Opti spark longevity will require a small 3/32 hole drilled in the bottom to allow for condensation to drain out. Especially on motors that sit. Nice Impala. I may have to swing by and check it out.

I haven’t updated this thread in about a month and a half. This is not to say that we have not been wrenching on the Impala. A lot of work has been done since you last saw it. We had some obstacles to over come first. The first problem was the new front disc brake conversion kit. The caliper mounting plate on the passenger side was not drilled correctly, so we have to elongate the lower mounting hole as well as grind the plates and the steering knuckles (on both the driver and passenger sides) to get them to fit. It seems there were 2 styles of knuckles Chevy used on these cars. The kit is designed for the more popular one, not this one. Hence the minor grinding was needed on both sides. Second was the castle nuts. Once we got the mounting plates on, packed the wheel bearings with grease and mounted the new front disc, the castle nuts did not line up with the cotter pin holes. Turns out they sent us the wrong size castle nuts. Once we got the correct ones, the cotter pins were a breeze to install.

In this picture you can see the wood in the spring pockets and the wrong castle nut installed backwards

Once the rotors were installed, the car was now a roller. We had to use cut-to-length 2x4s in the spring pockets as we could not install the
springs without some specialty tools that we didn’t have. So the car was trailered to a shop were:

1. the springs were properly installed

2. the body was then separated from the frame briefly to replace all the body bushings – this required cutting some of the trunk and

floor pan to get to some of the bolts

3. cutting out and patching the rusted out driver side floor pan

4. properly repairing the botched passenger side rear floor pan

The returned roller - the springs are installed and the front castle nuts are correct. It's a roller baby!

Repaired driver’s side floor pan – nice work.

The shop also found some badly rusted and damaged frame section once the body was off and they repaired that portion of the frame with new metal and painted it for us.

Old vs new body bushing. There is at least 1/8 to 1/4 inch compression difference between the two. Not to mention the age/weather deterioration.

You can see from the photo how much compression the old body bushing have vs. the new one. The doors actually close much more soundly
than they did before. The alignment gap of the doors to the body is much better now that the bushings have been replaced too. We were warned that once we install the motor and tranny along with the front sheet metal that are used align the front fenders maybe way off now. So we will definitely have to take our time hanging and aligning the front clip once the time comes.

The next thing we did after getting the car back is we removed the steering wheel from the steering column. Brit is going with a reproduction wooden factory steering wheel. So it will not be re-used. My boy helped me removed the wheel but it bent the bolts (they were not Grade 8 – now I have an
excuse to get new ones). The column is pitted and needs to be repainted before it goes back into the car.

We installed a box of Hushmat next. It took us nearly a day to do just that. We fabed up a cardboard template for the back seat. So everything is covered from the lower firewall to the package tray except for the doors and the quarter window area. The only reason that isn’t done yet, is we have not removed those interior panels yet.

The 327 engine and the Powerglide transmission were loaded up in my Avalanche and have been sent off to their respect shops to be rebuilt. The 327 is going to be bored .030 over, an RV cam will be installed for more torque but it won’t sacrifice vacuum to run the power accessories (especially since we are adding power front disc brakes – which the car never had before). The tranny is getting a stock rebuild. The transmission rebuild is done. The only thing we are waiting for is the new Edelbrock aluminum 4-bbl intake with the old style oil filler tube hole in it.

The upholstery will be sent out in the next couple of weeks to be be cleaned up and re-done. I expect we will start re-assembling this car by early March.

OK boys, I was over to my buddy Brit’s for a Daytona 500 party on Sunday. After the race was over, we took a stroll out to the shop to see what’s the latest with the Impala. Brit now has his motor back. He has been doing a lot more painting and prep work too.

So here is the scoop on the 327 motor. The motor has been rebuilt once before apparently because the cylinders are already .030 over, but the ring wear is light, so the rebuild did not have a lot of miles on it. So the cylinder bores were lightly honed to insure good piston ring sealing. All the bearing were replaced. The oil pump was replaced. All the pistons and rods and crank were re-used. An RV camshaft was installed to produce more torque but not sacrifice vacuum since we now have to drive an additional power accessory, namely the power front disc brakes. An Edelbrock 4-bbl intake replaces the stock factory cast iron intake, although the factory intake will be painted and prepped and safely stored away. Once the motor is installed and much of the front end work is done, then trick new black valve covers and matching air cleaner will go on over the rebuilt quadrajet carb.

Factory 4-bbl freshly sandblasted.

The Powerglide transmission was rebuilt to stock specs. The most severe thing it needed was a new pump, a thorough degreasing, and a fresh coat of paint. Even the stock torque converter can be re-used according to the transmission shop. So this was an inexpensive rebuild.

Brit has repainted most of the engine brackets, power steering pump, AC compressor (although he put the new factory label on upside down so it needs to be replaced), and the steering column. The engine (seen above) has received the first of three coats of Chevy orange engine enamel.

