The sun was shining, the weather was clear, and I was on a mission: the 1983 Imperial was going to get it’s 367ci small-block Chrysler engine shoved into the bay come hell or high water. Yeah, work has taken a rather impressive uptick in pace since our last update on the forlorn Malaise Mopar, and that’s got a lot to do with a couple of dates: one was that it’s been over a year since I broke a water pump bolt off in the snout of this engine shortly after getting it, which required a teardown and checkup, and became the moment that a rebuild needed to take place. The other mark is that come this November, it’ll be four years since Raven ran under it’s own power, and I’ll be damned if I take long enough that I will sweat that goal. So for the last week or so, I’ve been busting hind end in the shop getting everything together and ready for this day. Want to know how I got here? Follow along in the photos…
Since the last engine update, I had sourced a new crankshaft snout bolt, finished cleaning up the valvetrain, and got the heads bolted on. Interesting note: this engine had two different cylinder heads…one is from a 1972-74 340 or 360, the other is a late 1980s truck head. They are virtually identical save for the floor jet ports under the exhaust ports…and those have been blocked off with Loctite-soaked allen set screws, so they won’t be popping out anytime soon.
Next up was the intake (Edelbrock Performer 318/360) and Edelbrock valve covers. The intake will stay, those valve covers will get the job done until I treat myself to something else later on down the road. I also slapped on the A999 automatic and finally have a powertrain that is ready for installation!
After hand-pushing the Imperial around the yard to get it lined up (gotta get that exercise in somehow!), I removed the hood and rolled the car underneath the engine hoist. I was salivating…this moment has been a long time coming. When I pulled the old engine, it was in a wasp-infested barn. Now it’s my own shop and I’m laying on fresh concrete, putting in an engine I built myself. I couldn’t have been happier.
…and that’s when my famous luck decided to take a couple of kicks at my junk. The first one was that at this point, the engine was about six inches forward of the mounts and was refusing to go back any further. Great…what’s causing the holdup?
The oil pan that is meant for a Dodge truck. I can only take responsibility for not noticing this sooner…after going back through Eric Rood’s writeups on the “Project Regretmobile” Dodge Magnum, even he said that the oil pan looked different. But that isn’t that big of a deal…Rood had handed off the Magnum’s oil pan in the pile of parts he gave me. Time to go digging!
The reason I reviewed Rood’s writeups wasn’t for the pan size…it was to determine just what in the hell I was cleaning out of the sump! Have you ever seen pictures of an engine where the oil was never changed, EVER, and it looks like someone cooked a tray of brownies in the pan? This looked worse. This looked like it had been used as an outdoor latrine for fifteen years in the desert sun without a single cleaning. I pressure washed it. I soaked it in Gunk. I thought about pouring gasoline in there and letting it burn to carbon. And then, I noticed something near the oil plug…
You see one blade of grass and say, “oh, that’s not so bad! JB Weld! Braze it closed!” If it was one little hole, maybe. But if you looked at the plug from the sump side with the plug pointed at the sun, you’d see a corona of pinholes surrounding the bolt in the metal. This pan is absolutely FUBAR, and that was before I smashed it against the Cadillac a couple of times. This is where today’s adventure ends. I’ll be sourcing a new pan and new pickup for the oil pump, and once those items are installed, we will get right back to getting the Imperial to run. I’m close enough to taste it.
