The elusive 224/3.7 MerCruiser banger

About that transmission;
I'd talk to a trans guy that specializes in Powerglides. Seems to me that even if you're losing rpm through the converter, the benefit of the torque multiplication would be a good trade off.

Can they build a lock-up converter?

 

How about shortening the bell-housing instead? You could section the length of a Lakewood style steel housing to the necessary distance. Or find a machine shop w/a horizontal mill to do the machine work(any shop that does refinery-related work should have a multi-axis mill large enough, if you are determined to mill the block.)

 

Low gear in the powerglide isn't low enough. (1.76 or 1.82). That is why I got the 350 turbo with an aftermarket 2.75 low gear.
I don't believe the clutch in a lock up is strong enough to hold. ???
I am still kicking it around. I will probably try the 350 turbo.

 

What is the overall gear ratio you're shooting for? I have a solution that will give you what ever final you want and you can use any transmission you want.
Hint: GearheadsQCE stands for Gearhead's Quickchange Exchange

 

My block was milled by Hanard, an aerospace contractor. Beautiful job.
Sadly they were bought out.

 

You would not need to mill the block if you could somehow come up with a longer Saganaw input shaft.

 

I used a Ford transmission with a Lakewood Chevy to Ford bell and a thick flywheel with the Ford pilot bearing pressed into it.

 

The solutions to my manual transmission seem to come with extra weight. It sounds like a thick flywheel would add quite a bit. I weighed my stock flywheel on the bathroom scale. It was 31 lb. If I use a manual transmission I will need to find an aluminum flywheel.

I weighed my unfinished project last week. I am 50 lb under my maximum weight. I still had the iron head on the mock up engine and the flywheel on it. I still need to add steering, fuel system, battery, and more.

The weight issue is what started my search for a lighter transmission. The aluminum Saginaw appealed to me, but after I add the clutch and flywheel it may be no lighter than the 350 turbo.

 

I had the backside turned so I ended up at 40#

 

You are right, a spacer would do it, what is their general construction?
a milled block of cast iron or a welded up box?
I've no idea of where to find cast iron thick enough to make a spacer but making a box from plate would be easy.
The aerospace company that used to do work for me did it for $100 but a shop 40 miles away offered to do it for $200. At that price, I'll make my own spacer and do it myself.


The block is about 24" end to end.

 

Dennis,
Here are some pictures of a Bridgeport riser. I think this one is 7".


Bridgeport says that the max between the table and the spindle gauge line is 18 1/4". So, a 6" or 7" riser Might be able to accommodate a 24" block.
I have a line on an 8" for $200.
I could be the Mercruiser shortening king!
My wife said I can spend the money on an 8". Boy, will she be surprised when I show her that hunk of cast iron!

 

I stopped by another local private shop yesterday. There was an elderly guy there that said they used to make a spacer that pressed into the crank pilot bearing hole and extended the crank to the right length to fit the too short input shaft. He said the splines on the input shaft are plenty long to engage the clutch with the spacer.
Any thoughts on this?

They had a boring machine that would handle putting full sleeves into the block. He had a head surfacing machine big enough to put HUGE heads on it. Unfortunately the owner said he wasn't looking for any work. The shop was full of projects.

 

I move from one problem to the next without getting any resolved. Here is the next one.. Timing gears....

I was researching installing an external oil pump (Nutter Racing 14145) direct driven by the camshaft. Remember I plan to have a roller cam made. That and my intake manifold require the distributor to be removed. Without a distributor there is no internal oil pump drive. SO an external oil pump needs to either be belt driven from the crank or cam, or it could be directly driven by the cam by mounting it onto the front of the timing cover.

Some race cars use a 1/2" hex drive mounted on the front of the cam gear to drive an oil pump. That drive is available for mounting to a SBC camshaft/timing gear (KSE KSD1023). Somewhere I read that the 470 cam timing gear was the same as a SBC. That is not correct. The SBC gear mounts with 5/16" hex headed bolts. The 470 gear mounts with 1/4" countersunk allen headed bolts. I am unsure if the bolt pattern is the same. If the gear sizing and offset is the same I could install a SBC gear on a roller cam.

The next issue is the thickness of the drive spud plus the thickness of the surface mount hex headed bolts are going to contact the timing cover. There is quite a bit of room in there stock, but this is just too much. I don't have a problem machining off part of the inner cover. The cam seal area wouldn't be needed. Without buying some expensive parts and cutting up a timing cover I just won't know if it could work.

Does anyone have any more information about the 470 timing set parts? My misunderstanding was SBC cam gear and Ford FE crank gear. The chain was supposed to be one of the two, but I forgot which.

 

I believe the Ford 385 series timing set(either chain & sprockets or aftermarket gear drive)is the set used, especially as the 224 is based on other 385 parts. If a separate water pump(refer to much earlier posts) were to be used, the remaining 224 water pump 'spud' could be adapted to drive an external oil pump, possibly with a crank-trigger ignition system to cover the deleted distributor?

 

The ring gear needs to be in the same place so you can't do this

 

The spacer was not installed behind the flywheel. My understanding was; The OD was the size of the flywheel center hole. There was a pin section that pressed into the factory pilot hole (missing on our motors ). Our cranks would need a pilot bearing hole put into them to use this style spacer. The transmission side then had a hole for the new pilot bearing.

I'm not saying this would work. I'm just looking for others thoughts.

 

The clutch disc would hit the spacer

 

Its simple to mill the back of the block,way better than spacers and longer splines etc.
you can mill the block in an hour or so.