Brit has mounted the new vacuum brake boaster and master cylinder and connected all the brake plumbing. It looks great. Now we have a new problem. He has mounted the windshield washer pump in its factory location. As you can see from the photos, the prongs on the white cap that attach to the hoses that go to the spray nozzles nearly hit the boaster. The fix will be to find a new plastic top with 90 degree bends in them (GM did make them) and put it on the washer pump.

So, if all goes as plan, the engine and transmission will go back into the car on Friday. Reassembly will have officially begin at that point.

Oh, here is another treat. Here is another picture of the detoriation of one of the body bushings. Just one more good reason to replace them when you can.

Also, here is a picture of the rear of the car behind the bumper. This area can trap moisture, sand, dirt and rust. So Brit has cleaned it up and hit it with POR-15 too.

Re-assembly working is slowly progressing. Brit has decided to work on completing the interior first. We have completely removed the instrument panel, inspected and replaced any burn out bulbs (there is only one bad one, the rest look like they were replaced recently). The new Custom Autosound radio is now installed. The speaker wires have been run. The new carpet has been glued down now. The rear seat's seat belts were installed, along with the quarter window trim. The last thing to get installed today was the steering column was installed with a new firewall gasket/insulation and a new rag joint.

We have the newly re-upholstered leather seats. They look like vinyl at a glance but they are really a soft leather. They will look and feel killer. The seats will go in tomorrow if all goes according to plan. We still have to connect the rear and front speaker fires, install the new Sun Pro water temperature, oil pressure, and ammeter gauge back under the dash, along with the new wooden steering wheel that replaces the beat up vinyl original.

The original factory inspection markings were re-created on the firewall.

Brit installs the passenger side quarter trim and new chrome window cranks

The cluster and radio are installed and the new carpet looks great.

The rear seat belts are now installed and the back seat is ready to go in once we finish installing the quarter trim.

The re-painted steering column is loosely bolted in place with a new gasket and rag joint.

Good progress!

It is going slower than we'd like for sure. I think the big moment for us will be once we button up the interior and actual install the motor and transmission, and then we can start hanging front sheet metal.

Today was a long work day on the Impala but it was a good one. Brit and I worked hard for about 8 1/2 hours. We wrapped up most of the interior. We still have some small electrical work under the dash to do, but we really can’t finish it without the battery connected up. So that portion will have to wait for now.

We have installed the back seat.

We installed the steering column and all the fussy trim pieces, the PRNDL cable and the rag joint.

Pre-assembled the new steering wheel since the original won’t be going back on the car.

Installed a new set of SunPro gauges – ammeter, oil pressure, and water temperature and mounted them to the dash with a slight lean towards the driver for quick driver readability….

Drilling a new hole in the firewall for the temp sender and oil pressure tube to pass through….

…and running the sender and tubes through the new hole. We have to get some grommet material for the new hole this week….along with some 6 gauge wire for the ammeter.

With everything else under the dash wrapped up for now, we installed the front seat, installated the front seat belts, and the new steering wheel!!! So there interior is nearly wrapped up!

It was such a bright and shiny day that we had to roll the engine out into the sunshine to admire it one more time….

We are waiting for some minor bolts to show up so we can take it to a local shop to do the proper break in on it. Break-in was not part of the deal from his engine builder.

Next we tackled the rear of the car. Brit had the two piece rear bumper re-chromed. See how shiny it looks!!! Ohhhhh…..aaaahhhhhhh !!!!

Driver’s side

Passenger side

New chrome covered bolts and nuts replaced the originals and the sandblasted and POR-15’d brackets were re-installed on the car. The bumper is installed and loosely bolted onto the frame of the car. It needs quite a bit of adjustment, but that will have to wait until the new bulbs and tail light covers and some other parts for the lights show up this week so we can wrap up assembling the bumper. So far now, this is all we can do.

Do you think Brit is happy about what we got done today?

Yup….I’d say so.

Today Brit and I were back on the Impala. After getting some small hardware from our local Menard’s, we were back working on the car for half a day.

Brit applied two cans of Eastwood trunk spatter paint and two cans of clear coat on the trunk. This includes the cardboard insulation panel we made with Hushmat for the interior. Once the clear coat was dry he re-installed the trunk mat.

The correct length water pump bolts showed up to allow us to properly install the mounting brackets for the air conditioning and alternator brackets. So the engine is closer to being installed.

Brit installed new A/C hardware on the firewall, cleaned up the mounting hardware. So the firewall is almost finished. The heating and air conditioning work is complete for now - until we install the engine and transmission.

We went back to work on the rear bumper. We replaced the sealing gaskets on the six rear taillights since the old ones are hard, and in nasty shape. Brit popped for new tail light lens too. So the rear bumper looks totally new with the bumper having been re-chromed.

