What a weekend! I think the weekend was doomed from the second I got in the car to drive to Vegas! The rain was rollin' in and it looked like the sky was going to blow up over Long Beach as I'm jettin' up the highway with my nose pointed towards Nevada! I knew the drive was going to be less than desirable. Sure enough... it POURED when I got into Vegas! Rained so hard I couldn't see the LV strip until I was next to Mandalay Bay on the 15! If you've ever driven around people in Vegas when it's raining, you can only imagine how the rest of the drive went! LOL! Anyway, enough about that... on to the important stuff. Because of the rain the weather was awesome all weekend! Was a nice break from the 110 degree temps I had seen the last four times I went up to work on the car. I had three large tasks to pull off and could use all the help I can get... 1) mate the engine and transmission and build the engine mounts 2) fab a firewall using the surround from the stock firewall 3) make body mounts and get the body bolted down The day started bright and early with a trip to see "the Brudwich" bros (Dave and Andrew). These guys have been a great help. I borrowed them, their bead roller, shrinker stretcher, and a plasma cutter to get things cut out faster. Some crap coffee was served and we got things setup and ready to work. So, task number one! Get that engine and transmission mated up! As you may recall from previous posts, the transmission adapter that came with the T56 needed a modified pattern so the transmission would sit straight up. So, this is what I did to make it happen... First thing. Get everything seated correctly to eachother. To do this I mounted the Wilcap adapter to the Hemi block, but dropped the lower bell on the extended 331 block so I could see the hole pattern from the front side. Then Andrew and I restled the transmission into place so we could clamp the two together. This was done in the car so the tail of the tramission could sit on it's intended mounting spot. Double-tripple-quadrupple alignment checking and it was time to figure out how to mark for the new holes. Too deep to scribe and too risky to punch a center hole without a straight shot at the hole, so with a nice new sharpee I colored in the hole where it needed to be. Then I threaded the intended mounting bolts into the holes until they stopped. I worked them back and forth allowing the end of the bolt to scribe a ring in the plate and the freshly marked surface. Now I can see where the holes needed to be. Next we pulled it all back apart and pulled off the adapter plate that was mounted to the T56. I VERY CAREFULLY center punched each hole location using the markings so the holes could be piloted. NOTE: The transmission adapter plate that came with the T56 has a big boss that is used for alignment and mates with the bore on the Wilcap adapter. The holes could realistically be slightly out of position without any axial alignment issues. None the less... the holes should be positioned with great care so it's CORRECT. I mounted the plate up on the drill press and made the pilot holes. Instead of going right to the final drill size from here, I worked up to it. I think the final size was just over half an inch. Can't remember exactly, but I used two other bits inbetween so the holes would not get out of round and be placed just right with a good slip fit. SUCCESS! Holes were placed about as good as could be! Being careful and taking my time paid off! The holes will still need to be counter sunk like the original pattern and flat heads will be used for clearance. The T56 has some webbing in the cast behind this plate that a standard hex bolt interferes with. Two of the bolts were taken out for the time being, but still allowed the engine and trans to be pulled together with no problems. With the frame level, it was time to get the engine centered and to the correct elevation. I'm setting the engine and trans to 2-degrees with the tail pointing down. I'm assuming about a 1 degree rake in the stance when it settles, so this will put the engine at about one degree when all is said and done. Time to start thinking about the rest of the engine mounts. First thing was first though... the weather cleared up and it was time to take a look at what nature brought in the mountains... SNOW IN SEPTEMBER... IN THE DESERT! COOL! With this kind of scenery and the distraction of a B17 bomber flying over off and on, it was going to be hard to get things done! LOL! Bucking up and getting it done was on my mind though, more than those distractions... Back to work! Time to make some engine mounts; starting with some arts and crafts to figure out the shape they needed to be. Cut the plates out of 3/16" thick steel, clamped them together and did a final shaping and then match-drilled the holes in the stack of plates so they would all be the same. Finished plates resembling slices of swiss cheese! Okay... here's where things started to go down hill.... from the start of the templates to finishing one entire mount I spent about five hours