My 1969 Corvette Project

The Saga Continues

July, 2001

These fittings were fused to the manifold. They had to be destroyed to get them out..

Here is the intake manifold cleaned up. The carburetor port had an uneven and pitted surface, so my brother took a skim cut across it on a mill, to flatten it out. It will get new heater and bypass fittings.

The shield under the intake manifold was interfering with the top of one of the new hydraulic roller lifters, so I had to put a small clearance dimple (dent made by hammer) in it.

I noticed uneven wear on the idler pulley. I got everything shimmed and aligned properly. When I bought the car one belt was running everything. There may have been some belt slippage, which may have aggravated the overheating condition. It is now properly aligned and running with two belts. The A/C will not be hooked up for now.

I insulated the headers to keep heat out of the engine compartment. The big block runs hot enough as it is in that small space. I may supplement the engine driven fan with an electric fan.

I had to have these offset pipes made to connect the headers to the standard dual exhaust system. I local Midas shop did it, but it took them two tries to get them correct. It is a large offset for such a short run. Side pipes may have been a better route.

Here is the new billet pointless distributor from MSD. This car came with a transistor ignition, which was an option, and was plagued with problems even when it was new. It was also in poor condition. I will get much better reliability and performance from the MSD setup.

August, 2001

September, 2001

Well, I finally got the engine ready for test firing. I captured the startup on video. See the video by clicking on the picture to the left. The entire saga is pretty involved, so I will elaborate more when I get the pictures and video ready. Suffice-it-to-say I started right up, and ran pretty good.

October, 2001

The radiator got pretty hot during the break-in, so I decided to get the radiator re-cored. It is getting cold, and the wife wants her garage spot back. I guess I'll have to move the chassis under the body for the winter.