Last Indian

On 7/24/2020 at 4:41 PM, Frosty said:

But the Minnow was lost you know.

"No phone, no lights, no motor car,
Not a single luxury,
Like Robinson Crusoe,
It's primitive as can be"

 

Sounds like COVID-19! Isolation, out of touch! Who knew!

5 hours ago, Frosty said:

When I first read your question my first reaction was "hell no" but then I had to think about it. That's when I remembered the difference in wheelbase length.

One of these days I am going to loose it. My wife already accuses me of having too much useless trivia in my head. If I learn much more, I will have to dump my knowledge of all episodes of Gillgan's Island to make room for more.

Well, it was just a three hour tour you know! 

7 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

all loaded up and heading back to Taupo.... getting the hell out of Auckland!!😡

And after a very long day finally home, just on dark

This shell is way too good, no rust, 2 small dents, i could fix this one too !!!..... but then i need another Chassis😞

oh and fitzy, the guy had a 65 grand prix  coupe in parts in his shed !! whole car 

Well?! What’s the problem? Take the best parts and make that best rebuild! Then take what’s left and sell it as is! Or rebuild that one as best you can with what’s left and keep it or sell it! 
The frame that’s bent on your original one is fixable! Especially once you have the frame out from under the body! 

8 hours ago, Frosty said:

Always happy to help out mate! You know that! Cheers!

Kiwi - Best of Luck to you mate! We're all cheering for you!

We know what this olde girl means to you and watching you get her back on the road helps motivate us on our own projects. It give us a little sense of pride if we can help you out in any way we can from our cozy Lazy Boy arm chairs and answer your questions as best we can.

Frankly I wish I could spend a whole lot more time this summer with Lucy than I've been able to. Life gets in the way. COVID-19, money, flooded basement, kids and family birthday parties, parents/family health, and oh yeah - work, all conspire get in the way. So no need for apologizes, just get out there and do it man! Just know that we are cheering for you here from the sidelines!

Oh yeah - tons of pictures please!!!

What Frosty said!! 

2 hours ago, PlagueOfBadgers said:

Thank you for your reply. I forgot to mention yes, long block no accessory, and no core charge. It's going to be disconnect pull out put in and reconnect. I will actually be rolling back the miles on the car by 66K. They also have a one year warranty and do not require mine back for a core so I'm going to send that one out to be rebuilt. Did not blow any holes in the block so hopefully, it has no stress cracks in it. 

Yup! Should be good the ECM is the brains that reads and controls the other sensors. Tells them what to do. The only issues you could see are possible with the MAF on the throttle body. Sometimes they changed the throttle body from one year to the next and the MAF mounting will be different. If that were to occur, either replace the throttle body with your old one or get the correct MAF for that year throttle body, the pigtail should be the same.

Before you take the engine out take good pictures of how the wiring harness are laid out for everything. Fuel injectors, coolant sensor, MAP, IAC, IAT, crank sensor, coil packs, EGR, etc! 

24 minutes ago, PlagueOfBadgers said:

Hello everyone, been a member for a while now but never had a problem with my car so never really had to ask a question but that day has come.   

I have an 08 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP with the stock 5.3L V8 in it, 8th digit C. My son threw a rod in it the other day and I need to just get up and running for now. I found a decent used 5.3L V8 GXP motor from and 06, they say Vin 8th digit is C with a one year warranty. Does anyone know if the 06 and 08 motors are the same. Not much info on the Web for this.   

Thanks in advance. Chris. 

As far as the engine goes, there shouldn't be an issue. I will assume all you’re getting is the engine? Or just the short block? Either way I again will assume no electronics come with the engine? Your ECM will interface with the components that attach to the engine. MAP, EGR, IAT, etc! So take those from your current engine and you should be fine!

42 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I got a call from the repair shop on the Roadmonster yesterday. I took it in for a variety of things. AC not working, battery drain, temp gage isn't working, front end sags, driver door sticks, rear drive side window doesn't go all the way up.

AC is low on refrigerant. However, the compressor is getting noisy. So I may want to consider replacing it eventually.

Battey drain is caused by a map light that was left on. Doh! 

Temp gage isn't working because the sensor on the engine failed and the pigtail wire is burned up. So that needs to be replaced.

Driver's door and passenger door's still need to be taken apart from the inside and inspected.

Front end - well it's completely shot. It needs new springs, shocks, 2 out 4 ball joints, one tie-rod end, and sway bar end link is bad. So essentially a total rebuild and front end alignment. 

Oh yearh the anti-lock brake pump has failed too. It needs to be replaced with a remaned unit.

All totalled - it's about a $2500 repair bill.

Pocket change! 

Great accomplishment Mike! Nothing better than seeing it all come together!

20 hours ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

you must have good eye sight Last Indian!!

 nice job

how do you hold the copper in place ?🙄

Yes I can still see pretty well for an old fart! I think I had mentioned before that I had  been a tool and die maker first, than a R&D machinist for a number of years before doing the engineering?! Those two crafts require very good measurement perception to accomplish. You need to be able to differentiate down to at least .010 of an inch.