 

The cam timing sprocket is NOT Ford 385 series. The 385 series cam sprockets mount with a single bolt in the center of the sprocket. For the BBF the only non centered hole in the sprocket is for the drive pin. A fuel pump drive eccentric mounts to the front of the cam sprocket in a pre fuel injected BBF.

I know the SBF harmonic balancer fits the crank. I have one on a motor of mine. The SBF and BBF crank snouts are the same diameter. I am unsure of the FE Ford crank snout diameter. The SBC crank snout is smaller diameter. This leads me to believe the crank timing sprocket is a Ford part. I don't know what the differences are between the Ford parts, if any. It could be the keyway location.

 

The original 'spud' doesn't extend very far out of the timing cover to mount a pulley. I have the extended seal section machined off of a timing cover. The shaft is still not long enough for a pulley. I was researching installing what would have normally been a crank timing pulley on the cam 'spud'. I would then have adapted another crank timing pulley onto the remote oil pump. I thought using the smaller diameter crank pulleys would keep the belt speed lower. This method would require making 2 bushings for the crank pulleys to fit the cam and oil pump along with making a pump mounting bracket.

Using a pair of remote pump pulleys would be easier. The pulleys are twice the diameter but the bores wouldn't need adapters. The cam pulley would need to be bored or the cam end diameter reduced. The cam 'spud' length is still an issue. This method requires modifying one pulley bore or turning the cam spud down and making a pump mounting bracket.

Another opting is direct driving the pump off the cam. This is what I was writing about above in post #1394. These pumps have a male 1/2" hex drive. They require a female 1/2" hex to drive them. I don't know how to machine a hex hole into the original cam spud so was hoping to use the KSE KSD1023 drive. That has the SBC bolt pattern. IF this bolts onto the cam it requires removing the cam drive 'spud' completely, machining the original timing cover, and fabricating a mount to attach to the original timing cover. The nice thing about this option is no belt and more compact.

 

Beck,
Just a possibility here:
My old brain thinks that a SBF cam gear uses 1/4" bolts. I might be dreaming this, but a long time ago I replaced a cam in a 289 and thought that those bolts looked kinda wimpy compared to the SBC. If the damper fits, the the lower gear probably does too. Hopefully the upper gear would work also.

 

I have written about not finding a vertical mill tall enough to put the block into for machining. We talked about the extensions needed.

Is there a reason the block cannot be machined on a horizontal mill? I have a local shop with that available. They have not seen the block. On the phone they estimated 4 to 5 hours of labor. They said the setup time could be extensive.

 

I'm with Randy Dupree, that is about an hours work including set up. A horizontal mill should work fine. If you indicate off the existing surface, it is a matter of shimming to get it square. If you need to locate off the crank centerline, it might take a little longer.

 

If the mill is square and trammed the oil pan rail should be square with the bellhousing. Then it is just a matter of dialing in side to side. I wouldn't know why it would need to be located off of the crank centerline.
The shop rate ( $70 / hr )seamed cheap to me where I called. They may offset this with padded hours.

 

I agree, but some people are anal about the crank centerline.

 

I'm in way over my head on this, so this might be a dumb idea.

Could you use only the bottom half of a distributor to drive the oil pump, just putting in a block off plate with a bearing?

 

That would work fine IF the stock camshaft was going to be used. I am installing a roller cam. The steel of a roller cam is a different alloy than the stock cast cam. The gear of a roller cam will eat the gear on the distributor. I have not found any distributor shaft gear replacements.

A friend has a saying about his odd ball performance engine (Cat 3208 on methanol). He says, "The parts inside don't like each other."

Since there are no roller cams available for the motor it is a custom build. Most of the custom cam manufacturers cannot grind the distributor drive gear on the camshaft. Those that can have a minimum on the number of cores to be built at one time. When you have to buy 4 or 5 at a time it winds up costing about $5000 for one finished cam and the remaining cores.

 

I am going to use a Holley EFI controller that has full ignition controls. The ignition is fired from crank and cam triggers. It will use a coil per plug.

 

Small block Ford went from standard cam to roller cam and associated distributor gear material change, around 1986-87.

So maybe your new roller cam could use this gear, and the softer distributor gear is available aftermarket for people wanting to run points distributors on 5.0 roller motors.

 

Here's the first startup on my 3.7, from last night. A few seconds in I killed the ignition when trying to turn on the water pump. Ran fine, and when spring comes around it's going into a 73 Vega.

The build on this started with a stock 470, and the list below is what was added. I did take it apart down to the short block to check it out, and to cut off the cam snout. The front cover has a freeze plug in it to seal the hole for the cam snout. The flex plate requires the small GM 10.75 pattern on the converter. PRW sells one to fit both GM patterns, however it's larger diameter won't fit the starter. Have yet to check the converter to flex plate clearance, will use spacers on the bolts to get the 1/16 to 3/16 spec. The converter snout won't come close to the crank, plan to use the bolts to center it as I've done previously on race engines. Trans will be a GM turbo 350.
alum head P3051 pro comp
rocker arms 7/16 1.8 stainless speedmaster
pushrods 3/8 8.400 .065 comp cams
rocker arm studs 7/16 BR716L brodix
guide plates 3/8 42160-8 manley
head gasket 27-13709 mercruiser
flexplate 1830213 prw
starter 10059SP api marine
header ebay stainless block hugger
intake gasket glm31750 basic power ind
front cover gasket glm39760 basic power ind