Call me crazy - Ranchero's (again)

[beerbelly]

Hilarious! must be an inside joke for the rebuilder.

[SmithKid]

Or possibly the "RECEIVER" of the shipment with a weird sense of humor. That little "defilement" made the entire pallet almost fall out of the transport vehicle.

[Luva65wagon]

Hilarious! must be an inside joke for the rebuilder.

Or something left in Jeff's hands too long.


Suffice it to say, the day didn't go well after this meet-up with Jeff (and his fine Starbucks history tour). As much as we shot for getting down south before traffic got too heavy - silly me to think there is ever a time anymore when traffic isn't too heavy. Maybe 2 AM. But not 2 PM. Made it to Pacific on SR-167 and I could no longer get the car to shift correctly. Like the clutch pedal throw was no longer correct. Scramble ensued to get off the freeway, trying another route, failed, ended up at Dairy Queen calling AAA and towed it to Gene's place. The bright side? The tow truck driver had to deal with the traffic.

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By the time we go everything to Gene's, off-loaded and uncrated the motor, staged the car in the garage... we were both done. So the day begins tomorrow again at 9. Should be a better day of progress.

[SmithKid]

It's in my garage.

[Luva65wagon]

Gene and I, and a few invisible members, got the old motor pulled on Saturday in pretty quick order, but as Gene was sitting there looking at the new motor against the old asked about the header gaskets. The new head has some much larger ports. As I looked at that I also grabbed the intake gaskets the builder sent - only to find they were not correct for the heads he provided. First thought was... WHY SEND THEM THEN? I was very proactive getting all the stuff I thought I needed and thought he was sending gaskets to fit his head.

After a frantic attempt to contact the builder, late on a Saturday, for details on this as well as other questions (I didn't get a reply until the next day), I had to do a Summit Racing overnight to get intake gaskets to fit it. They are due in on Tuesday (tomorrow), so yesterday, on Sunday, Gene and I managed to get the new motor in and all the underside stuff installed. Today I reinstalled everything that was left shy of the intake, so on Wednesday I have maybe 2 hrs of work so I can get it running.

After some internal debate I decided not to try and sell off this 289 motor whole. Gene wants the heads (1.99 1.60 valves) and I'll probably have a look at the bearings to see what happened and offer the rest on Craigslist, and here, to make a buck or two.

[Jeff W]

Were you able to sort out the clutch troubles?

[SmithKid]

We got the new motor installed and Roger drove it a quick test drive around a few blocks. Then after a bit of clean-up he drove it home. I think I was at least as nervous ans he was about the maiden drive in our terrible traffic. However he called and reported the trip "incident free" with maybe a minor lingering problem with the clutch.

I was disappointed in our "tech day" (that turned out to be several days). He and I doing the job was not near the club event as the old ones that took place with my car and others a few years back.

[Luva65wagon]

Aw come-on Gene, "you are the club I know." But yeah, to say the least, I too was a bit saddened by the lack of response for this tech day(s). But oh well, what ya gonna do. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think the two of us, or even me by myself, couldn't have accomplished the task. I'm in your debt, Gene, for the use of your garage and elbow grease.

Here it is.

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Found out (after it started and ran like crapola) the builder used a 351W cam, which required a quick re-route of the spark plug wires (different firing order), so will have to scrutinize the plug wires again to get them routed the way I like. But it ran so much better afterward. It was getting late in the day and, as Gene indicated, I only did a quick "round the block" test drive before hitting the road.

Should have maybe looked around the motor more before I left. I found this sitting on the headers and steering box. I'll get it back to you, Gene, when I come back to get the 289 left-overs.

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There is still an issue with the clutch (slave?) or I still have some air in the system. Cool/cold, the pedal disengages the clutch nicely. When I got home the wife wanted to go for a ride and I found the clutch to be only partially disengaging the clutch. Of course, no way to look at it without a flat spot on concrete where I can jack it up.

[SmithKid]

Wow! That's looking great, Roger (don't envy all the standing on yer head yer having to do, tho')

[Luva65wagon]

I have since completed my static test and it works great. I now have to conjure up how best to do the upper part of the column. The EPS unit has an upper collapsible function as well, which doesn't really apply to the Falcon column tube. And since the shaft is held in place on the Falcon with a taper collar anything that allows me to pull on the shaft will just pull this taper collar out of the upper bearing. Nissan used a high friction male/female sleeve for the column (all buried under the plastic bits) that would collapse on impact, but was not movable by hand. I may have to bury these pieces in my Falcon tube since they are smaller. More on that when I get there. I'm jumping around from the various projects and have yet to return to this part.