. I thought What the Heck, those plastic teeth that came off the cam gear hadn’t hurt anything rolling around in the oil pan for all these years so why bother them now. But I saw a pic on another thread and it appears that the plastic teeth gets shredded and imbedded into the oil pickup screen. Working that oil pan from beneath the car seemed like a bad idea. Also Norm helped me understand that the way the timing cover plate is built on these Olds engines with the oil pan integrating with the timing cover, the oil pan really needs to be off the engine when the timing cover is installed, to get the best quality job. So….this 74 year old man will (did) pull the engine. And I’ll also do multiple other mechanical items along the way. Exhaust and Intake manifold gaskets, valve cover gaskets, timing gear set and chain, oil pan gasket, new oil pump and MAYBE a new rear main seal. I don’t think the one now in the car is leaking, so I may talk myself out of that one. I can also clean up a lot of engine bay dirt and grime. I’ll also check cost to pull the auto transmission and have a Shop rebuild that as well. Pics to follow.

 

The original rear main seal is rope. I strongly advise if it is not leaking, do not replace it. My 71 350 had the absolute slightest leak (several drops/week - about the size of an eye-dropper e.g. 1mL) - an oven drip pan saves a lot of aggravation. I'd rather have the original rope seal than any of the newer rear main seals. You have the engine stand built, yet?

 

Part of my reluctance to jerk the engine was the outlay of money for an engine hoist and engine stand. About 4-$500 for the two items. But a friend came to the rescue and loaned me both, for free. But I will demand he take something for his willingness to help. So I have the stand, but it is a tripod variety and they are less stable, so I will mod it a little. Saw some vids on YouTube of engines tipping over. Don’t want to repeat that. RE the rear seal. I think I am in agreement with your position. I drove the car multiple times before parking it for all the body work. I never noticed oil under the plastic flywheel cover. And looking at the engine many times now, I don’t see oil where I would expect to see it if the seal was bad. I have bought the seal, and it is actually one used on Fords. If I never use it, then that is OK too. Last thing I want is to create a problem. I do see trans oil at the tail shaft. It looks like it would not be hard to slide the trans forward and jerk it out through the big hole where the engine used to be? If I do this, mating up engine and trans in one item and installing them together seems like a good way to reinstall. I remember that is how you said I could pull both at same time. My hoist is max capacity of 1000 pounds, so I think I would be under that?

 

I looked at my numbers when evaluating the lift of my 350 + THM 350 and the entire gitmo was ~ 675lbs. Engine ~550lbs. (cast iron), trans. ~125lbs.

 

Good progress getting the engine out, keep us posted and post pics when you can. Curious to know what is inside the oil pickup screen.

 

Long day for me yesterday. I saw the Prize (engine out of car) and got close late in the day, and pressed on. Working till 6:30 on a Saturday isn’t me, usually. Several pics to share. I am also real curious as to what the oil pump and screen look like. Once I have engine in stand, first thing I will do is pull the oil pan. I am not going to roll the engine upside down to make it easier. If there is debris in the pan, I want to know how it is situated.


First thing I did was take some scrap metal that I had and fab up a lift plate. Put three holes in it and used middle one to attach lift chain. These can be bought at Summit for $15 up to $200 depending on how fancy you want it. Mine…free.


A friend loaned me an engine hoist. I have it stretched out to the 1000 pound capacity with a 10” piece of 3/8” chain. Don’t want to hook it up too short or the boom could contact front of engine as it goes up.



Thought I had disconnected everything but as engine went up I could see that I had forgot the ground strap that connects to the firewall. Also forgot the vacuum line that runs to auto trans, I think? Hard to see in this pic but they are at end of screwdriver.



once rigged, I started to lift the engine. It needs to come up enough to clear the motor mounts before engine is able to come forward.



Hoisting engine. With left fender removed to repair Sheetmetal rust, it makes working on engine WAY easier. I can step between the front of wheel right next to frame rail, which is nice for an old man with back issues.


How the hoist looks from right side. Just about ready to pull it forward.



