TurboBrett
Mr. Bump
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
It's sure been a long time since I messed with this thing... about 5 years or more from the best of my memory.
Seeing all of the pieces of the engine in the trunk where I left them, some of the small items still grouped together in a vinyl glove (my goofy but successful attempt at organizing), brings back the memories of when I took it apart thinking I would have it back together in 'months'.
Now that I'm more financially comfortable It's gone from a mental burden to get it running back to a joy to buy parts for, play with and work on. At least so far.
The number of parts I've gotten in preparation is far larger than my conservative estimates had allowed myself to predict, but I think I am still under the 2500 mark. I'll have to add that up later (or at least that is what I am telling myself I will do )
I bought a used transmission that I was able to drive in a GN before purchase for pretty cheap. The stall is pretty loose like mine but it's going to be what I need down the road anyway.
I also got a set of freshly rebuilt heads for a fraction of the cost to redo mine or buy ported irons, or even used ported irons. Though ported heads, alcohol, injectors, intercooler will be my next step once I'm past the initial 'lets see how the engine holds up' phase along with a BB turbo since they are so readily available now for GNs.
The laundry list of stuff piled in the garage so far:
-Tons of gaskets
-Lots of brake cleaner
-Lots of fluids: rotella 30wt (along with a bottle of engine oil stabilizer) to help keep the cam from wiping.
-Turbolink - so I can hook my laptop up to the GN and watch what is really going on.
-Walbro fuel pump (good thing too, more on that later)
-Fully adjustable fuel pressure regulator and on-rail gauge
-Cool looking and more leak proof valve covers
-Radiator - aluminum, factory F-body radiator. gotta love GM and interchangeability.
-Fiberglass bumper fillers for all 4 corners
-Cam, Lifters, ARP head bolts. The cam (212,212) would like a bigger turbo and injectors at some point. It told me this.
Day 1 (Sunday) 12 hours
Lots of looking and trying to remember what I did last time I worked on it.
I got the tranny in without too much trouble. Despite being a lot heavier than the older TH350's I'm used to it wasn't too hard to get hooked up to the engine by using my floor jack, though having the engine sitting and leaning forward for 5 years without a tranny hooked up to it made it not want to lean back so easy.
I cleaned up the cylinders as well with a somewhat soft metal brush (by hand).
I also put the new cam in along with the front cover.
It sure is nice to be working on this thing again, it's fairly therapeutic.
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3627.JPG
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3628.JPG
Day 2 (Monday) 4 hours
Put the heads on today but quickly realized I couldn't find all of my old adjustable push rods. no biggie, I really didn't want to run them anyway. I did find 6 so I was able to do some measuring - turns out the valve installed heights on the new heads are pretty consistent (much more than my original heads were) so I will be able to run a full set of stock push rods and have the proper preload. some will have a little higher preload than 'optimal' but still within tolerance (.050 vs .030)
Since I couldn't move any further on the engine I thought i'd start messing with fuel. I threw the battery in the car and started the process of seeing what's in the fuel lines. I did it the lazy way which wasn't the 'right' way but who cares since I was going to replace the filter and pump soon anyway..... my plan was to pump all the gas in the lines into a gas catch can.
Once I hooked it up and grounded the fuel relay I heard nothing but clicks, no buzzing or whirring. Thank god I bought a new fuel pump I was telling myself.
Dropped the tank and low and behold, it's rusty as hell in there. I also realized there are tons of cool internal baffles that aren't removable which will stop me from cleaning the rust out easily. dammit. http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3636.JPG
However, after some quick online searching I found that the parts store actually carries a new fuel tank for my car. I couldn't freaking believe it! the next day I was the proud owner of a nice shiny new gas tank. Sooo much easier than the cleaning I had to do to my olds tank back in the day.
Day 3 (Tuesday) 7 hours
Goals for the day: Install push rods, prime engine to verify oil pressure. Install new fuel pump in gas tank and put that back on the car.
