Keith;
Well since you asked, I put on the gaskets and bolted the wet sump oil
pan onto the Donovan block. After turning it upright again in the mount,
I put the gaskets on and put a few bolts through the manifold into the
heads. Then I thought I'd drop in the distributor, so I looked down the
hole to see how the oil pump drive shaft tang was aligned and....damn! I
had forgotten to put it in! Well, I thought, no problem, I'll just drop
it in from the top. No such luck-- the collar was about 1/16" too large
in diameter to fit through the hole down to the oil pump. Arrrggghhhh.
So I had to take it apart again to put that lousy oil pump shaft in. It
wasn't a complete waste of time, though. Since the manifold was off I
checked the port alignment with the Fel- Pro 1206 intake manifold gasket
and saw that it wasn't as good as it could have been. So with the
outlines scribed on the manifold and armed with my trusty 35 year old
Craftsman die grinder I set about porting the manifold. I thought it
might be magnesium so I did it outside the shop (you taught me a lesson,
Keith) for safety's sake. It turned out to be aluminum after all. Only
after I finished grinding did I notice the word "ALUMINUM" cast into the
underside. Geeezz.
And that's MY story.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-land-speed@autox.team.net
[mailto:owner-land-speed@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Keith Turk
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 10:59 AM
To: land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Detroit/Iowa... and home...
Been out messing around... took the Berkeley up to Detroit to have an
LS1 E
motor fitted... at Wheel 2 Wheel performance....
Also had the opportunity to hang out with Rick Bynes... if any of you
think
you have space issues you need to see how Rick builds and fabricates in
less
then no space... amazing organizational skills.... and the output from
this
little shop is always first rate... Thanks Rick for making the time
Saturday... I enjoyed the visit.... and love the quality of your work.
( Rick
is our engine sealing specialist. )
Then after the trip to Detroit I hustled over to Iowa and picked up a
new
batch plant I'd designed last winter to make concrete rocks.... Very
cool
system ... 20' long 13' high and 6.5' long..... grossed out at
9000lbs...
Needless to say it was a VERY long trip home...
What is everyone else up to?
Keith
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