December 2004 Archives

I got a call from Tim Berardelli this morning. All of my rocker shafts were galled and worn, so they need to be replaced. That's about $60 a side that I wasn't counting on. Additionally, the adjusting screws for some of the rockers were all messed up from being overtightened, and Tim had to spend about half his morning extracting them. He said it looked like there had been a lack of lubrication to all these parts, which caused rapid wear. He is going to try to look for some used adjusting screws and nuts, but I'm sure they won't be free, regardless. In any case, the top part of the engine, which I thought was near perfect, is turning out to be somewhat expensive. At least he said my cam core looked good, and should run well with the new 266 degree grind.

Ollie's Automotive Machining called as well, and as suspected, the scratches on the crankshaft warrant a grind to 1st under. It will be heat treated as well, and net cost, with magnafluxing and all the other work, will be about $450. The rods all checked out just fine, and reconditioning them will be around $100 for the set. All told, my "almost ready to run" engine is costing me an easy $2000 extra to get up and running after I add gaskets, new bearings, and a new set of pistons and cylinders.

For this reason, the '59 engine, which is in much better shape than I believed, will be for sale to cover some of these expenses...I am going to seal it back up properly, which was not done on the previous rebuild. Someone with an "A" series car or someone who doesn't need tons of power should be happy with it for many more miles to come.

I spent the morning starting the rebuild on the Zenith carbs that go with the '59 motor. They all appear to be in good shape, but believe it or not, there was the start of a mud dauber wasp nest in the fuel inlet line on one of the carbs. Actually, not too hard to believe, I've heard it before... anyway, it is gone now, and the carbs are going to look (and work!) much better than they did before.

I got a new Canon Digital Rebel (Takes regular Canon EF lenses, which I have a bunch of!) SLR camera for Christmas! I'm still going to use the little Canon Digital ELPH for most shots, because it is so portable and easy, but the SLR produces much better pictures, both higher resolution and better color reproduction. I'm excited, as photography is another one of my side hobbies.

A little less than 3 weeks left in my vacation. I will call Don Mills before the week is over and try to make plans to get together to begin the remaining bodywork on the car soon.

Happy New Years.

A bunch of progress in the last week or so.

First, I got my crankshaft and rods shipped off to Ollie's in Santa Ana, CA. Should be back some time in early January. I have a feeling the crank is going to have to go 1st under, at least on the mains.

I shipped my camshaft and cam followers to Tim Berardelli in Alexandria, VA to have them reground. If I had known he had a full machine shop, I would have sent my crankshaft there as well, but I found out too late.

Finally, I got the car flat-bedded over to Don Mill's place. He has a pretty nice shop space, and a large paint booth. He is getting to a pausing point on an old Jaguar, and feels he can have time to start on the 356 either this week or next week. He is happy to have me work with him, so I'll be doing that.

Finally, I've completely torn down the '59 leak-monster Normal motor that came in the car. Outward appearances aside, what I found inside was more or less pleasantly surprising. The pushrod tubes were leaking a lot of oil. Both crankshaft seals appeared to be leaking, I have to assume they weren't installed well because the surfaces of the case aren't gouged up or anything. These places seem to have been the majority of the sources of the leaks.

The heads themselves may or may not have been leaking, I can't really tell. They were caked up with a lot of carbon, but the pistons and cylinders themselves look almost Brand New. The rings look like they were just put in. I have to assume that the engine was torn down and rebuilt sometime in the recent past, if not in years, at least in mileage on the engine.

The cam also looks perfect. No wear on the oil pump drive slot, and no pitted lobes at all. The crank and rods look equally good. The single split-shell main bearing journal on the crankshaft measures out Standard, and there is no scoring on any of the lobes. I believe I'm going to leave the crank assembly together and simply clean everything up and do a resealing job, because that is all it appears to need. I'll then rebuild the carbs, and get the engine tin sand blasted and painted. Finally, I'll either keep the engine as a spare/back-up or sell it.

The car is going to get transported to Don Mills' place tomorrow to (hopefully) get the rest of the bodywork done. He is a very nice guy and is more than willing to let me hang around and learn/lend a hand. I hope we can at least make a dent in the remaining repairs during the next month. I spent about 3 hours cleaning up the replacement nose clip I bought months ago, and I am thinking now that it may actually be usable. I'll let Don make the final call. Before the nose, the doors probably take precedence in terms of bodywork, and I have all those parts.
I have pretty much finished my repairs on the right side door bottom and leading edge, and it looks plenty good enough for where it is. All of the repair work is either on the bottom of the door, where it is difficult to see, or on the inside, where it will be covered by the inner door panel. Regardless, I've done my best to reconstruct it as it was originally made, with good weld technique. I'm always practicing when I can. The left side door doesn't need repairs nearly as extensive as I did on the right side. One thing I can say for the goopy undercoat stuff that was so difficult to remove-- it did a fantastic preservation job where it was applied.

Concensus on 356Talk has lead me to understand that honing out the existing pistons that came with the C engine will likely be a mistake, and at very best will work but will not last too long. I'll get a big bore kit and put the cylinders away for safe keeping -- they could be bored out for a big bore Shasta kit later. As for the cylinders, I think they were bead blasted, but I can't be totally sure. Probably, they are junk. The rings are new though... eh. eh.
I got the crankshaft, rods, and lifters mailed off to Ollie's in California. Right after I did that, I found out that Tim Berardelli, who did the reconditioning on my front suspension spindles, has a full machine shop. I'm sending him my camshaft for a regrind, and my rocker arms to have the tips surfaced properly, because they are pitted and worn.

