greezemonkey

iTrader: (14)

whats that.. a 1/3 of an inch?? how could that be? something with your intake? whoa...

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

im just thinking everything was working fine until the oilpan made contact with the track.... very strange to all of a sudden have a dizzy thats too short after that happening.

AlkyIROC

I don't know if it would have always been fine. The block is new and I got it with billet caps so it wasn't exactly the same as before.

I did some measuring in the final part of the teardown tonight. I still have an old nodular cap from the old block, The billet cap is .100" taller. That would move the pump that much more away from the distributor. It seems I also had 2 gaskets under the distributor so add on a little bit more.

Maybe all those small amounts equaled enough that the distributor was just barely grabbing the pump shaft and that hard landing was enough to skip out. Maybe if I only had one gasket under the distributor it wouldn't have disengaged from the pump but could have failed in the near future or never at all and now I know it wouldn't have been properly engaging.

There's one line in the Big M block technical notes


So right there they say you should be checking that distance. The worst part is I have to put the engine into the car without the intake manifold installed. I can't hook onto it with a tunnel ram installed and lift it over the rad support. This may have always been an issue but never had a problem until that huge wheelstand.

Oh, they didn't have the wheelie bars in stock today but they'll have them in a couple of days. I'll pick them up on Saturday but I can't do an installation until the engine is back in the car and the car is back on 4 wheels so I can check the wheel install height. Unless the machine shop is swamped or finds something serious, I should have everything back together before the end of November just in time for the snow. This build won't be as hard as the last time and I may even have it done before then.

DIGGLER

iTrader: (1)

ah ok, that would make sense between the .100 with the cap and the extra gasket on the dizzy. it bothers me when i can't explain stuff. feels like something is about to bite me in the ***. hopefully everything will go back together smoothly.

Shagwell

Aftermarket block, aftermarket heads, aftermarket intake, and all aftermarket gaskets - that's a pretty big list of reasons as to why the stock length distributor might not be correct for it.


Hopefully noting major found during the tear-down/inspection and you're good to go for next season.

AlkyIROC

Dropped the shortblock off at the machine shop during lunch today. They'll check it out and clean it to make sure there's no damage. Put in new bearings and rings and make it like new again. I don't expect to see it again until sometime in November but I knew this wasn't going to be a week or 2 If I get it back in less than 6 weeks, I'll be surprised.

Then I need to put everything else back onto the shortblock. Cam, heads etc. Unless something very unexpected happens, I should have it running again before Christmas. Other than oil, I already have all the stuff I need for reassembly such as gaskets etc so it's not like last time where I was always waiting for parts before I could figure out what other parts were required.

On a positive site, I finally updated my web pages last night. It's been over a year since the last update but other than putting a new engine together, not much has happened. I still need to update a lot of new pictures. The web site still gets hundreds of hits a day. It's really overdue for a new design. I'm not using style sheets and stuff like that. Just old school basic html programming. With the bandwidth I have, I could easily host my own videos instead of using youtube or streefire.

1gary

Kewl.That's good news for sure.Maybe while you have the heads off you want to take a good look at them and a good cleaning.
I hate it when people get hurt with a serious breakdown.

AlkyIROC

All the parts I took off the shortblock will be cleaned before being reinstalled. There was no visible bearing material under the valve covers or in the lifter valley but the parts will still be cleaned. I don't need the machine shop to do that.

cp87GTA

With that much difference, I'd be checking out where the contact is on the cam. You may need a longer pump drive if your contact is too low on the cam.

AlkyIROC

Checked that already. The new distributor positions the gear on the same plane as the cam so the old one had the gear lifted higher in relation to the cam. It still had enough teeth meshed but sat higher.

With the manifold sitting in place, I dropped the new distributor down with the collar loose until it seated on the pump drive. I then lifted the distributor slightly and locked down the collar. Take off the intake and put the distributor back onto the pump. Lift up slightly to simulate the installed height and observe where the gears mesh.

Normally you want to put some marking die/grease etc an the gears and crank the engine over a few times then pull the distributor back out to see where they mesh. That wasn't an option at this time.