harvs ek 327 wagon

[BS]

Looks good harv!

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[Harv]

Interesting day yesterday. The engine had a leak from the passenger's side exhaust manifold, which started not long after I got the engine back. I was impatient to get the thing on the road, so had put off doing the repair. Finally got around to it yesterday. The CRS fenderwell headers leave very little room between the header tube and mounting bolts, so reduced-diameter head bolts are used. Its tight, and takes some patience to do them up properly as there is very little room to swing a spanner.

The leak was soon obvious... couple of the bolts loose, and one of them barely in at all . Said a few choice words about the engine builder, and started pulling bolts. The one that was barely in was funny... different sized head to the rest, and tight. Looks like the builder had cross threaded my bolt, and supplied one of his own - and cross threaded that too . Not good practice at all, but really really bad to do that on high-end Dart heads and say nothing .

Got all the bolts out and the burnt gasket. Not enough room to get a chasing tap into the cross-threaded bolt hole, so undo half the exhaust. Swing the CRS headers around so I can get the tap in, with the other end of the tap in an exhaust tube. Gently, gently reform the thread by turning the tap with a spanner, hoping the whole time I don't stuff it up. Managed to get the thread reformed, and everything back together again. What should have been a 40 minute job turned into a couple of hours.

Think I did have one win though. Was bent over the headers, cold morning with the sun just coming up over the fence. I could head a very quiet, high-pitched whistling sound from the firewall, similar to what electrical gear will do every now and then. The only thing in the car that had power was the radio (for the radio station pre-sets and clock), and started to get worried that it was drawing a little too much power. On investigation, the noise was coming from my fancy alloy windscreen washer bottle. Pump was OK, so kept looking. Took the screw-cap off the top and the noise stopped with a little Psht!. Aha! Turns out the washer bottle has no vent hole in the lid, and has a nice rubber o-ring to seal it. As the sun was coming up, the cold washer bottle was heating up, and slowly pushing air past the rubber o-ring to make the whistling sound. I bet this is why my windscreen washers keep dribbling across the bonnet - heat from the engine warming up the alloy bottle, with nowhere to expand except past the pump and out the washer nozzles. A check valve and some insulation had helped, but not stopped the dribbling. Drilled a small hole in the top of the washer bottle lid, and will see if that fixes the problem.

Cheers,
Harv

[BILLY BLACKARROW]

What should have been a 40 minute job turned into a couple of hours.

Every thing I do should take 20 min and takes me all day toke 1 hr to drill a brass washer out to a bigger hole size yesterday

[Errol62]

The joys mate


FB ute fixer upper, EK van on rotisserie

[FireKraka]

I had exactly the same issue with my alloy wiper bottle Harv and did the same fix small hole in the lid.
Bummer about the stripped thread, not the first time I have come across supposed experts that you pay good money to cover up bad workmanship at least you were able to sort it.
I am always dubious when someone tells me they have a 5 minute job they always turn into hours
Neil

[EK283]

I hate that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have done all the work on all my cars over my lifetime and have only farmed a few things out, unfortunately all ending with the same result.

A couple of stories, the worst is one of my dad's Stude's. He gave me the job of getting a wheel alignment, I was chuffed the old bugger finally trusts me ! A big smile and off I go with the rumbling V8 289, steering like a tank and brakes that well were just adequate. Booked the car in and got the no problems mate come back in an hour. That's great, don't have a lift so wandered across the park and sat watching the world go by. Suddenly I see one of the guys who works there open the rear of the parked Stude and tries to put another customers pram in the back seat. WTF ! So I rush over and say mate what are you doing, he goes silent and then the stark realisation hits !!! Hes torn the back seat with a sharp piece of the pram. Hell now I'm in shit for not keeping an eye on things. He says "I was just going to give a mother a lift to the station, but mate it's okay well do your alignment for free." How goods that !!!!!!!!! Lets just say I never drove one of my fathers cars again, to scared to.
Second story, I had a tow bar fitted to a &*#@ territory, just to busy to do it myself, again shell be right mate come back in a couple of hours. I return, pay and jump in and take off, got a deadline to meet ! Over the trip I notice the door open indicator on and when I stop I find the rear wagon door wont close. I have a good look and the bolt heads are pushing the bumper bar up and the door wont close FJ*^4^&**. The spacers that should go on the bottom of the tow bar to take up any slack have been put on top, why did they do that? To top the whole thing off all the clips were broken and the bumper re secured with cable ties, again why would they do that ???????