I forgot to SWEEP THE FLOOR before starting the lift. The smallest little pebbles will make the steel rollers on hoist not roll well.



Engine safely on the floor. Work will resume Tuesday. With I think placing it on a pallet and squirting areas with a degreaser and a bath with a power washer, being careful to not get high pressure water in sensitive areas.



Wood transmission support fixture screwed to a floor jack. This worked well to get engine out, but I am thinking about taking the trans to a Shop for an overhaul, so will cook up a different support, with wheels, to move the trans forward to where I can pick it.



This one is just for you Norm. I found the brass plug to plug the TVS port. Looks way better already!


For those curious, the removal is lined out pretty well in the Chassis FSM.



All bolts, both flywheel to Converter and Trans to Engine block were really tight, taking a cheater pipe on the ratchet handle to break loose.

 

You mentioned in another thread R&R intake manifold gasket. No time like the present if you're going to R&R the intake manifold gasket. Once the intake is removed it makes cleaning the intake manifold far, far easier & you can paint it separately. I use cheap oven cleaner as a degreaser; or, buy the other stuff for much more $$ (e.g. engine cleaner stuff); or, make yourself a NaOH (Sodium Hydroxide) solution from (caustic) Lye. Oven cleaners & such have either sodium (Na), or potassium (K) hydroxides in them.

 

BTW, nice you found the correct plug, as well. And yeah, the tiniest of pebble will stop the engine hoist from rolling & it becomes a handful.

 

Very happy to see your progress, the outcome will make for long-lasting driving pleasure.

 

Back at it a little today getting ready to do a degreasing power washing tomorrow. Don’t want the engine to suffer damage from this, so blocking off ports nd holes into the engine.


In prep to remove distributor eventually, I set the crank and cam timing marks to line up. Just barely visible in this pic.



I took a measurement from a cylinder head reference point to the distributor window.



I also used a straight edge laying it against the rear block machined area where transmission mates up. Vac advance is just slightly past straight edge.



Been a long long time since I pulled a distributor, so I may be over thinking this. But pulled the cap off and the rotor is pointing at cylinder 6 with crank and cam marks in alignment.



Removed exhaust manifolds and used wood lumber strips attached to cylinder heads to block off those ports.



I would have bet my fortune that these two block off bolts would never move, but they did indeed come off



Way easier on a work bench



I decided to check plane on the manifolds. Glued some 80 grit to the table saw and started to grind on the mate up area. Saw right away that this was not a good idea. I would still be grinding on it.



So took it to the Man with a Quick Way surfacing machine. Took him perhaps 5 minutes. 60 bucks. Well worth it. He said machine cost $8000 many years ago, and abrasive belts cost a bunch.



They came out looking like this. And this is a teachable moment. What @REO442 said about quality of work going up with engine out is so true. I likely would not have done much with the exhaust manifolds other than tightening the available loose bolts. ALL of the bolts were loose.



Removed the flywheel in prep to mount to an engine stand. Fretted about orientation between the crank flange and flywheel but soon found that the bolt holes make it impossible to put back incorrectly. It will only fit one way.



Cleaned up. No paint, as adding it could cause balance problems



Found that there are embossed numbers around perimeter. 1-18 I think? Perhaps an engine guru can explain the purpose?



Engine attached to a pallet. Tomorrow outside it goes for a bath.

 

Engine semi-degreased today. Mounted it on an engine stand. New parts review. Pulled the oil pan.

A before pic.



Wrapped a small rope behind crank flange to insure I didn’t blow apart the existing rear main seal.



After using an engine degreaser and power washer



I double bagged the distributor with two one gallon freezer bags, tied tight at bottom to distributor shaft with some cording



Worked well. No water got to distributor



There was so much filth in this area I couldn’t even see the hold down assembly



Someone here before me used grey RTV to seal up freeze plugs. I didn’t realize that on this olds engine the distributor does not go through the intake manifold. So I may not pull the distributor. Is there any reason to do so?