Well, I got the push rods installed and they all looked nice. I dug out my old homemade oil pump prime tool and went to work on the oil pump. Unfortunately, the oil pump was dry except for whatever oil it may have gotten out of the oil filter I pre-lubed.... One of the tricks is when installing a new pump (which is basically what this acts like since it sat empty for so long) is to fill it with petro-jelly so that it has the ability to build pressure and suck oil from the pan...(there are many methods, in retrospect I probably didn't really need petroleum jelly). Well I didn't have any petroleum so I used a little extra assembly lube instead. took the pump apart, filled it up and reinstalled. I felt pump resistance almost instantly but all I got from the engine were weird gurgling sounds and air coming up out of the push rod holes instead of oil. Odd indeed. so I figured it didn't have enough time with the grease in it to pull enough oil out. Try #2, same result, this time more gurgling. Frustrated, remembering how this was easy many years ago when I this pump was new, I tried filling the pump with oil instead by spinning it backwards while funneling oil down the cooler line (some say this is how they always prime it). same result, lots of gurgling. At this point I am thinking, what is in the oil pan?
An hour later the oil pan is off. I emptied it of some of the sludge-like thick oil that didn't drain and cleaned it all up - it must have been that super thick oil still in there that slowed it down - so I put it right back on and try again.
Still no pressure. Frustrated having spent 6 hours on it I call the day.
Day 4 (Wednesday) 6 hours
Goals: oil pressure.
I figured the cause of all my problems (that I should have checked when I had the pan off) was the pick up tube gasket or the pickup tube itself. Armed with a new pickup tube from AZ I took the pan off again, took the old tube off (not clogged at all, looked perfectly fine) and installed the new on anyway.
Same result, no oil pressure. No surprise since the old pickup looked fine... but WTF?
After staring at the engine for half an hour I finally decided to check another area- the front cover that houses the oil pump. I figured there must be some sort of obstruction there so I was going to check the oil passages in the front cover (which looked good before I installed it) and the passages in the engine itself leading to the front cover. Once I got the cover off I instantly found my problem - the front cover gasket (Which goes around the oil passages) has just slightly moved over in such a way that 90% of the oil passage was blocked.
What a relief. Unfortunately I didn't have a gasket to replace it on me so I tabled that project for the next day.
Gas tank:
I didn't have all the wire connectors and stuff I needed but I got most of the fuel pump installation done. Unfortunately the last owner cut the original connector harness out of the system to install the supra (denso) fuel pump so it wasn't an easy install despite being a Buick-friendly fuel pump kit.
Day 5 (Thursday) 3 hours
Fixed the front cover gasket, put it all back together. At this point I also have the intake, turbo, and anything with an oil line running to it bolted onto the car.
We have oil pressure, to the tune of 80psi cold with the drill I was using to spin the oil pump drive.
Day 6 (Saturday) 5 hours
Really starting to shorten the number of items remaining to fix..
I put the rest of the engine together minus the intercooler (so I can spin the crank around when I go to pre-lube it all just before starting it).
It was a lot of fun finding all the right bolts and figuring out how everything was installed. Not all that hard in the end but a little daunting at first!
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3642.JPG
Day 7 (Sunday) 4 hours
Installed the radiator, battery again, few more accessory bolts, got the driveshaft hooked up to the rear diff (finally figured out what the right bolts were). Got the cooler lines, TV cable, dipstick tube and shifter hooked up to the transmission (I was dreading hooking up those coolant lines-always a pain).
Day 8 (Tuesday) 2 hours
Hooked up all of the electronics on the engine, figured out where all the vacuum stuff really went.
Day 9 (Wednesday) 2 hours
Put in 10g of gas, filled up the radiator, put in spark plugs/wires, primed the fuel...
Started up on the third try with just a few seconds of cranking each. Woohoo!
I ran the engine for the recommended 20min break-in period then let it cool down.
The next morniung I drove it around the block - it ran OK, throttle is sticky, TV cable needs adjustment (shifts at too high of an RPM), power steering is complaining despite being full. Power seems about right for the 5psi I let it hit but there clearly needs to be a lot of tuning. Lots of stumbling at idle and it was more sluggish than I thought it would be to reach boost when rolling in first.
This thing is gonna be fun again but there are quite a few things left to do...