No luck with the knuckle heads so I do everything myself !!!!!!!!!!!! Whilst I still can.

Lucky Harv that you have some patience and tools to fix it at least, but I bet it pissed you off !!!!!

Greg

[BS]

One of the many things I learnt building the hambster is there are a lot of "expert" cowboys out there that is for sure. Glad you were able to get it sorted in the end.

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[FireKraka]

These are the reasons I also prefer doing all my own mechanical work, when I pulled Frank out of the workshop that had fitted the torque converter we found it really hard to push, when we got it home I had a look up underneath to find that some goose had fitted the drive shaft back in but pushed one side of the handbrake cable over the top of it they had then run it on the dyno like that and luckily hadn't destroyed the hand brake cable or damaged the shaft, the pressure on the cable was also applying the handbrake slightly and they run against it, they also chipped the paint, they never acknowledged any of it
Neil

[Harv]

The first few weeks of running the wagon have gone OK. Fun to drive, though the turning circle is abysmal.

Had quite a few good conversations and thumbs-up from passers-by. Had to laugh, had a young bloke pull up beside me in a Toyota Starlet at a set of lights. The wagon was idling, more lumps than a $2 mattress. He was most impressed, though his last question was interesting:
"Is it a diesel?"
At least he didn't question the number plate location.

Getting geared up to get the thing tuned. The engine builder had tuned it on the engine dyno, though turns out he only tuned for WOT . The idle and mid-range are rich... rich enough to make your eyes water. Idle screws are about right, and power valve vac setting is correct for the crappy manifold vacuum. The Holley isn't too hard to tune, but I don't have a wideband O2 meter, and am fearful of screwing it up - will get a second set of eyes over it. Rang the tuner yesterday, and he was none-too-impressed with it having an MSD Ready to Run dizzy. He reckons they are unreliable, and that I would regret having one. For now I am keen just to keep the thing on the road (after all the drama building it), but may have to change the dizzy out at some stage. It's mighty tight though, even with the wiper motor removed.

Question please: does anyone have a SBC dizzy to hand, and can measure for me from the block (deck) mounting down to the bottom of the oil pump drive (i.e. the length of dizzy that is buried inside the block, not the bit that is visible)? Want to get a feel for how hard it is going to be to get the MSD dizzy out.

Cheers,
Harv

[EK283]

I have a ready to run dizzy in my 283 chev, it runs great ! I used to get points fail and spark issues at high revs. The new dizzy solved all these problems. What exactly is unreliable about the ready to runs ?

I will measure a stock dizzy for you later tonight.

Greg

[Harv]

Thanks Greg.

According to the tuner they "have no kVs" When I quizzed him on it, he reckons they suffer from erratic missfire, and module failure. He apparently contacted MSD, who told him they are only good for stock motors. Some eBay research shows mixed results for the ready-to-run dizzies, but you get the same mixed results for almost any vendor of auto electronics. My plan is to keep it, and only change it if I get misfires I can't explain/fix. It's got full NRMA coverage, so if a module craps out it can come home on a tilt tray.... wouldn't be the first time for me. Apparantly the modules are soldered in, so carrying a spare doesn't help. Figured I'd start thinking about what a dizzy removal might look like though.... hoping I don't need to pull the engine to do it.

Cheers,
Harv

[EK283]

Ok Harv,

its approximately 195mm long.

IMG_1360.JPG (188.75 KiB) Viewed 464 times

Regards Greg

[Harv]

Beautiful - many thanks for the measurement.

Some quick tape-measure work in the dark shows that I've got almost exactly 195mm of clearance once the cap and rotor are off. It is going to be tight, but with a few expletives it should come out... just. May have to massage the cowl drain floor with the BFH.

Will let you know how the tune goes.

Cheers,
Harv

[ardiesse]

. . . Or you could unscrew the nuts on the front crossmember attaching bolts half an inch, and then jack the car body up.

Rob

[Harv]

. . . Or you could unscrew the nuts on the front crossmember attaching bolts half an inch, and then jack the car body up.

That's some different thinking. I'd have to be careful though - should be enough room to let the steering shaft/rack move at the unis, not so sure on the fuel and brake lines that bridge crossmember and body (they are p-clipped every 4", and the fuel line is heavy-wall stainless... may not stretch well).

Cheers,
Harv