The rear intake manifold rubber seal has blown outward. The resulting oil loss has made this area filthy.



One nice thing about the three point engine stand is that they mate up well with an engine hoist to transfer to the stand. I saw a few videos of the four point stands where people tipped their engine over while trying to make the transfer.



Bottom of oil pan just had a few plastic cam gear teeth.



I haven’t pulled the pump yet, but the screen appeared fairly clean



Plastic from the oil pan.



This is a photo looking into the side of the oil screen space between the screen and metal housing looks filled with plastic debris.

 

The original Olds timing chain cover is corroded or eroded badly. I don’t think I can reuse it. I bought a repo from Inline Tube. I think the same manufacturer supplies all the vendors. The crankshaft oil seal installs in the big bottom hole and is precisely located off of two dowel pins in the block that fit two precision holes in the cover. I took a dial caliper and did some measuring and found that the original Olds part was pretty accurate. Just .004” difference. The new parts review has .020” difference. I think that may cause an early failure of the new seal?


Original part was pretty accurate, but where water pump mounts is in bad shape. I think I will carefully cut and salvage the bottom seal retainer and weld it to the new upper part of the repo part.

New repo part isn’t and I checked with Inline Tube and it appears that others in stock are not a lot better.

 

Great work, write-up and photos. The last photo shows where the cam gear nylon teeth hide and cause a problem. Consider replacing the freeze plugs while they are accessible.

So the seal would be .020" off-center?

Could leave distributor in but removing it will allow the intake to go straight down onto the RTV versus sliding across the RTV and the O-ring .seal on the distributor is probably due for replacement. See what others recommend for sealant on the front and back of the intake.

 

Looking at pic of front cover and see what you mean about the seal position, I don't like it but let's see what others have to say. Makes me wonder if the seal mounting hole location is also off vertically.

 

I don’t like it either. Maybe the seal has capability to deal with an off-center condition, but twenty thousandths is quite a little. Your vert measurement idea is good, so I tried to use the same means and methods to measure both parts. 10thousandths variation. My current idea is to cut the good parts off of the original olds part and the repo part, jig them up on the engine and tack weld them for sure, and maybe even complete the weld right on the engine.


2.565 old part

2.575 new part

My bohemian solution. I can say that cause I am Czech. I have asked many a store clerk if “No checks allowed” means I can’t come in the store😜

 

Years of oil accumulation in the valley where the distributor resides is the result of many things but primarily the wall where the intake manifold gasket blew out (which you point to). You need to remove the intake manifold to R&R the intake manifold gasket. As Jeff pointed out the distributor O-Ring on the distributor shaft (readily available) should be replaced. Removing, inspecting & reassembling the distributor is a simple process. With the distributor removed you'll have better access to remove the intake manifold, install a new intake manifold gasket & reassemble the intake manifold. Stabbing (inserting) the distributor back into the engine is a simple process - you can insert the distributor back into the engine after you've installed the engine back into the car. You're doing awesome work. The MAWs eat up time but are so beneficial.

Liberally spray the distributor clamp-down bolt and clamp w/ PB Blaster or similar penetrating oil several times the day before to allow good penetration. Pop out the dizzy - done - no biggie. I think you already marked the distributor's orientation to the #1 cylinder spark plug, right? Distributors are manufactured differently and have changed over the years; yet, they're simple devices. This is not overwhelming - a simple deal. You'll find your distributor is NOT exact same as the video I'll post here; yet, this video demonstrates the simple basics of the tear down of a distributor. You don't need to remove the vacuum advance assembly to R&R the O-Ring. What's changed over the years on most distributors is the oiling technique of the distributor cam. You'll find your distributor isn't even close to the oiling system in this (below) video. It's a great time to evaluate your distributor - go for it. I'll toss up a table (1971 CSM) of the distributors used for the 1971 350 (you likely have model 1112079) - same as distributor installed on my 1971 350.

 

Wall of the intake manifold gasket which blew out...