Seeing all of the pieces of the engine in the trunk where I left them, some of the small items still grouped together in a vinyl glove (my goofy but successful attempt at organizing), brings back the memories of when I took it apart thinking I would have it back together in 'months'.
Now that I'm more financially comfortable It's gone from a mental burden to get it running back to a joy to buy parts for, play with and work on. At least so far.
The number of parts I've gotten in preparation is far larger than my conservative estimates had allowed myself to predict, but I think I am still under the 2500 mark. I'll have to add that up later (or at least that is what I am telling myself I will do
)I bought a used transmission that I was able to drive in a GN before purchase for pretty cheap. The stall is pretty loose like mine but it's going to be what I need down the road anyway.
I also got a set of freshly rebuilt heads for a fraction of the cost to redo mine or buy ported irons, or even used ported irons. Though ported heads, alcohol, injectors, intercooler will be my next step once I'm past the initial 'lets see how the engine holds up' phase along with a BB turbo since they are so readily available now for GNs.
The laundry list of stuff piled in the garage so far:
-Tons of gaskets
-Lots of brake cleaner
-Lots of fluids: rotella 30wt (along with a bottle of engine oil stabilizer) to help keep the cam from wiping.
-Turbolink - so I can hook my laptop up to the GN and watch what is really going on.
-Walbro fuel pump (good thing too, more on that later)
-Fully adjustable fuel pressure regulator and on-rail gauge
-Cool looking and more leak proof valve covers
-Radiator - aluminum, factory F-body radiator. gotta love GM and interchangeability.
-Fiberglass bumper fillers for all 4 corners
-Cam, Lifters, ARP head bolts. The cam (212,212) would like a bigger turbo and injectors at some point. It told me this.
Day 1 (Sunday) 12 hours
Lots of looking and trying to remember what I did last time I worked on it.
I got the tranny in without too much trouble. Despite being a lot heavier than the older TH350's I'm used to it wasn't too hard to get hooked up to the engine by using my floor jack, though having the engine sitting and leaning forward for 5 years without a tranny hooked up to it made it not want to lean back so easy.
I cleaned up the cylinders as well with a somewhat soft metal brush (by hand).
I also put the new cam in along with the front cover.
It sure is nice to be working on this thing again, it's fairly therapeutic.
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3627.JPG
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3628.JPG
Day 2 (Monday) 4 hours
Put the heads on today but quickly realized I couldn't find all of my old adjustable push rods. no biggie, I really didn't want to run them anyway. I did find 6 so I was able to do some measuring - turns out the valve installed heights on the new heads are pretty consistent (much more than my original heads were) so I will be able to run a full set of stock push rods and have the proper preload. some will have a little higher preload than 'optimal' but still within tolerance (.050 vs .030)
Since I couldn't move any further on the engine I thought i'd start messing with fuel. I threw the battery in the car and started the process of seeing what's in the fuel lines. I did it the lazy way which wasn't the 'right' way but who cares since I was going to replace the filter and pump soon anyway..... my plan was to pump all the gas in the lines into a gas catch can.
Once I hooked it up and grounded the fuel relay I heard nothing but clicks, no buzzing or whirring. Thank god I bought a new fuel pump I was telling myself.
Dropped the tank and low and behold, it's rusty as hell in there. I also realized there are tons of cool internal baffles that aren't removable which will stop me from cleaning the rust out easily. dammit. http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3636.JPG
However, after some quick online searching I found that the parts store actually carries a new fuel tank for my car. I couldn't freaking believe it! the next day I was the proud owner of a nice shiny new gas tank. Sooo much easier than the cleaning I had to do to my olds tank back in the day.
Day 3 (Tuesday) 7 hours
Goals for the day: Install push rods, prime engine to verify oil pressure. Install new fuel pump in gas tank and put that back on the car.