I hold the copper in place with 3M emblem tape. It has fairly high resistance to heat! And since these will be seeing engine heat I’m a little hesitant to use an epoxy adhesive and a press fit without a shear to cut the copper is out of the question!

still need to polish up the copper.

13 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

You JUSTA can't seem to catch a break man.  While it's true most all heads are all aluminum these days,  kinda funny he's accepting work knowing he doesn't have the tools to work on it.

I was laughing as I hit the submit button, as then your post went. Figured I had ya beat by .10 sec.  holeshot.  Somehow ya beat me on the big end!!!!

That’s funny! ! I thought the same thing! 
The cast iron head deal makes no sense to me! There’s got to be more cast iron heads out there than aluminum! Heck the 3800 was still running cast iron heads in 2009!

1 hour ago, JUSTA6 said:

Experimenting would get costly quick.  But I'd be dumb enough to try a metal blade on my ban saw.   Set the depth guide @ 1/2 and make an L shaped piece to go on the square (so your material being cut rides up on the lip of the L)  Never used on anything as thin as 30ga, but have cut thin plexi strips like that.  Seems like copper would resist bending and cut fairly well, while moving very slow. Can't leave me hangin....how did ya cut it??? 

You’re on the right track buddy! I have a long 24” square, so I scribe a straight line JustA off the edge. Then move over 9/16” and scribe another line. I use a very fine, 24 tooth, band saw blade and yup, cut slow! 
Then comes the pain! I put it in the vise, like you see it, only with jaw protectors, and start filing the edge, 6” at a crack moving it and overlapping with each movement to get the edge smooth and straight. Than I flip it to the other side and repeat, but this time I use my calipers measuring the width incrementally to make sure it’s parallel and the right width. When I get really close I trial fit to see where it’s hitting, then mark it, measure it and file it till it fits properly!

Ok this has been really tedious! Where’s a shear when you need it?

JustA try to take .030 thick copper flat sheet stock, cut two pieces off it .500 wide 22” long and keep both sides parallel to each other to fit in a 1/2 milled slot! Fun! Real fun!

2 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

You guys Musta missed he's building a 535 with the help from the co owner of allpontiac.  Using some of the parts from the 350.  Agree with Frosty and Last Indian.  8 second car is not streetable, 10 sec is really the outside limit.  11's as Last Indian said would be a realistic goal (and fastest car in the school parkin lot!) and both brought up the safety issues that must be met to run it on the strip.  They are there to keep you safe.  Now I'm late to the party as reply's are already in front of my post.

JustA, you are never late to the party! The party doesn’t start till you’re here!

Yes I saw it was a 535! Still won’t generate enough hp to to get to 8 seconds and most likely not even 10 flat! In the Lemans that is! The money you have to throw at a 10 second car is close to double that of a 12 second car! 

2 hours ago, Wrongway said:

Thanks Indian, I wouldn't be at this point if it wasn't for you and the others helping to steer me down the right roads bro. I honesty don't know. When I had the machine shop do the block and heads I didn't ask what brands he used. I no that he said I had 2.11/1.77 valves and never thought anything else about it until a post by frosty back in January. I no I'm now using Melling valves but no idea about the seals. When the new shop inspects the heads I would think they would check seals, hope so anyways. I'm hoping to hear back from them today or tomorrow. I will let you know as soon as I hear from them. But it does make sense being I trashed so many of the valves bro.

First of all I am very happy to see that Ringo’s website works JustA the way he would want it to! People pitching in to help one another out! No condemnation, no heckling, JustA working to resolve someone’s problem! Way to little of the today!

I would guess that the shop that did the heads the first time put in good aftermarket valve seals. To do so they must cut the top of the valve guide. Perfect Circle for instance! A lot of those seals are white and whether they put those in or not they should replace the seals with new ones this time as well.

14 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

When your driving on the shoulder instead of the road, ya know it's springtime in Michigan. 

Copy that buddy! Been there done that!

Wrongway, glad you’re zeroing in on all the things that need addressed. The white plastic pieces you found? What type of valve stem seals did you use? With all the valve related damage you’ve seen it just might be from them!

Wrongway, if you’re going to pull the motor, & if it were mine I would, than I would at least take it down to the short block! Clean everything really well, as Bear describes! The one thing you can’t check without disassembling is the pistons and rings! When the valves broke, if that caused enough movement in the rings or pistons that could have caused an issue with either one. So once you have it all apart, move each piston through its full stroke and inspect each cylinders bore carefully for scaring! Then if you do send it to a shop see if they have solid stress plates or some variant of that to pressurize each piston assembly to check the ring sealing. It’s just one more of those things that you would hate to assume is ok, put the whole thing back together and have another hiccup!

23 hours ago, Frosty said:

....and probably one (or more) of these biohazard stickers.

Where's GE ?

Actually I came with a flip card attached to my navel that had all of those and more! 😁

13 minutes ago, Wrongway said:

Fitting is ordered to air up cylinders, be here Friday. Do I still need to get a set of gauges for a leak down test? Or will airing up cylinders take care of that?

Depends on what the fitting is or looks like! If the fitting is conducive to putting a gage on it and you use a female air chuck on the fill side that would surffice.