The old tail light lens gaskets – nasty!

Brit tightens the passenger side bumper alignment bolts while we use a floor jack to push the bumper into place.

The bumper is done !!!! She’s a beauty !!!

Next week is encouraging. Brit’s taking the motor up to the local speed shop on Wednesday. We expect the motor to be put on an engine stand and started and broken in for the first time at 10 am on Friday!!! So I hope to have pictures of that next week as well. So maybe next weekend we will be stabbing the engine and transmission into the car.

Makin alot of progress. Lookin good.

Thanks. Emotionally speaking, I think we will fell like we've turned the corner once we see the engine start and we put the engine and transmission together and put it in the chassis. Right now, we see some great progress, the parts pile is getting smaller, but the front of the car is still really bare. We have a lot of touch up work on the paint in the rear where the bumper scratched the paint in spite of our efforts to protect it. Little things....as you know these things are never really quite finished.

We loaded up the motor for the Impala today and took it to A&A Racing Engines in Davison Michigan. It's going to be mounted on an engine dyno and broken in properly on Friday morning. With luck it will make over 300 HP at the flywheel given its combination. In addition to the engine, we had to remove the engine mounts (dang), bring the flex plate, flex plate bolts (all originals), distributor (new stock looking breakless style - no points and condenser), oil filter, and cam card. The shop will provide the break-in oil. Since this is a flat tappet hydraulic Melling cam, it will be using Royal Purple break-in oil. It's important to have ZDDP in the oil for the flat tappet cams especially during break-in.

So hopefully Friday or Saturday I will have pictures, perhaps a video or two, and the dyno spec data for this motor.

Well the last 3 days have seen some exciting action with the Impala. On Wednesday, Brit and I took the 327 small block engine up to A&A Racing Engines and Machine Shop in Davison Michigan to have it broken in. They already had the distributor and had re-curved it. We had to bring the flex plate and flex plate bolts with the engine.

Friday was the big day. When we got to the engine shop w saw the engine mounted on the dyno stand and started for the first time! Venom SAE 30 break-in oil was used since it has plenty of ZDDP for the flat tappet cam as well as the ZDDP will help seat all the bearings and piston rings.

Well break-in is a good name for this process because we were successful. We broke something….the #2 exhaust pushrod to be exact – split in two !!!! This was caused by one of two bolts that retains a bracket on the intake manifold to help support the air conditioning compressor. The bolt was too long and it went through the intake into the head into the pushrod guide and into the pushrod itself. Once the engine came up to speed slightly, you could hear it give!

Stopping an engine only 4-5 minutes into the start-up break-in cycle is never a good thing. However, we had no choice. If you watch the first video, the last minute tells the story. You can hear the engine sound change after the tech revs the engine and the push rod breaks. He does the right thing and shuts off the engine right away.

I get a call from my buddy Guitarsextreme just as we start the motor for the first time. That’s me on the phone in the beginning. The last 60 seconds is when all the fun happens. You can definitely hear the engine change just before he shuts off the motor!

http://s233.photobucket.com/user/frostydjc/media/100_4042_zpsf7725e27.mp4.html

Once we got the valve covers off, it was easy to spot the problem valve. At first we thought the push rod was bent. Then we discovered it was broken. So off came the distributor and the intake manifold. The lifter was okay. A cylinder leak down test reveal some blow by the rings into the exhaust manifold, but not enough to worry about since the valve will seat better once the break-in completes.

Here is the bolt that did it. You can’t see it in this picture but it goes all the way into the push rod guide.

Here is the two pieces of the push rod. You can see where the bolt came comes in contact with the bolt with the piece on the right!

Humorous but appropriate Kleenex box outside the dyno room – especially for us !

The machine shop replaced the push rod, and re-sealed the intake and re-assembled the motor to try again. We teased Brit that he now has a new trophy to mount and hang in his man cave. Once everything was re-assembled we tried again. This time we got through the break-in without any more trouble! Yeah!

Brit enjoys listening to the rebuilt motor sing.

http://s233.photobucket.com/user/frostydjc/media/100_4074_zpsa6bb9c14.mp4.html

Once the break-in was complete, a series of revs to progressively higher RPMs was made to better seat the rings. Once the tech was satisfied that everything was okay, we decided to run it up to see what kind of HP and torque the motor was capable of. Horsepower peaked at 225 HP and torque peaked at 289. Mind you, this is a 327 bored .030 over (rough 339 ci), an RV cam, running stock exhaust manifolds. A set of headers probably would be worth another 30-50 HP.

So the engine was dismantled from the dyno and returned to Brit’s garage. Sunday morning we will begin bolting the engine to the transmission and stabbing it into the car. What a day this has been ! Whew!!!

Our egos are bruised but the motor is returned safely to Brit’s garage.

Sunday we plan to put the engine and transmission together and put it back in the chassis.