2011 - June - Bottom Engine Pulley Moving - Radiator Comes Out Again For The Second Time in a Month

The bottom pulley on a Chev 4 engine is not something that you look at on a regular basis, or at least I don't anyway. Tucked away under the front of the motor, hiding behind the radiator cowl, its keeps a very low profile. On my Chev the engine, generator and water pump pulleys never looked dead square, but I never paid it much attention as "it has always been like that" and the fan belt never showed any form of unusual wear.

That was until about 3 weeks ago when I noticed that the pulley appeared a bit further forward to where I thought it should be. I had never previously been able to see the pulley shaft or the felt seal that sits between the pulley and the timing cover, but I could now.

Alarm bells weren't ringing at this stage, but flashing lights may have been in the distance and getting closer.

I measured the clearance at 3/8", and then sought assistance from several Chev web sites. A couple of good mates, Chris from Sydney and Grant from Gippsland confirmed that my pulley should have a clearance of around 3/16".

What could have caused this after the pulley had behaved perfectly for the last 36 years?

I had seen several postings previously on the web about the same problem, but did not give it a second thought as everything was fine with mine. Since the wedding restoration in 2009, and with the Chev being in a lot better mechanical condition, I had been driving it a lot faster and a lot further.

My conclusion is the pulley coped with 36 years of sedate 35 mph driving, but was slowly moving forward because of the increased cruising speed of 45 to 50 mph, combined with increased vibration from a oil soaked front engine mount. And for all I know it may have been moving over the last year or so.

The shortcut would have been to tap it back into place and hope for the best, but at 58 years of age I am past taking short cuts, in fact I am now dam fussy, and proud of it.

So out comes the radiator for the second time in a month, out comes the puller, out comes the angle grinder to modify the puller and then off comes the pulley.

I measured it with a vernier, and compared to 5 other spares in my cupboard. The one pulled off the car was the 2nd biggest diameter hole out of the lot. So I am glad I pulled it off.

I cleaned up the front of the engine, and thought I would splash a bit of paint here and there seeing  I had the radiator off anyway.

Selected the pulley with the smallest diameter hole, cleaned it up, painted it,applied a healthy coating of loctite to the crank and fitted it.

The pulley now sits a lot closer to the timing cover, and the 3 engine pulleys now look more in line.

Also the added bonus that the old pulley had a slight "woof" in it where as the new one runs straight and true.

I don't know guys, nothing lasts. I only put that pulley on the engine in 1974.

Do you think I could put in a warranty claim to GM?

Job done, all back together, looks good, looks square, car happy and Ray happy.

All is well with the world, until the next "event" happens. And as we know there is always an "event" waiting to happen with these old beasts.

2011 - May - Engine Mounts

The engine mounts were installed 1984, and during the writing of this blog I decided to check their condition.

Originally thinking it was going to be a minor tidy up, it soon became a big job, taking 2 days and after removing the bonnet and radiator consisted of the following:

Front Engine Mount
I noticed this was a bit softer than it should be. Probably from being continually coated in oil for  26 years. Not a bad run all the same.. When I removed the mount it was completely shot. I reinstalled the original full steel engine mount on the front of the engine, and later supplemented this with a 4 mm strip of neoprene rubber between the mount and the chassis, as engine noise increased with the metal to metal contact. After this he car was a lot smoother. As smooth as 1928 Chev can be that is.

My conclusion is that the front mount had been soft for several years.

Rear Engine Mounts
These are still in good condition, but I will replace them next time the engine or transmission is removed. All I did to these mounts was to insert a 2 mm washer to level off the engine and to match the thickness of the rubber pad under the front mount.

Transmission Mount
The 2  bolts on either side required tightening and I then discovered the rubber pads had been compressed to where they were no longer effective.

The only solution was to replace them, which I did over 2 days. This time I used neoprene 6 mm rubber instead of Goodyear Tyre side wall for the outer pads, and 4mm neoprene rubber instead of 2 mm rubber sheet for the inner pad.

The end result is a smoother engine during acceleration, cruising, and most noticeably when backing off.

The engine is still bolted directly to the chassis as per original and still rock solid with no movement as per original. What is not original is I have inserted a highly compressed rubber pad between all fixing points that were previously metal to metal.

Lets hope I get another 20 odd years out of these mountings.


The only other comment of note is how times and things change, and how with modern tools at your disposal, jobs are so much easier. If only in the seventies my garage had of contained the following:
Pedestal Drill
Variable Speed Power Drill
Bench Grinder
Angle Grinder
Dremmel
Bench Press
Sand Blast Cabinet
Punches
Nut Splitters
Cutting Disks
Grinding Disks
High Speed Wire Brushes
Butane Torch
Etc
Etc
Etc.

