Tech: how to install a motor

I helped my friend install the replacement motor in his Camaro yesterday and today. There are only about 3 tricky parts I had to help him with. No pics today, you will just have to envision this...
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1. Get the motor into the engine bay and positioned properly. While still hanging from the hoist, you want to have the back face of the motor about 1" forward of the front of the transmission case. You need to get the rear of the motor tilted down about 5-10 degrees. Now make sure that the motor mounts are straddling the frame mounts so they will drop down on them. Get under the car and jack the front of the transmission up until it matches the motor's tilt. Now gently wrestle the motor back onto the trans case, inserting the 5/8" dowel pins on the motor into the mating holes in the trans case. Put the 6 trans to motor bolts in and tighten them up. If you have it right, this will be easy. If it's hard, something is wrong. Back it up and start over. Take the jack out from under the trans, and lower the motor onto the front mounts.
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2. Get under and attach the converter to the flywheel. Just sayin', so you don't forget this step. Make sure the converter is sitting on there square and nice.
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3. Install the distributor. Here's how to get the static timing close, so the engine will start. Turn the motor over until cylinder #1 is moving to TDC; top dead center. Turn the motor until the timing mark reaches 12* before TDC, and stop there. This gives us 12* static spark advance. The motor is in firing position. Make a mark on the distributor body where the #1 plug terminal fits onto the body. Remove the distributor cap. Install the distributor so that the rotor comes to point directly at the mark on the distributor when it is fully seated. The motor is now in firing position on the #1 cylinder, and the distributor is in firing position to the #1 cylinder. See how that works?
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Reinstall the other stuff.
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My friend's car fired up immediately and ran smoothly right away. The timing on my distributor install was pretty darn close for that to happen! Thank you, thank you.
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Anyway, he's happy, and I was happy to help. I apologize for no photos, especially since they might have helped my explanations to make more sense. Couldn't find our camera at the time.
Thanks for tuning in. I also have this for you, something I'm selling:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab%3DSelling&item=150334163068&viewitem=

Any guesses of how high this will go?

Tech: How to pull a motor (short version).

I helped a friend pull the motor out of his 1971 Chevy Camaro today. He had never done it before, and I have lost count of how many I have done, so I was official advisor. I let him do all the work so he'd have the pride of accomplishment. This is a very simplified version of what to do. It's actually not too difficult. My friend already had the motor ready to come out. Disconnect all the accessories, exhaust, intake, fuel line, radiator, belts, wiring (labelling all the wires), hood off, etc. Take out the front motor mount through bolts. It is not necessary to remove the intake manifold, as he has done here, but he will be swapping it to the new motor later anyway. If you're going to use a chain across the top, like we are, remove the valve covers. Drain as much coolant as you can.

Other side, you can see the exhaust headers are off and out of the car. Roomy in there now.

Get underneath, and disconnect the torque converter to flexplate bolts. There are three of them. This is kind of a tough part. It goes way easier if you remove the spark plugs and have the nice flexplate turning tool, which I gladly lent. Push the converter back into the transmission as far as it will go; about 3/8".

Support the transmission from underneath with a floor jack and a block of wood, like so. Nothing fancy here; block of wood.

Attach a hydraulic hoist, and begin lifting the motor up. You can see how we used a chain across the top of the motor. The motor will tilt up about 2" in the front, then pull it forward about 1" and it will pull free from the transmission. Boop!

I'd rather see this than a dead deer on a hook any day. The hot-rodder and his daughter pose with the removed motor. It is, in a sense, that easy.

Perhaps I'll do a follow up on the reinstallation, highlighting one or two things to watch out for. It's only marginally more difficult to put a motor back in.

Thanks for tuning in.

Scrapping the S10

A quick update. Took the S10 to the scrapper today. It was a major accomplishment to get down there without anything falling off of the trailer. You can see the bed going away on the loader. That loader is the only one I've ever seen with those completely untreaded tires. Bet they're expensive.

Dead S10 motor, unceremoniously pushed out of the truck and onto the ground. "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a man of infinite jest..." How'd I do?

The motor has been pushed aside by the loader. I'm now waiting to leave. I'm scrapping a neighbor's car next weekend. If anyone else has a dead car I can scrap, I'll give you $100 for it.

Here's a pile of parts I saved for possible use. I also have a second smaller pile. It was having access to all of this junk that made getting a whole truck the way to go. At least the yard looks a little better with the S10 carcass gone. Next we'll get started on the chassis.

Stripping the S10 is completed...with just a small fire

Well here we are. The motor is out of the S10 frame. There are only a couple of small brackets and things left to remove. You can see the face of the transmission as it hovers there, it is the big dark circular thing in the middle. The power brake assembly is lying on the front tire for now. I have figured out 2 possible ways around that massive ABS unit that is lying on the front of the tire.

The motor removal was quick and simple. Probably one of the easiest motor removals I have ever done, and I've done a few. Of course, it almost never happens that the motor is sitting on a bare frame out in the open like that. Nonetheless, a half dozen bolts removed, and the motor pulled free. I apologize that I do not have photos of the motor out and hanging off of the hoist like a dead tuna. I could not find the camera at the time. I justified moving forward without photos because I have done so many motor pulls that it is not a big deal to me, even thought it might look impressive to the readers. Also this was the time slot I had available, so I had to keep going.


Here's the same basic shot from the back. You can see the fabricated trans mount from last time in place and holding the trans up nicely. The stock rear trans mount is out of view. You can see the shifter, and the lower steering column in place; it has an odd orange sleeve on it.