 

Might be useful to put the plate back on the block in the original mounting, without the seal in place. Take your measurements from the center of the crankshaft. Do the same with the new plate; compare your measurements. As for the distributor, removal and replacement are straightforward, especially since you have indexed it in a couple of locations. When you remove the intake, which appears inevitable, care must be taken to locate it uniformly. The distributor vertical centerline can be affected, resulting in the drive gear wearing prematurely. Keep up your accuracy and attention to detail.

 

An idea...crazy...??? Size the dowel holes in the new plate enough to center the seal on the crank, install the cover loosely, center the seal on the crank and then clamp it in place/position with its usual bolts.

 

The bear has it right.

 

BTW, your humor did not go unnoticed.

 

One interesting thing to consider, is that I have my crank gear and cam gear timing marks in alignment with crank gear mark at 12 o’clock and cam gear mark at 6 o’clock. In this position the distributor rotor points to the number 6 cylinder. I saw a video somewhere about this, so was ready for it. If doing just the distributor r and r, then setting engine on number one cylinder compression stroke tdc would make the r and r easier to understand for a nit wit like me.

 

You must be clairvoyant? I did exactly that earlier today. Wish I had an inside micrometer set, but don’t. So I took a popsicle stick and cut the end off. Made the little piece of wood .695” and using a pair of needle nose pliers I checked the crankshaft to seal retainer surface at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions on both old cover and the new repo cover. The old cover isn’t perfectly concentric, but it is way better than the repo part.


Doing a little math made me think that this should be very close to the clear distance from shaft to bearing retainer.



So I checked old and new part at four points around the shaft



This verified that the new part is quite a little way from being concentric



Old original cover. I think I could weld the old below to the new above and have one fairly good part

 

I also thought the same thing. But I can’t prove it😜. I think the precision dowel arrangement made it easier for production line work. Doing what the Bear describes in theory should yield a good result. I think where it gets a little messy is trying to get the cover gasket buttered up with sealant, then at least temporarily reattaching the harmonic balancer, ensuring it is indeed centered up, attach the water pump. Is this the right order of events? Or I could use a chainsaw file to relieve the dowel holes to allow the repo cover to shift to concentricity prior to installing the new seal or harmonic balancer. Feels like I am overthinking this.

 

Correct, you'll be pointing @ #6 w/ crank + cam aligned @ 12 & 6.

 

Late in the day I decided to clean the oil pan. Rotten little job. Tried traditional solvents. Even a little gasoline, being quite careful. The burnt on oil and dirt both inside and outside didn’t want to come off very well. So…
I decided to try some Jasco paint remover, and wow did that ever work well! Slathered on a coat of paint remover and used a scotch brite pad and it loosened up the gunk very well. Then to the power washer.

Should have taken a “before” pic. This worked so well on inside of pan, but it was really a mess.



So I decided to take a “before” pic of the outside. Some of what you see is rust, and I’ll deal with that tomorrow.



This is 17 minutes later, after the Jasco, scotch brite, and even a little 80 grit on the obvious rusty areas. Then a blast with the power washer. Now the pan is to the detail cleaning phase.

 

I have read more than one story where the person telling it couldn’t understand why the engine wouldn’t start after putting in a timing chain/gearset and pointing the rotor to number one. Glad to hear that I appear to be on the correct page.

 

What you'll likely find after intake manifold removal...

 

Is it too late for me to put the engine back in the car? That was some serious sludge! I think my intake gasket set does not have the valley cover, it is two sides, a rubber front and back. FelPro.

 

Some prefer to use only sealant on the front and rear of the intake leaving out the rubber seals. Probably worth searching this or maybe someone will chime in on what sealant they have recently used successfully.

 

Corvette forum that I have been a member now for nearly 15 years has multiple threads on people trying to deal with The China Wall. Trying to come up with best means and methods to build a seal that will last. It really gets messy when the head or block is milled or decked. The removal of material changes the clearance of the intake sloped port area and then using a supplied gasket in this area will make the clearance gap different from the stock clearance, that the new gasket kit does not account for. I have not decided exactly what I will do yet. But since I am not milling block or heads it should be easier for me. Here is a pic of what one fella did, and used red silicone to make the seal.


