Stanger

[DanStokes]

Yes, that's the dash gauge wire plugged in on top of the stock sensor. This one has a 90 degree connector.

No, the darn thing ripped in several places. I thought I had a spare but I guess I must have used it at some point. I was surprised that Summit sells them in pairs - evidently they think you'll need a backup. Not too pricey but bespoke (notice how I'm using more British English?) for this application.

[Captain]

Put your Thinking 🤔 Toque On,
it will come to you.

[Russell]

I thought I saw gaskets when I was there last upstairs right set of shelves, about 1/3 to 1/2 up, might have been in a box? Can't remember if we left them there or moved them to a better place. Could have been gaskets for something else.

[DanStokes]

I thought I saw gaskets when I was there last upstairs right set of shelves, about 1/3 to 1/2 up, might have been in a box? Can't remember if we left them there or moved them to a better place. Could have been gaskets for something else.

Yes, there are gaskets there but sadly not for this application. Some for an inline Chevy six (those should have gone to David P but I missed them), also some SBF but not for the TrickFlow plenum. But I'll have a spare now as they sell them in pairs.

[DanStokes]

Gauge is installed and lights up showing ambient. I can't start the engine until tomorrow when the gasket arrives so I don't know about warm engine temps. While I'm at it......The dash has always been hard to read due to the dash lights being kind of dim so I ordered up a full set of LED bulbs which should be here tomorrow at noon. Those things are painfully expensive! But I decided to go for it.


Here's the situation when I knocked off today.

[DanStokes]

Sorta good news. The upper to lower intake gaskets arrived this morning. The bad news - they were the wrong ones. It turns out that TrickFlow has 3 gaskets for that positing for SBFs and they're all slightly different. The good news - the guy I spoke with at Summit did a great job of sorting it out and even gave me full credit for the wrong ones. The right ones ship on Monday so I'll probably have them on Wednesday or so.

An interesting tidbit: It I changed all the dash bulbs for LEDs but it turns out that in informational lights in the center of the dash (high beam, amp light, etc) won't work with LED bulbs. They simply don't light up. So I switched those back to incandescent.

In the meantime I put everything else back together again. Notice 3 - count 'em - THREE gauges!

[DanStokes]

The correct gaskets arrived yesterday and the ol' boy's back together. Plan to take him to lunch if the rain holds off.

[DanStokes]

I took Stanger on several drives and worked out that clutch fan has crapped out (sorry for the technical jargon). I went back and forth between replacing the fan clutch or going electric. I found an Ebay source with a direct replacement unit that I could just bolt up and run - NOT! But sorta close.

The top bolts almost fit thye aftermarket radiator tank bolt slots but not quite. A little rat tail filing and I was there. The bottom was about 2 1/2 too close to the top to ever bolt up so I made a couple of aluminum angle pieces and found holes to bolt them to. Worked fine but there was some fabrication.

The sparse wiring instructions were - well - weird. It came with a relay and fuse/fuse holder which is good but they really threw my for a loop. I wired the relay as usual but the fan was coming on with the switch. Took a while to sort that one out but as I looked at it they had a ground terminal with just the right length pigtail to bolt up to the relay mounting screw and that was in the line to the temp sensor. Can't believe it took a few minutes for the lightbulb over my head to light up but, of course, that ground shouldn't be there. Dunno why they did that..... Anyhow, I ungrounded that circuit except thru the temp sensor and all works properly. I even heated the sensor up with the heat gun and made sure fan came on and it does. As I was nearly done I realized I did a bonehead move as I could have caught the B+ power off the starter solenoid which is on the left shock tower instead of running a line up from the starter. I simply had forgotten that I had Big Power right up near where I installed the relay. Oh, well - next time.

All in all, for $104 and NC tax it was a great deal and seems reasonably made. It ain't Spal but not bad. Tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll take the Ol' Boy out for a spin and make sure he stays cool which I expect he will.

Pics of the installation:



Slightly different angle. I wanted to show how much more accessible the front of the engine became.

[DanStokes]

Got the fan working properly and found out that I also have leaky head gaskets which I guess is to be expected after 25ish years, 14 of which were with the car in storage. I worked out that the heads could be pulled with the engine in chassis (thanks Jeff Diehl!) and set about doing that.

Pics:

Engine bay prepped for the removal:





Right head off:




Close-up of the suspected area: It hard to see in the pic but there is a bit of a trail from those rear water passages.




I'll have the heads lightly resurfaced and put it all back together. The Fel Pro Blue gaskets held up well so I think I'll go with them for the reassembly. I thought about MLS but I know they're fussy on surface prep so I thinking that's not good for this application.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Stanger back almost from the dead! Nice! I wonder if Maggie's is a Toyota now...

[Russell]

Could it have been coming from the lower head bolt? Can't remember if it's the tops or the bottom that go into water.

[DanStokes]

Stanger back almost from the dead! Nice! I wonder if Maggie's is a Toyota now...

Kia.

[DanStokes]

Could it have been coming from the lower head bolt? Can't remember if it's the tops or the bottom that go into water.

It was so long ago that I put this together that I don't remember but I'm pretty sure I used sealer on the bolt threads. I certainly will when I put it back together.

Heads are at the machine shop for a quick clean-up as needed. I don't want to cheap out and have to do it twice.

Interesting side note:

One of the ARP headbolts rounded off the head as I tried to remove it - weird as all the rest were OK. So I stopped at the hardware and bought a 5/8" nut, drilled the threads out to 9/16, cut off about a third of the thickness of the nut so the bolt head was closer to the top of the weld, and did the old weld on a nut trick. Worked like a champ. Here's the bolt after the process:




And perhaps the most interesting part: Summit wanted to sell me a new set of bolts along with a new set of header bolts as two had fallen out over the years. So I called ARP directly and no problem at all - replacements on their way for like $8.00 or so and they were happy to do it.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Dan, do you remember when Jim M and I rebuilt the combined cycle engine after you were off to other endeavors? We bought ARP bolts for a VW 4 cylinder engine in a half set from ARP direct, and same thing, no problem. And I hate the stock bolts, use once and throw away. ARP is a really good company. I hope no one messes them up during a buyout or something...

[74NovaMan]

Interesting side note:

One of the ARP headbolts rounded off the head as I tried to remove it - weird as all the rest were OK. So I stopped at the hardware and bought a 5/8" nut, drilled the threads out to 9/16, cut off about a third of the thickness of the nut so the bolt head was closer to the top of the weld, and did the old weld on a nut trick. Worked like a champ. Here's the bolt after the process:

Nice tech tip. I have some bolts on Annie that need that treatment. Thanks.