Well, I got the push rods installed and they all looked nice. I dug out my old homemade oil pump prime tool and went to work on the oil pump. Unfortunately, the oil pump was dry except for whatever oil it may have gotten out of the oil filter I pre-lubed.... One of the tricks is when installing a new pump (which is basically what this acts like since it sat empty for so long) is to fill it with petro-jelly so that it has the ability to build pressure and suck oil from the pan...(there are many methods, in retrospect I probably didn't really need petroleum jelly). Well I didn't have any petroleum so I used a little extra assembly lube instead. took the pump apart, filled it up and reinstalled. I felt pump resistance almost instantly but all I got from the engine were weird gurgling sounds and air coming up out of the push rod holes instead of oil. Odd indeed. so I figured it didn't have enough time with the grease in it to pull enough oil out. Try #2, same result, this time more gurgling. Frustrated, remembering how this was easy many years ago when I this pump was new, I tried filling the pump with oil instead by spinning it backwards while funneling oil down the cooler line (some say this is how they always prime it). same result, lots of gurgling. At this point I am thinking, what is in the oil pan?
An hour later the oil pan is off. I emptied it of some of the sludge-like thick oil that didn't drain and cleaned it all up - it must have been that super thick oil still in there that slowed it down - so I put it right back on and try again.
Still no pressure. Frustrated having spent 6 hours on it I call the day.
Day 4 (Wednesday) 6 hours
Goals: oil pressure.
I figured the cause of all my problems (that I should have checked when I had the pan off) was the pick up tube gasket or the pickup tube itself. Armed with a new pickup tube from AZ I took the pan off again, took the old tube off (not clogged at all, looked perfectly fine) and installed the new on anyway.
Same result, no oil pressure. No surprise since the old pickup looked fine... but WTF?
After staring at the engine for half an hour I finally decided to check another area- the front cover that houses the oil pump. I figured there must be some sort of obstruction there so I was going to check the oil passages in the front cover (which looked good before I installed it) and the passages in the engine itself leading to the front cover. Once I got the cover off I instantly found my problem - the front cover gasket (Which goes around the oil passages) has just slightly moved over in such a way that 90% of the oil passage was blocked.
What a relief. Unfortunately I didn't have a gasket to replace it on me so I tabled that project for the next day.
Gas tank:
I didn't have all the wire connectors and stuff I needed but I got most of the fuel pump installation done. Unfortunately the last owner cut the original connector harness out of the system to install the supra (denso) fuel pump so it wasn't an easy install despite being a Buick-friendly fuel pump kit.
Day 5 (Thursday) 3 hours
Fixed the front cover gasket, put it all back together. At this point I also have the intake, turbo, and anything with an oil line running to it bolted onto the car.
We have oil pressure, to the tune of 80psi cold with the drill I was using to spin the oil pump drive.
Day 6 (Saturday) 5 hours
Really starting to shorten the number of items remaining to fix..
I put the rest of the engine together minus the intercooler (so I can spin the crank around when I go to pre-lube it all just before starting it).
It was a lot of fun finding all the right bolts and figuring out how everything was installed. Not all that hard in the end but a little daunting at first!
http://www.brett-wilson.com/images/cars/buick/rebuild/IMG_3642.JPG
Day 7 (Sunday) 4 hours
Installed the radiator, battery again, few more accessory bolts, got the driveshaft hooked up to the rear diff (finally figured out what the right bolts were). Got the cooler lines, TV cable, dipstick tube and shifter hooked up to the transmission (I was dreading hooking up those coolant lines-always a pain).
Day 8 (Tuesday) 2 hours
Hooked up all of the electronics on the engine, figured out where all the vacuum stuff really went.
Day 9 (Wednesday) 2 hours
Put in 10g of gas, filled up the radiator, put in spark plugs/wires, primed the fuel...
Started up on the third try with just a few seconds of cranking each. Woohoo!
I ran the engine for the recommended 20min break-in period then let it cool down.
The next morniung I drove it around the block - it ran OK, throttle is sticky, TV cable needs adjustment (shifts at too high of an RPM), power steering is complaining despite being full. Power seems about right for the 5psi I let it hit but there clearly needs to be a lot of tuning. Lots of stumbling at idle and it was more sluggish than I thought it would be to reach boost when rolling in first.
This thing is gonna be fun again but there are quite a few things left to do...