and mounted it up in the block... (sorry for the dark picture) It just didn't do it for me. Look wise, yes. Function wise, NO! So, I decided to call it a day after some head scratching and some not so great concept sketches. Time to take a step back and rethink what I was doing. Keeping in mind, time was of essence, this was a big setback. I couldn't leave things like this though. I knew sleeping on it would bring the right answer. Good night... (quick go get some coffee and come back) ---- intermission music------ Next morning I woke up and knew EXACTLY how to approach the situation. I was also fully aware that I needed to get my butt moving if it was going to happen before I left to go back home! YIKES! Out of bed, made coffee and STRAIGHT to the garage! Food would come later! LOL! So, I wanted to use as much of the originally fabbed pieces as possible, but wanted to fab the mounts so they would mount OUTSIDE the ears on the Hemi block. I didn't really get any progress photos because I was really buttoning down and working to make it happen, but lets just say there was a lot of brute force, bending, hammering, etc... to make these new mounts happen. I'm not overly thrilled with the condition that I left them in, but with some more "love" I can get them looking the way I want. Here's how they turned out before welding the bottom plates on. From here I re-aligned the engine and trans, moved the lower frame mounts/perches to where they needed to be and fabbed a quick lower plate that I only tacked in place for the time being. Pretty ugly looking right now: Once the car is down here, I will pull those off, get the lines all straightened out and the lower plates contoured in to match the looks of the rest of the mount. Long ways to go on them, but I think you guys can see where I'm going with them. I can't wait to get this thing down here so I can start finishing some of the fab work that needs to be done to make it "aesthetically pleasing". Sucks looking at half finished work when you know how you WANT it to look, but don't have the physical time to finish it. Okay... on to the next task! #2! Time to build a firewall! OH WAIT!! It's 4:30 in the afternoon and I have a 4-1/2" hour drive ahead of me, my car needs an oil change and I have to make a couple stops before I leave town. UGG!! Tasks 2 and 3 will have to wait until next visit. It's looking like next visit should be enough to get the car on a trailor and get it home though. It will come home next time! So that's it for this session! It's amazing how much longer that took than I had originally planned! 14 hours straight with only a 45 minute break for a run to the HW store and a couple quicky breaks to grab some grub. Sunday was a 9 hour thrash in itself! ...I'm tired! It will be worth it though. Wish I could have had more progress to share this time. Next time should be "more fun". Thanks for reading and following the build guys!
Ain't it the truth! Some of the littlest things seem to take forever. I remember spending an entire evening making a "temporary" tie rod just to hold the wheels straight while rolling the car in and out, no steering arms yet, just cobbling something onto the spindles. As soon as I finished it, I took one look, and though,"that shit won't work worth a shit." And it didn't. Oh, well. You are doing a great job whith what seems to be minimal tools. Too late now, but next time you need to drill some holes to match a flange, try some transfer punches. You have probably seen these, but they work like this: you find the punch that matches the diameter of your bolt hole, clamp you new material to be drilled to your existing piece(the one with the holes) and pop. Makes a nice little punch mark right in the center of the bolt hole. http://wttool.resultspage.com/searc...true&af=&do=search&do=search&w=transfer+punch
Yeah! That's exactly what I needed, but didn't know anyone that had a set and buying a set right now was just out of the question. Money is going to odd places right now. I guess it goes to show you can do a lot with very little if you're careful and take your time! Note to self... pick up set of transfer punches for the tool collection. LOL! Thanks RD!
Those transfer punches are not that expensive. places like Enco (they have a website) sell them for about $20 or less, for the small hole diameter set, 1/2" down. they also have a set that covers from 1/2" to 1". VERY handy when it comes to duplicating anything where hole location is critical. Frank
Yeah, true. Seems like I get so wrapped up in parts and materials that I forget I need the occasional tool to make my life easier. Ya' know... I just need a lathe and then I came make cool things like that when I need them in a pinch. Everyone could use one of those... right?
I got some good work done this weekend. I will do an update sometime this week. It was a fantastic weekend with a HORRIBLE ending... Got lots done, went to RRR and saw tons of people I would consider family and came home from Vegas to a robbed home. I can't win. (sigh)
The Jalopy Journal
