engine swap

[Gunfreak25]

Hubba Hubba, good job. Prettying up a firewall is a bitch.

 

[rattlecan6104]

Well, I finally got around to it... I rebuilt my turbo. Following WSUCOUGARX's turbo rebuild post, I found the task really is easy as pie. I had a couple issues that I found that concerned me. One was that it was clear that water sat in the turbo for a period of time, I had to do a little extra work cleaning this up, the other was evidence that someone had been into the turbo before. They decided to modify the inlet housing. I really dont think its gonna affect much since its in an area that isnt around moving parts, so we're good there. I also noticed etched numbers in the compressor wheel, a part number maybe? The only issue in assembly was smoothly sliding in the plate behind the inlet compressor wheel. I found a budd socket worked wonders in distributing the load evenly on it as I pressed it down. As you can see I painted up the housings, would be a shame to put an ugly turbo on that pretty engine I have spent so much time on... in the process I thought the radiator fan looked a little boring, so I fixed that! One step closer to stuffing the engine back in the truck...

 

[Gunfreak25]

Take your time man, it will come out better.

 

[rattlecan6104]

This truck was my daily driver, even without power steering, stereo, insulation, mufflers, heater, and freeway speeds I miss driving her all over the place.

 

[wsucougarx]

Outstanding! Glad everything went well with the turbo rebuild!

 

[o1951]

This truck was my daily driver, even without power steering, stereo, insulation, mufflers, heater, and freeway speeds I miss driving her all over the place.

Yeah - I really enjoy whistler turbos. Make me feel young.

If you want, you can make major improvements at low cost. Insulation - there was a thread on that last week - easy install - I have done it on other vehicles. The person who posted picked the right stuff - won't absorb water. He gives excellent install ideas.

Heater- Not that bad. I put one in on an old civy truck long ago - couple of hours. Went to boneyard and picked up a good core/housing/blower, took complete wiring harness with me. Went for manual temp control and manual 3 speed blower switch - less stuff to hook up.

Makes a big difference in winter, heater serves as a source of additional cooling if you ever get an overheat condition.

You know stereo is an easy add too.

 

[rattlecan6104]

Lately I had been spending a lot of time on the deuce and very little time on my college homework. I had to take a breather for a day or two and get all caught up. Now that I am, I got right back to work, as you can see the engine is complete, and we got her slung up on the gantry crane and shoved her into position. The "install" of the engine took us 3 hours, and was a bit of a pain. staring at the gap between the two bell housing halves was driving me nuts, but finally after a little wiggling and persuasion, we felt that wonderous "click" and she was in place, we got her bolted in, and tired as can be, called it a night.

 

[rattlecan6104]

Well, this has been a long drawn out process, but as of this point, all I need to do is throw in some coolant, reinstall the tranny cover in the cab, and push that little red button and see what happens, for this step I will get the video camera out, if it fires up and runs like a champ you will get to cheer along with me, if it blows up in my face... well... that would really suck so lets not talk about that.

 

[rattlecan6104]

well gunfreak, just for you, here is a short video of the first startup.

The first thing you guys will notice is that she fired right up! What you dont see in the video is me the night before is bleeding the secondaries and cranking the engine over priming the fuel system. The leak my cameraman pointed out was actually spilled water from filling the radiator. The water is mixed with a cleaning solution to help get all the gunk out of the cooling system, here in a day or two, I will drain the water, flush the system and pour in some fresh antifreeze. The turbo also wasnt making any noise, but as all of you with whistlers can attest to, it takes a bit before they start to sing, either a warmed up engine, or a goosed throttle.

After this video we shut her down, did a quick check over everything, and then fired her up again and ran her for about 40 minutes, first 15 at idle, the last 30 at 1500 RPM. I took her around the block shortly after and was pleased, no abnormal noise, no wierd vibration, no cutting out, overall, a good runner.

A friend asked me the other day after seeing before and after pictures how I managed to get something that looked like it sat in a field since WWII to look like it just came off the assembly like. I just simply responded "a lot of time." LOL and it is clearly worth it!

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wlmdXKM2ew[/media]

 

[Gunfreak25]

After a successful day like that, you can't help but relax at the end of the day with a few cold ones while starring at your truck. Yep, we all do it. It's a beautiful thing.