Progress is a wonderful thing, tool wise anyway.

2011 - February - Chev on the Cover of The Filling Station Catalogue

How proud was I when the Chev made the front cover of the Filling Station February 2011 catalogue. The Filling Station does a great service supplying parts for old Chevs around the world. My pride and joy is third from the top, left hand side.

2011 - February - Good Brakes at Last

The brakes on the Chev had been a cause of concern since the car was restored for my daughter's wedding in 2007. As much as I tried to get them working better, and they were still average, and that's an under statement. I was now driving the car further and faster than before, and hit and miss brakes are bad enough around the suburbs at 35mph, but on the open road at a cracking 45 to 50mph, well that's another story.

Fading brakes were becoming the norm.

I made numerous enquiries from commercial brake shops with the majority not able to supply a soft lining to replace the modern hard linings. One brake shop could supply soft linings, but could only bond the linings, and wanted to charge like a wounded bull. All the advice I was given by Chev experts was to rivet the linings to reduce the chance of brake squeal.

After consulting local Chev experts, I rang Kevin Smith in NSW who had assisted me previously, and was the person I thank for introducing me to long reach spark plugs, Auto lite 3077's.
Kevin was excellent, and after discussing what the best solution was, I stripped out the front and rear linings and posted them of to Kevin.

About 3 weeks later I received the new linings and had them installed in about a week.

Even though they are still bedding in, for the first time in many years I had brakes that I was confident with, very fiddly to get set up correctly, but they pull the bloody thing up.

That's a bonus.

Thanks Kevin, as always your help was much appreciated.

2011 - February - DVHCC Observation Run

Below is the DVHCC magazine article for this run, to which I may add the Chev performed excellently, though the brakes were still a concern.

http://www.dvhcc.com.au/

2011 - January - In the Best Running Condition for 36 Years

The following is a posting I put on the 1928Chevrolet.com website

http://www.1928chevrolet.com/index.html

Hi Guys,

I will probably jinx myself (even though I don't believe in that sort of stuff) but the old girl is definitely running the best she has in her 36 plus years since the restoration in the early 70's.

I can now cruise all day at 45 to 50 mph, and tackle distances the previously would have been a dream, and that leads me to the most important discovery I have made in the last 12 months or so, being that after say 40 miles of highway driving when everything is really hot, she almost seems, and I use the words sparingly "to run smooth".

In the last 12 months I have racked up 1000 miles, and the previous 12 months 800 miles, and this is from a car that in over 20 years clocked up only 4000 miles.

Apart from a period of about 8 years when she was on blocks, locked away, neglected and unloved, I never had the confidence to drive far from home except on a couple occasions due to the drive train, apart from engine and tranny, being noisy and harsh as the only parts I had to rebuild in the 70's were the best of the worn items.

Not now thanks to lots of Billy Possum and Filling Station goodies that were put in about 4 years ago, combined with getting more fussy as I have got older, which gives you the patience to spend many hours on things that have little outcome, but they mount up over time, and I believe there is always something to do.

Apart from wanting to share this with you guys, the message is that what ever problems and dramas these chunks of metal give us, they can and will always be overcome.

You may want to walk away, lock the shed, and curse the day you thought "I know, just for something to do I will restore a vintage car", but eventually the affliction or illness drags you back into the shed, something goes right and all is forgiven.

In my case it took 3 attempts over 30 years to get the wooden spoke wheels "right", and I had a torque tube / uni joint problem that saw me rebuild the gearbox 3 times in quick succession, but in the end it was fixed done and dusted and now just a blur.

And I am sure there have been other problems over the years.

Should there be any one out there doubting their ability, HAVE FAITH, IN THE END MAN WILL ALWAYS WIN OVER A MACHINE, I hope!!!!

Regards

Ray

2011 - January - Reconditioning a Distributor

I wanted to recondition a 635B distributor for my spares under the seat, and the simple process involved the following:

1. A full strip down
2. Cleaned all parts thoroughly
3. Checked for excessive wear between the inner shaft and the housing and if so
4. Pick a better combination from spares
5. Remove any inner rust
6. Check cam for wear
7. Select a good drive gear for the bottom of the distributor
8. Reassemble, ensuring minimal play up and down on the shaft
9. Replace points
10. Replace insulators

A few shots of the treated parts and the reconditioned distributor