Anybody else go to these extremes?

......might as well put in new rod and main bearings, timing chain, and an oil pump. Then smooth out the firewall and paint it white and detail the inner fenders. Then while your doing that......

 

Heck, as long as you have the engine out, time to detail the engine bay, then redo the front suspension, steering, etc...

 

You started your post with Heck but I read it Hack and I thought what a dink he doesn't even know me and he's already calling me a hack...................then I re-read it NEVER MIND

 

Here, it all started whit a vacuum shifter!Now its working fine.

 

You do realize that the freeze plug only costs like $1.29,right?

 

Not the way I go about it................

 

Slap a supercharger on it too.

 

My wife wanted an automatic in the 52 so she could drive it. OK, adapter, drive shaft and an s-10 rear, no problem. Yeah but the guy w/ the adapter plate say that I can't use it with the 216. no problem, I'll get a 350 for the same price as the adapter. yeah but now, I can't fit headers in so now I have to remove the front suspension and put in Must II stuff to get headers in, so now I guess while I'm there I'll smooth the firewall add air cond. rewire the car, air ride, new interior, 700 watt stereo.........

 

FWIW-use brass freeze plugs. They won't rust through like the steelies!

 

Started with replacing the timing chain cover on the Willys... ended up tearing down the entire engine and detailing every nut and bolt on it.... started this 2 weeks before Roundup... dumbass...

Almost done though!

 

I got a friend that sees all these problems ahead and worrys about it till he always ends up building the engine on everthing he starts.

 

I started off with replacing a motor mount on a o/t 68 f100 shortbed.. from there it went to another frame that was sandblasted and painted(found out mine was bent at the horns), new front suspension,new fenders,new floor, another bed, a grille, new rear springs, new shocks, power steering, disk brake set up, new gasket kit, new oil pan and valve covers, nw radiator..few gallons of paint.. oh and I finally got around to getting another motor mount for it..

 

Not me, I never do anything like that...but, i had a friend that had a early 70's 'Vette, seems it developed a leak in the gas line so he decided to replace it on a weekend. I'm not really sure what happened but the the body was soon separated from the frame and the motor out and the glassandtheinteriorandtheelectric.....then it sat...Unforetunately he passed away at about 40 yrs old with the body and frame still sitting on sawhorses...

 

I saw that on a GT500 KR I worked on a few years back, black ragtop, original owner, said it was the best thing he ever did to that car.

 

That 39 must have been owned by one of my ancestors. After the 850.00 quote for a fuel pump in my 2000 Suburban, I did the same trick underneath the driver side passenger seat. Bent it back over and siliconed that baby up. Took about an hour for the entire job.

 

"While we're at it..."

Fearsome words those are!

I do it constantly. I don't even fight it any more.

Did it to a house. Moved the tenants out, intended to paint and fix up a little and move in in 3 months maximum before the first snow. Wound up gutting the house, nothing left but shingles and siding. Took the floors out, put I beams in and all new floor joists, moved the second floor up 6", the attic floor up a foot. Now I gotta dig the basement deeper. If it wasn't 100 feet from my shop I'd start over somewhere else...

 

If you don't find something else to fix while working on another problem, then it is for certain that you will break something while doing it.

 

Its out.................what a greaseball. Nice little hole in the frost plug. A whole bunch
of cleaning, a few new parts, some paint and back in again. Wish me luck.

 

I once removed a steering column from a Model A roadster to replace the upper bearing. While I had it out, I painted the column and re-installed it. The freshly painted coulumn made the rest of the car look like crap, so I wound up spending 2-years restoring the whole car. It turned out so nice and I had so much money in it, I was afraid to drive it. Sold the car and never again had a car that was any more than a "driver".

 

I repeat: USE BRASS FREEZE PLUGS!!!

 

Not me...if I can overcome my compulsion. I keep chanting, as I work, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

Yep, it's called doing it right the first time. If you have one problem like that it will probably lead to more - this stuff is 50 years old after all.

Reminds me of the time my wife smoked the clutch in her F150 6 cyl with a granny low 4 speed. One morning she left to ride her horses and when she got back she saw I was working on her truck. She didn't really pay much attention to it and I told here there were a couple little snags but it would be back together next weekend.
Well the little snags were doing all the wiring for the Injected Mustang GT 5.0/AOD swap that I performed on it. Just couldn't see putting in a new clutch when I could add more power and an Auto to it. She absolutely loved that truck afterwords

 

Driving my Ranchero to work & lose a muffler. Couldn't just replace the muffler because the exhaust pipe was too rusty. which is why it broke and tossed the muffler. Didn't want to replace the exhaust pipe until I installed the headers which were hanging in the garage. Headers needed a hanger welded to the floor pan. Floor pan was rusted out, though, because the windshield had a leak.

Sooooo. I had to R & R the windshield & replace the driver-side floor pan because of a lost muffler.

 

I know the condition well, an oil change led to a complete re-build of the 351 in one of my old O/T cars! Had a little blow by on the sump plug and didn't want to 'chance it'. The machinist though I was mad, the motor was perfect! But hey, it only put out like 300hp I ended up with 496.2rwhp.

One thing that surprises me though, being that this place has a slight automotive flavor to it...............................
You guys know that the 'freeze plugs' are not that at all?
The sole reason that these holes appear in engines is due to casting limitations inherent in sand casting, with out the holes, once cast it would be impossible to get the sand out of the water galleries. Hence the holes to remove said sand.
Over the years they have been incorrectly labeled frost/freeze etc plugs.
I mean when you think about it, if they were designed to pop out why would a valuable performance motor have screw in plugs from the factory?
I'm just sayin.....
Doc.

 

Thanks for all the encouragement.

 

What a shame you Aussie guys can't type your accent in, I used to have a neighbor from Australia and I enjoyed just listening to his accent. So type with the accent from now on.

 

Crate motor........

 

I did a bare metal rotissirie restoration on a 65 Mustang that started with a blown headgasket. it all started with the thought that I should detail the engine compartment. what a waste of time and money that was.

got it to the point where it was driveable but in primer with no glass or interior installed and sold it for $4500.00 when I got laid off. had $7500 into it in parts and materials. bet I had 250 hours into it.

 

freeze plug on a 64 comet 289 went out. left bank, under that funky exhaust manifold. pulled the engine, decided to do the timing chain, and all the rest of the freeze plugs. then noticed the motor mounts were going bad, fixed the steering box leak, found the timing cover was almost eaten through, replaced that, put a pertronix in it, a new radiator, and pretty much everything else that was hard to reach. also decided that while the exhaust was apart id put new flowmasters on it. Yeah, that damn freeze plug cost me 3 days to collect all the parts for the one day job to fix an 89cent part... But it runs much better now! does that mean I won? Im still not sure...
-GothY-

 

Yeah, but "Freeze plug" rolls off the tongue more easily at the parts store than does "casting-sand-removal-hole-plug". LOL!