Gold Dust - a 1st Gen Monte Carlo thread

Should be fine to lift by the bolt holes at the end of the heads, just make sure they are threaded in a decent amount.  Biggest danger doing it that way is if your lifting chains don't clear the carb/air cleaner, and you damage them.  Distributor is also in danger if lifted this way, if it is installed.

Heck yeah its fine.

Thanks guys, I went up to  tractor supply and bought several 3/8-16 grade 8 bolts in varying lengths, and washers and nuts too. I can get about half an inch of thread engagement in the heads, so I think I'm good there. I'll be using the block on the backside so the heads won't bear all the weight 

Also, these headers look like they'll do the job...shorties, so won't make the most power, but have a good looking ceramic coating on them...I know they always fade and wear over time, but theyre pretty when new!

Racingsnake said:

You might need an engine hoist with extra long reach though because the engine is a long way back from the front of the car

You must be a fortune teller. The picker I had access to is about 8" too short. One of the fellas knows a guy who knows a guy who might have a long reach picker, time will tell.

Option B is a rolling gantry/A-frame. Everyone has em for sale. Would definitely be a budget hit that I didn't see coming, but then I will have it for the future, so that's nice.

Also, apparently I'm another statistic...I fell victim to "starter solenoid plastic is tough as wet toilet paper"...taking the main starter power wire off resulted in the solenoid cap suddenly being in 27 pieces. Hooray.

Anyway, progress was made. The engine is unbolted from the trans, pretty much every connection has been pulled, and she's sitting in unbolted mounts. Just need to yank the old mill out and the bay detailing can begin

Let's say hypothetically you're swapping an engine, and your hoist didn't reach the motor. Would it be a ridiculous idea to use some thick walled square cold rolled stock to extend the boom arm another 12 inches? Let's say hypothetically that would decrease the load rating of the hoist to just about what your engine weighs...does that totally hypothetical and not at all related to my situation scenario sound ludicrous, from an engineering perspective?

Hypothetically, if one were to do something like that, they'd want to make sure to keep the lift as low as possible, even to the point of using a jack on the engine crossmember, removing the front wheels, and dropping the car's front end as low as possible that still allows the hoist legs to roll under.

Hypothetically placing weights on the back side of the hoist can help prevent the hoist from tipping forward.

Standing in the back of the hoist also works, but limits the ability to maneuver or place the motor - hypothetically. 

On a scale from "perfectly acceptable" to "hell to the naw-naw", exactly how sketchy is this setup? There's about 1 1/2 inches between the jack and the bumper with the hook directly over the center of the carb. I put some high density foam and an extra blanket over the bumper as insurance. Is this a Darwin award in the making or am I being paranoid?

Somewhere in the middle, I'd say.  I wouldn't try to pull it alone, but with someone to keep an eye on the engine while someone else deals with the hoist, I would hope you can manage.

Still a bit concerned about how high you'll need to lift to get it over the front end.  Can let air out of the tires to lower it a bit, too.

On them old long cars like that, I shoot the engine hoist in from the side, perpendicular to how it is set right now. Straddle the front wheel with the hoist legs if possible, remove the wheel if necessary. Just like pulling a van engine through the side door.

Agree with Eddie.  I think I have done that before once.  
 

One other question - does the extended hoist arm go past the length of the legs?  If so, there's a real risk of tipping forward once the engine is hanging from the chain, and starting to swing when you begin pulling it backwards.

I've used a chubk of pine lumber to act as a set bumper in those instances 

So, yes the hook is juuuust past the front casters. To combat physics and Murphy's law, we counterbalanced the engine with a handy dose of SWMBO standing on the rear of the hoist.

From there, things escalated quickly, and the car got about 600lbs lighter

The rest of the day was spent picking up some odds and ends like a solenoid and rad hoses etc. Then, several hours of cleaning.

When I applied POR15 last year to the front frame and suspension, the engine was in the way of many nooks and crannies. That excuse is no longer valid, so that's going to happen with the requisite Rust-Oleum gloss black enamel topcoat. Also getting some attention will be the cowl and the underside of the hood - both getting some satin black as well

More to come 

Lots of things have happened in the last week.

Mostly, a new engine

I know I promised pictures, but I'm also a liar

But here are some specifics from the last week of wrenching

• Engine bay got those finishing paint touches I talked about. Odd little corners where pictures are difficult to capture the changes, but the surface that and 50 years of grime have been handled
• With the hood off, I sanded, masked, and painted the underside with high heat paint in flat black...took 3 cans cuz that's a huge hood
• New polyurethane motor mounts were bolted on
• Had to replace the busted starter solenoid, and also painted the starter housing as it had some surface rust. Went back on without drama
• Shorty headers were the only option that was both in stock and within budget. The next best option was out of production until next spring. Had to pull a couple plugs to get the drivers side in. That required a sacrifice to the cheap socket gods ...a $3 plug socket was shortened by 3/4 of an inch overall to fit inside the header, and drilled out the ratchet end to pass over the end of the plug. An idea is only crazy if it doesn't work.

