Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Topic: Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle... (Read 2282 times) previous topic - next topic

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

January 08, 2007, 12:20:36 AM

Today was one of the weirdest days concerning my dad's Chevelle and the 'new' 383. I woke up at 9:45 this morning and started workin with my dad on the car. When my dad had cranked the engine last week, oil wasnt getting to the rocker arms, so we had to use a tool that goes into where the distributer should be and you spin in with a drill to pressurize the oil and get it to the rockers (cant remember the name/term for it). Ok, so we put that tool in and start spinning it. We watch the rocker arms for oil and nothing's happening. Dad stops for a sec, then we notice a LITTLE bi of oil seeping into 2 of the rocker arms for the 7 & 8 cylinders (for those of you unfamiliar, those are the two rear cylinders). We kept goin and the oil gradually appears in the cylinders closer to the front. Eventually, 15 of the 16 rockers have oil on them. 1 left. We keep spinnin. Move the engine to a different degree of rotation and keep goin. We did this for about 45 minutes before taking out the push rod and rocker to check em. There was oil in the push rod and the hole in the rocker arm was clear, so we ended up just puttin some oil on it ourselves, figuring the car just needed to be up to operating temp.

Now came the fun part. We put the distributer back in, get the radiator and hoses hooked up, and go to start the car. CRACK BLAM POOF!!! Backfire galore. We check the distributer and dad makes a few small adjustments. POOF!! More backfiring! A nice ball of fire outta the carb resulted. The next time dad tried starting her up, some gas shot out of the carb. We looked at each other like "Whaaat the hell?" We start thinkin about why the car isnt running well at all, and dad realizes a mistake he made. After spinning the engine to get oil to the rockers, we never reset the distributer correctly; instead, we had set it to the way it was BEFORE we started spinning it. So we fix that and check all of our wiring, and dad starts her up again. CRACK BLAM POOF!!! The backfiring continues. Thinking maybe the carb got messed up, we put the old 600cfm carb on. Same result, same backfiring. Ok, time to check the spark plugs (we kept rechecking the distributor and wiring too, but if I mentioned every time we did, this story would never end). There was gas all over the spark plugs. Ugh. So we clean them all off and put them back in. The backfiring continues. We even went out and bought brand new plugs, and that didnt fix it either. Neither of us had a clue as to what was going wrong; it was starting to seem like one of those days in which you just cant win, no matter what ya do. Dad gets to thinkin, and remembers that the distributer he was using was a friend's. A few years ago, dad had upgraded the coil and the points. The friend's distributer didnt have the new points, but dad had put his upgraded coil in. Thinking maybe the coil was "overpowering" (I dont feel like getting technical haha), dad puts our old stock coil back in. Car starts right up, no problems whatsoever. We put the new carb back on and everything was fine. The carb will need to be worked on a little since it is running a bit rich, but we had the Chevelle running for a good 20 minutes or so without any hassle. All thats left now is fixing the oil pan and a few small tweaks, such as the carb. But after a good 7-8 hours of work on something that shouldve only taken around 3-4 hours, it was nice to have the engine running, and it sounds daaaamn good if I say so myself.

I will be taking pics once it nears completion, and also expect a vid of the car running as well, but I just had to share this story. And as for some specs, someone ran my dad's engine configuration on a desktop dyno and got 380hp/425 ft.lb tq. Can't wait to get it on the road!

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #1 – January 09, 2007, 02:12:24 PM

Ahhh the joys of cars. I've come to learn that diagnostics are the most important thing to learn when working on cars. I just recently had a problem with an exhaust leak on my car. Thought it was a header gasket, so I get a new Gm piece, and go to replace it. I start by taking the AIR of the header, and after I undid the second bolt, it just fell right off. I was like that's odd. so I look back, and the little piece of hose it was supposed to be connected to was melted. So I just made up some block off plates for the headers and viola! exhaust leak fixed. It was pretty nice not having to pull the whole header.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #2 – January 09, 2007, 06:20:35 PM

Sounds like the first distributor was installed 180* out.

Seems like a bitchin car, what year Chevelle is it?

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #3 – January 09, 2007, 08:18:57 PM

Have you seen the cam where they switch the fireing order around by switching 4 and 7 cyls around. Supposed to help with less vibration and stuff. I posted pics of my camaros and boy am i catchn hell. Chevelles are a true musclecar.For a chevy that is

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #4 – January 10, 2007, 04:21:40 AM

Quote from: kingcars;122530

I will be taking pics once it nears completion

Screw that, we want construction photos!

Scott

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #5 – January 14, 2007, 01:14:33 AM

Must be nice to be able to work on your Chevelle. Ours is stuck in the storage unit, its icy as i'll get out up here. I gotta rebuild the carb now, fun stuff. Good job tho Anthony.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #6 – January 25, 2007, 06:16:19 PM

Ugh...got some bad news...dad tried startin the Chevelle up and it started backfiring again. Even after we had started the car up 4 or 5 times without issue. Dad's thinkin its a problem with the points. We'll find out this weekend...

@46Tbird: It's a 66 Chevelle

All the locals and cruise in regulars know its us instantly when they see that color.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #7 – January 25, 2007, 06:22:03 PM

That's a sweet looking Chevelle. One of my cousin's friends has a '66 in Marina blue with a 396.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #8 – January 25, 2007, 06:56:25 PM

Quote from: kingcars;125694

All the locals and cruise in regulars know its us instantly when they see that color.

That is the original color (or one very close to that) of my Gramps '70 Monte, he bought it new, and they re-painted it a long time ago to brown (it was still the 70's), He wants to re-paint it that color and i thought it would look like cause all i have seen is the underside of the trunk lid but i think i like that color now.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #9 – January 26, 2007, 04:14:25 PM

The original color of the Chevelle was Sandlewood Metallic tan, which had a kinda ugly green tint to it (there was some original overspray that we saw when taking the car apart). Believe it or not, the paint job you see on the car is around 13 years old; it was very well done. Since the color of the Chevelle wasn't any mass made color (its a tad different than the color on the early 70s Chevelles and Montes), when we painted the cowl hood (which isnt fiberglass; its the original steel hood and we grafted the cowl onto it), dad had a friend mix the paint for him. The guy just eye balled it and it matches perfectly. So theres some background on the paint. I just love the color.

Phew, long day workin on the Chevelle...

Reply #10 – January 26, 2007, 05:04:45 PM

Man, that's nice! Hope you guys get it running soon. That 383 ought to really move that thing.