The formal name for the place I live at, far as anybody needs to know, is simply BangShift Mid-West. It is my house, my land, my domicile. Then there is the small shop right off to the side of the house that is known as the Thrown Wrench Garage, for one reason alone: few things test my temper out quite like wrenching. Don’t get me wrong…I love spinning wrenches and fixing my own stuff. And I love the fact that I don’t have to lay in rain-soaked gravel and mud like I did when I first started out as a kid, or on searing hot asphalt and concrete, like I have done in the past. But there has been a problem in the shop for a few months now. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not quite eighteen feet long, weighs in at about two tons, and has been a thorn in my ass all year. Yep, you guessed it, the Imperial. I wanted to have it running by my birthday back in May….then by the beginning of summer…then by the end of summer. Well, we’re past summer, screaming through fall and on our way towards winter, and only now does it look like the silver sled is close to firing. You’ll be happy to know that the engine has turned over by the starter alone for a couple of tests, but there was one final, major cog holding up the program, and a few days ago, after I drill-primed the engine for the last time, I decided that I was ready to install the oil pump driveshaft, the last major internal piece of the 367 cubic inch LA block that was still sitting on the bench. 

Nothing to it, right? Just a hex head that slots into the oil pump itself, a length of stock, and the drive gear that meshes with the camshaft. Of all of the things I’ve done to this engine since I took the plunge of building my first entire block, this is the least threatening thing I’ve dealt with. Making sure the main bearings are in and not gouged? Installing the pistons? Those were worth sweating over. This one piece of the puzzle, the item most notably famous as the center post structure to a certain, famous Hellcat-swapped Charger’s hoodscoop, not so much. Installation is idiot-proof: using care to not gouge the tower bushing, drop shaft down into oil pump and make sure that the gear goes down into the camshaft gear. Nothing to it, I kept saying. Just drop it in, get the distributor ready, and let’s fire this sucker already. With weather already cooling off rapidly and leaves dropping like houseflies, I’m in a bit of a hurry to prove that the engine does, in fact, run and I’d like to break the engine in on a day that doesn’t make me think of a wet Scotland morning, thank you kindly.

Would the oil pump driveshaft go in? Sure…but all the way in, where it’s supposed to fit? Oh, hell no. When test-fitting the distributor, the flat base of the spark-thrower is supposed to be on the engine block, fit in and ready for the distributor tab to hold it down, not floating a quarter-inch above the deck. I tried just about everything: I stuck a screwdriver and tried to turn the shaft, hoping it’d mesh in further down. Nope. I tried checking the length of the driveshaft to see if there were any nicks, burrs or other indications that there was a physical reason why the damned thing wouldn’t drop in properly; nothing was to be found. I turned the engine by hand, hoping that some movement in the camshaft itself would aid in the situation. Sorry, Chief, but that didn’t fly either. I went to the Internet for help, and by the time I finished reading comments, I was all but sure that I was going to have to yank the engine back out to check the oil pump itself in full. Anger swelled up at the mere thought of breaking out the hoist again for this car.

The best advice I can give any budding mechanic who runs into a frustrating situation like this is simple: find someone much more experienced than you, explain the situation, and heed their advice. As I type, the driveshaft is properly installed. Do you want to know how it happened? What did I do that was different? It’s very simple, really: a 1 1/4 inch socket, six inches of extension, and a hammer. The problem wasn’t a burr or a design flaw, it was because installation force was simply inadequate. A couple of healthy taps and the gear slotted right in perfectly, fully meshed. The truth is annoying sometimes. One of my biggest takeaways from this engine build is learning what is truly delicate about an engine, and just what “delicate” entails. Crankshaft bearing surfaces, delicate. Steel gear on steel rod going into oil pump? Not even close. The list that remains before first fire is down to six items: assemble a distributor, spark plug wires, one more fan belt, connecting up the fuel lines to the pump, creating two exhaust pipes for the manifolds that will reach down to the underside of the car, and if I want to be picky, a throttle linkage assembly that actually connects. It’s not needed, but it couldn’t hurt. Everything else is in place. It’s almost time…