A row of center punched divits to allow silicone to fill and hold better, hopefully.

Also, this pic shows a major difference between the Chevy small block and the Olds. The Chevy has the distributor install through the intake manifold. The Olds does not.

 

New parts are trickling in. Got the Melling oil pump and new screen today. I did not buy a high volume pump. No racing this engine! Just an old man Sunday driver car, so stock is what I will stick with. Melting does include a second pressure relief spring if ya wanna up the oil pressure. Again, I think I will leave it stock. One thing I don’t like is the stock replacement pump has the press fit oil pickup, which is not a very good setup in my opinion. Melting advises to make the clearance adjustment of about a half inch to bottom of oil pan, and then “TIG tack weld the pickup tube to the pump” I think the pump is cast iron, and the tube is mild steel. So I could braze it I suppose? Still thinking this one through.


Melting pump and screen. Also, the higher pressure pink spring.


When taking the flywheel off the crank flange, there were no lock washers. The flywheel was kinda messed up some where the cap screws tightened against the flywheel. In searching for more information I think there was supposed to be to be 7/16” outside star lock washers.


No lock washers when I removed the flywheel



I took an air file and debarred the face of flywheel where I think the olds stock lock washers cut into the steel.



Cap screws themselves cleaned up and look good, so I am on a search mission for outside lock washers.

 

You have a flex plate. Not trying to be an ****, but for one a flywheel is much thicker.

 

I used the high pressure pink spring and didn’t even tak the pickup tube. The amount of force required to insert the pickup tube convinced me a tak wasn’t required. Came out about 1/4” from the bottom of the pan.

 

Really? No leak issues with the 292 or the tighter fitting AMC 252 6 rubber and neoprene seals. I have more issues with shitty cork pan gaskets not sealing on probably less than straight oil pans. But if it isn't leaking, it usually requires loosening main bolts and some sort sneaky Pete to fight the top half of the rope seal out. Mine still required it, even with the motor out of the car.

 

I think generally you are correct, it is interesting to note that in the FSM it is called a flywheel, for both stick transmission cars and auto transmission cars. I could not find any mention of a flex plate. But I have missed plenty, and it may be there somewhere. The FSM has other instances of technical inaccuracies. One that always sticks out to me is calling things like main bearing cap fasteners BOLTS instead of CAP SCREWS. My high school shop teacher drilled the difference into me, and I have never forgot the difference. But when I use the accurate term many people have no idea what I am talking about. A bolted connection is a threaded hex fastener with a nut that is tightened. Almost all fasteners on the engine are indeed cap screws. Yet the torque specs in the FSM have no mention of cap screws.


Auto trans callout to remove fasteners between flywheel and torque converter.



Another example



Again in the FSM torque spec page. All the red dashes are me marking up torque callouts for bolts that are in fact cap screws.



eBay also in on the inaccuracy as well




Difference between cap screws and bolts explained. Pardon the screen shot, it just google “difference between bolts and cap screws. Lots of info on this.

 

Eh, no biggie. For any of a gazillion reasons they reference the ALT as the generator, as well; but, you won't find a flywheel equipped with torque converter. A clutch pack is to a flywheel as a torque converter is to a flexplate.

 

I am feeling my way through the engine work. Will likely leave the rear main seal alone, as it does not look like it is leaking, and now that I have the engine out where it is easier to see, it looks like someone was into the back of the engine at one time, maybe replaced it? Freeze plugs were messed with, rtv in strange places. But I have searched it out a little. Ran into this vid of someone removing a rope seal with crankshaft in place. Looks like it is risky.


I did buy a new rear seal, with the idea that it is better to have it and not need it than the other way around. This is what I bought, if you care to critique it?


Fel Pro stuff that is I think a Ford seal that just happens to fit an Oldsmobile.



The seals are pretty firm. Not soft, by any means



Two vertical pieces also included.