It seems like a lot of work just to get to this point, and it was, but I am very psyched to get on with the frame refurbishment. I can't wait to see it all redone and ready for the body swap. Also I know it seems like I am not using much of the original truck, and that's true, but I also have a whole big pile of parts I am keeping for reuse. I also needed to be sure I got all of what I needed, and in good shape, so I felt that a complete truck was the only way to do that.

I made a preliminary parts list for the brakes and suspension, and then looked up the part numbers and prices on-line. Now I can go to the local auto parts chain store and have them just double check the part numbers when I go to get the parts. The prelim cost is about $550. If I don't need replacement brake rotors and drums, that would save a lot of money. I don't like to cheap out when I'm replacing parts though. It's usually more work to replace related parts later, and the new parts work better if they are not working with other worn out parts.

This rig is going to be heavy when it is done. The battery pack alone will weigh about 1500 lbs! It will be like driving around with a full load of dirt or something in the bed the whole time, so I want the brakes to be up to par.

On something like brake and suspension work, I usually figure a shop would charge the same amount as the parts cost again for labor (maybe more!), so in this case it would be $1100 total. If I do the labor, I feel like I can spend more on replacing more parts. Trust me, shops are not bashful about charging you for labor.

Here is what's left of the S10. All of this will be going to the scrapper. I almost feel bad about taking a decent truck completely apart. Almost. Got to keep your eye on the end goal. Some must be sacrificed so that others may live on, and become electrified, or something like that.

Ok. Here is the baby. The S10 motor. I drained the oil, to be environmentally friendly. This is headed to the scrapper too. I put some ads on Craigslist for all of the unneeded parts, including a running motor, but I didn't really get any responses. To be honest, I'm kind of burnt out on trying to sell stuff anyway. It's a BIG hassle. People don't know what they want, try to haggle on give-away prices, then still complain, etc. I don't have the time for that nonsense. I'll get maybe $50? from the scrapper.

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Not shown is the flywheel, clutch disc, and pressure plate, or clutch hat assembly, I took off of the rear of the motor. They all looked like they had been replaced recently. I was curious when I saw tool nicks on the attaching hardware. When I pulled it off, all of these components looked really fresh. This is a nice find; the replacement clutch parts would be about $200. Hey, it's better than having to pay for that too.

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Oh, I will save the proselytizing (never thought I'd get to use that word) about removing one more foul, polluting gas motor from circulation, and how I will be single-handedly saving mankind and the planet with the replacement electric motor, blah, blah, blah. Not up for it right now. Maybe later. Although, get a good look at that motor. It's there, under all the hoses, and belts, and wires, and pulleys, and gizmos, and the oil stains, and the grease blobs. Remember it, to compare with the nice, efficient, clean, simple, pretty electric motor that will replace it. Kind of makes the old gasser seem pretty pathetic, actually.

Lastly, we have...well, it's like this: I wanted to cut out the sheetmetal where the brake booster and clutch cylinder mounted, to splice into the firewall of the F100. Then these would just bolt up later. Easy. Figured it wouldn't hurt to have the steering shaft hole and gas pedal mount too.

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This is looking at it from where the motor was. The main wiring harness is on the right, still firmly entombed in the dashboard on the other side.

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So I fired up my plasma cutter. An electric arc jumps from the gun nozzle to the body panel, and at the same time, compressed air shoots out and blows the molten metal puddle away, leaving a small hole. You move the gun along, and an open line forms, cutting the metal. You can see the line on the panel in the photo. It burns very hot, and you can see the scorch marks from the paint catching on fire.

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Two things: First, I was waiting for a phone call about my bro's medical test while I was doing this. The call came, so I went to answer it. I look over and there's smoke billowing out of the cab. The cab's on fire! I had a bucket of water ready for this, and I calmly kept trying to put the fire out, but it would keep restarting. The dashboard was so convoluted, that I couldn't get the water all the way in to put it out. Some foam rubber had caught fire, and it was proving to be very tricky to put completely out. I wasn't worried about the cab, I was throwing that out anyway. Since it was already on the trailer, I considered just towing the thing down to the firehouse and asking them to put it out. Kind of silly, I guess, so I didn't do that. Would have been funny though. After about 15 minutes, I got it put out, before any American Indians showed up wondering what the poorly phrased smoke signals were all about. Boy was that stinky.

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The second thing is, the sheetmetal area I wanted turned out to be heavily braced from the dashboard side, and I could not cut it all out without a lot more work. So I made some measurements of the holes, drew some diagrams, and that part of the project was abandoned. I'll just make new holes.

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Got a lot done it just a couple of hours.

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A shout-out to Kieran, whom I hear reads this blog. Shouldn't everybody?

Motor and trans have to go

I had considered tuning the existing gas motor and fixing all of the other small bloop-blops so I could drive and enjoy the truck for the summer. Instead I have decided to go right into the conversion. I figure, why spend the time, effort, and money to fix up systems that I will be discarding later anyway. It's also, I suppose, good motivation to get going and make progress on the project. Once I pull the motor, trans, fuel system, cooling system, etc, it will be easier to keep going forward than to chicken out and go back. Which I have considered. More than once.

I have a couple of ads out for selling the motor and trans. The motor actually does run really well once it's warmed up. The trans is more of a truck trans, so it's not really suitable for my needs. Perhaps I'll ebay them or something. Ebay, so easy, yet such a hassle.

I wanted to keep the motor in the truck until I have a prospective buyer, so he can hear it run. But how long is that going to be? So now I'm thinking I can just take a movie clip of it running as proof, so I can remove the motor and get on with the build. Maybe put a link of the movie clip right in the motor for sale ads! That would be cool. Wish I knew how to do all of this.