• Also, the 2 bolts on the driver's side closest to the firewall  required hours of effort and many swear words...
• For a high performance complete crate engine, they used a carb with a manual choke, so swapped the old electric one over to the carb
• Bolted the new flex plate on in a 3 stage star pattern using my new torque wrench to get 20, then 40, and finally 65 ft/lbs.
• The new plate bolted up to the 50 years old torque converter

Stuff I still need to do

• Shorten the plug wires...most are waaaay too long. This means I get to buy more tools - a new stripper/crimper tool with connectors and boots will be here today
• Swap over the cable stops for the throttle and kickdown
• The accessories need to go back on, minus AC - the stock bracket bolts over the stock manifolds. With the higher ports and headers, that isn't going to work. Also, the compressor appears to be locked up. The pulley spins, but the compressor doesnt. Might go vintage air at some point down the line
• The exhaust needs to be adapted to these headers. I am confident that a pile of pre-bent pipes and couplers will do the job. Liberal use of sawzall may or may not be part of that equation 
• A precut hood insulation kit will go up in the freshly painted hood webbing. That huge sheet of fiberglass that was pinned under there is headed for the trash can

There are a few issues that I'm having to pivot around

• It's unclear if the stock torque converter will work. According to a 30 year factory tech in the family, the combination of heavy car plus shallow rear gear times many new horse powers equals the effective stall could be in the acceptable range for this engine. According to other sources (namely the transmission shop who rebuilt my th350 last year), a retrofitted stock unit with updated internals is needed. Time will tell once she's back on the road
• At the stock 170ish HP, a 40gph factory style fuel pump is sufficient. Blueprint runs a 130gph unit to support the power levels they state, so a much larger pump is part of the build. That larger unit interferes with the crossmember. I'm not a welder, so cutting and boxing the crossmember is out. Therefore, I'm probably going to run an electric pump with a relay and a non-bypassing regulator. This will be an adventure. Pic below shows the small pocket in the crossmember and the flat spot on the block where the oversized pump is meant to go...notice the extreme lack of a pump. That's not good for performance.

More to come 

The more I read about the noise and heat issues with external electric fuel pumps, the more attractive the idea of clearancing the front crossmember becomes.

I'm not a welder, but have some family that is by trade, so possibly going to look at cutting out the offending metal and boxing the crossmember in. But I also have heard tale of crazy people who use a sledge to beat the pump pocket in a quarter inch to make room. Has anyone here ever done this? (I'm sure I already know the answer to this next one) Is a LPG torch going to put enough heat into that thick steel to allow me to massage it with a hammer?

Probably need to cut and box it.  The propane torch will be unlikely to put enough heat into it.  A MAPP gas (or whatever they call it nowadays) torch might do the trick, but it'd still be a lot of work.  Any chance someone makes a physically smaller fuel pump that can still flow enough?

What noise and heat issues with electric fuel pumps?

Most people that converter to electric do so because of heat issues with the engine mounted pump, trying to draw fuel in through 18 feet of fuel line that may be running inches from the exhaust system.

Heck, Nissan had a dealer retrofit kit for 240Zs to convert them to electric pumps to cure vapor lock.

I don't know about heat, but it seems like most electric pumps that run outside of the gas tank can be pretty noisy. 

In reply to eastsideTim :

Only if you are using some crazy high powered billet race pump.  Even the old Holley red top pump that I used in my silver RX-7 was pretty quiet.  The bullet style pumps that one can buy for $100 or less are nearly silent.  The one in my '81 RX-7 is completely silent, and it's bolted directly to the floor under the driver's ears.

Well, not COMPLETELY silent, you can hear it quietly working key on/engine off.  If you have the door open.  And are in a quiet garage with the garage door closed.

Looks like Edelbrock may be my hero. They have a mechanical pump that flows 110gph that appears to be smaller than the one blueprint ships with their complete crates. Might just go that route.

Also, some hammering was done because I'm impatient and prone to impulsive decisions 

I have maybe 1/8" inch around the pump in this pic...

I know that's not enough space and I'm not too comfortable deforming the steel any more without stressing it beyond it's ability to remain structural. Hoping that the Edelbrock pump plus the hammering and a dose of polyurethane mounts will equal many horsepowers

Not sure if I should be impressed with your strength or scared about how thin the crossmember metal is.

A little more tweaking and some light massaging later, and I have a pretty comfortable quarter inch at the tightest spot 

I'm calling that good enough for who it's for. I had planned to clock the fittings one more spot but with only 60 degree increments, the output would be way too tight to the block, so it is staying as is. Pump will come off once more to clean up the area and repaint the crossmember, then I can call this step complete.

With the new urethane motor mounts, I feel like twist will be minimal. The pocket opens up below the pump, so clearance would only improve if it did lurch under throttle. This is a cruiser not a bruiser, so no hard launching is in the future. I'm going to order a new urethane transmission mount to lock things down further for good measure

Hammer? What hammer?

Also, transmission mount should be here this afternoon. That should go in shortly thereafter. Included in that shipment are some exhaust prebends that should wrap up the exhaust, and some Design Engineering 2k degree tape/heat barrier for the AC box that is ridiculously close to the passenger header.

Hoping to have the accessories and exhaust finished by the weekend. Then I'll trim the plug wires, double check everything and maybe try to start it up. Fingers crossed.

The tedium begins...lots of tiny spaces that demand hardware, but where full grown hands were never meant to venture. Power steering needed a new mounting bracket be fabbed because the old manifold/AC compressor assembly had a small ear for one of the PS mounting bolts.

Also, the fuel line used to run behind the alternator when it was just rubber. Now that it's braided hose, it kinda doesn't want to bend to fit behind there. How much bend is too much for braided fuel line?

Realized I have about 3/4 of an inch between the steering u-joint and the headers, so a titanium fabric flexible heat shield was ordered.

Exhaust is probably the last big task, but I'm dreading it so I keep finding smaller stuff to do...ugh