Basically, I have a lot of balls in the air but not a lot of things that I can do personally at the moment. Maybe I'll go grab the '59 engine and tear it apart to see what monster lurks within...

I went over to the garage today with my crank and case to talk to Chuck about possible local machine shops. He basically said there wasn't one that could do it (capably), and I was best off sending things out to one of the reputable shops in California. He recommended Ollie's, and I've read other good things about them, so I think I'll go with them. Getting a crank reground and hardened will run me around $400, so I hope it just needs polishing. They are quite reasonable on rod reconditioning (plus magnafluxing) at $25/each. All in all, I'd rather do the engine right and then not worry about it. They said they will have about a month turnaround, so I may have time over this break to tear apart the old '59 engine that came with the car and see what it is really made of. Or if I don't do that, at least I'll try to stop some of the oil leaks, paint things, and get it running well on the engine stand. I think I'm going to sell it to defray the other bills...

I asked Dee again about getting some help on the remaining bodywork. I'm just not confident enough to go it alone on the door repairs, the lockpost, and the nose. He called up Don Mills, who is in Lexington, NC. Don has done some other local 356 bodywork that I've seen and it looks good to me. I talked to him and he said he had some free time coming up in January, so I think I'll get the car shipped over to him so he can work on it at his house whenever he has time. I would really like to have the bodywork done by end of January or at latest February, because I feel behind on it already. Don seemed like a nice guy, I'm looking forward to meeting him.
I took a little bit of time to grind off all the visible body filler on the tail of the car this afternoon. It was visibly thick, and I wondered (jokingly) if it had been put on with a mortar trowel. After I got it all off with the grinder (using a 3M green bristle disc, which I highly recommend for stripping!) I quickly realized that the damage wasn't too bad, really. At least not compared to other parts of the car I have worked on! Basically just a bad dent that had been pulled out quickly, not carefully, and then "smoothed over" with a lot of filler. Pretty amateurish, I would like to believe I could have done it quite a bit better. Anyway, we'll get that part fixed more properly with the rest of the bodywork.

I should have an update Monday or Tuesday, after I talk to Don again. I should call Frank Gibson as well and touch base with him...

I've got the C engine completely torn down. Took a couple of extra runs out to the garage/storage space to get tools I didn't have at the rental house, but the actual process of taking apart a 356 engine isn't difficult. Especially next to bodywork!

The good news is, my amateurish measurements with my micrometers seem to tell me that the crankshaft is still standard. However, there is some very light scoring on the #4 main journal, and I don't know if I am going to get away with just a polish to keep it Standard or if it will require being ground to 1st under. I guess the really good news is that the engine definitely has never been apart past the short block, i.e. it has never been split. This was the first time, and everything looks pretty nice in there.
No spun bearings, the cam followers all look good, the case looks A-OK. The camshaft lobes are a bit pitted. Overall, I'm happy, even though I think I won't be able to re-use the pistons because of scoring on the cylinder walls. I need to find a local (hopefully) machine shop and get everything double-checked in the next couple of days, and get some of the machine work that is required done (cam followers radiused, crank polished/ground, camshaft reground). I may even get the engine re-assembled and test fired before the end of Winter Break!

Speaking of breaks, I have a couple of weeks off from School right now, so I'm going to hopefully get some more work done than I've been able to accomplish during the last several months.

I've got the C engine torn down to a shortblock, with the heads, pistons, and cylinders removed. I took the shortblock to Millersport to get the flywheel gland nut removed. We took a meaty Snap-On 1/2" impact wrench to it, and the gland nut didn't even think about budging. Then we got a long pipe and put it on the end of a breaker bar, and while someone sat on the engine case, we really leaned on the bar. The engine was going to flip over before that nut was going to budge!

I was frustrated, but Tim suggested I take the engine to a truck repair shop and ask them to use a 3/4" impact wrench on the nut. He told me about one where he knew the owner, right near our house. I stuck the engine back into the car (easy to pick up by myself in this form) and drove over.

Pancho, the truck mechanic, was sitting at his desk doing paperwork. I asked if he had a 3/4" impact. "What for?" he asked. "Flywheel nut," I replied. "Uh. Volkswagen?" I didn't want to confuse the situation, so I confirmed. We went out to the car and I lifted up the tail gate. He sort of looked at the motor for a moment, and then said, "back up." (The car, he meant). I backed it up parallel to his wrecker, and then he jumped on the back and fired up a large gas-powered compressor. While the tank was filling, he walked around the side and started looking at big impact sockets, searching for one that would fit. I suggested we just use the regular S*K socket I had, which was a 3/4" one already, and well made. I hoped it could hold up to a big impact gun. He didn't say anything but took my socket and stuck it on the end of a 1" to 3/4" adapter. Oh. Then he opened up the side of the truck cabinet to pull out the impact wrench.

Forget calling this thing the Big Gun. This was the friggin' canon. It was a 1" impact wrench about as long as my arm and bigger around than a pineapple. He hefted it and stuck the socket on the end, then brought it over to the engine.

I held the engine steady while he applied the first few blows of the impact gun. The nut didn't move, but little chips and pieces of steel flew off with each blow. "It's really in there, huh?" he muttered. A few more, and it finally started to move. Just as soon as we had started, it was off. What a great tool!

So in all, I spent about three hours this morning just trying to get the stupid gland nut off. Now I can proceed with splitting the case.

I'll do a further write-up in a little while as to the condition of what I have found so far on the motor. So far, (pretty much) so good.