64 more door chevelle

[Mr. E]

Maybe I missed it, but did you replace the ball joints?

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Maybe I missed it, but did you replace the ball joints?

Yessir, top o de line Napa joints.. Whole front end is rebuilt, new rod ends, centerlink, adjusting sleeves, energy suspension poly bushings, balljoints, moog springs, kyb shocks, sway bar bushings and end links too.

Using an S10 ZQ8 steering box to increase the ratio, cleaning and re-using pitman arm. Idler arm is still tight, the only thing on the front I'm re-using with a joint.

[Hotwire]

Welp, she looked good in the sun, have to save up for master cylinder and booster, damn thing is leaking brake fluid all over the new paint. Found termites in the garage wall.. on the chevelle side, had to clear everything off so exterminators could get in to run chemicals.



Playing musical garage bays sucks, but it gave me a chance to really clean the garage and tweak my setup to work a little bit better, had some wasted space before.



I temp bolted the new tank in to get it off the floor. It's 4 gallon deeper than stock. Didn't think about that sliding the front bumper back under there.. And that's why I don't own anything nice. Nice powder coating is no more.

Made a little shelf to hold the used oil collection, it was taking up too much room



Did some tweaking to improve the setup, sorted things better, swept, degreased the floors, and got everything back in place. Don't have to worry about tracking 53 yr old grease in the house now. Hoping to actually make real progress soon.

[Hotwire]

Got the rear pulled, again was surprised at the amount of nasty. You'd thought this was under a 4x4 or dump truck..



Had to get one last shot of the awesome



It was coated, not as bad as the front, but had to break out the wire brushes and putty knife



Action shot



Done, got the sway bar while I was at it, still have to get upper and lower arms.



Handle of the purple power tells the tale



Another box of parts to go on

[Hotwire]

Pulled the control arms and knocked the bushings out to make room for the energy suspension poly. Not going to waste time cleaning these up, will be replacing in the future. Got the time down to about 5 min total

https://youtu.be/1AmDPbyqmF0



Got the axle torn down, found a couple more fun surprises.. just how in the hell does this happen?



Rear had the later model axles/more splines, Eaton diff fits!



The internals were really.. Really nasty. Maybe one oil change in 53 years? It was carboned up bad, had to use screwdrivers and stainless brushes to knock it loose.



Gasket had covered the axle feed holes.. That sludge was light grey from all the metal



Desperate times.. couldn't bear paying someone to clean it, so I knocked the parts washer out of the bench and went to town. Had to zip tie a brush to a wood stick to scrub the tubes.



Yea, it was bad..



Ran out of time but it's ready for paint and new parts

[Hotwire]

You guessed it!! Time for another useless update!!

Started strong last night.. have ALL the parts/supplies I need to get the rear setup and done now, even new lug studs.. Only thing being re-used is housing, yoke, and axle shafts. Finished cleaning all the hard parts last night, bearing caps/bolts, axle shafts, shims, etc. Everything is ready to go.

This is the driver's axle, pass was worse. They came out looking great, was able to get all the glaze off the machined area where the seal/bearing rides.





Got the Eaton posi diff out, pressed on the new bearings, ran a file across the flange, cleaned it off w/ brakleen, and did the same to the ring gear. By the book.

BUT.. It started raining hard. Have everything back underneath the chevelle against the door to keep the smell away from the house the best I can. Had to shut the door due to all the freshly degreased bare metal and with everything lumped up in piles I couldn't access anything.. Wrestled the idea of hosing everything down with wd-40, but don't want to waste more brakleen in final prep. Couldn't get any after shots of the axles due to this..

Set the new gear on the diff, started a couple bolts to make sure it was lined up, gave it a couple taps w/ plastic dead blow, then started running it down w/ bolts, nice and easy by hand until it seated. By the book.



Pulled the bolts out of the ring gear to red loctite them and run them back down to final torque and they were hard to start? Got them out and every single bolt had shiny spots on the tip of the shank.



Called Summitracing, luckily the diff, gears, and install kit all came from there. Eaton posi, Richmond Excel gear set, Motive install kit. Talked with the tech, he asked me to measure the bolt length. 0.868" Ah, ARP notes the bolt length should be 0.800". Brief hold, now have ARP ring bolts headed my way free of charge. Bad news is, got tracking email this morning, they're coming from Nevada, won't have them till Saturday.

This will give me time to clean the garage, paint the housing, do the brakes, install the bushings, etc.

Also, got my diff girdle down and cleaned it up, sized it up to the rear, perfect fit! Glad I kept it around, only reason I took it off the blazer was I didn't feel it was necessary and it was making contact w/ the sway bar.

[Mwilson]

I just put 2 of those Eaton diffs in my car and someone else's they took special "Spool" berring on the carrier did you get those?

[Hotwire]

No sir. I think I know what you're talking about. When I put the Detroit truetrac in my blazer's 8.5". I had to get different bearings as the carrier posts were larger than the bearings that came in the install kit.

These just pressed right on.

[Mwilson]

ok cool, both rears I did were 8.5's

[Hotwire]

Cleaned up a little, dropped pinion races and axle bearings in the freezer, sloppy painted the brake drums, backing plates, sway bar, and hardware. Still have to blast the coil spring retainers and paint them.





R/R'd lug studs



Then went about filling up the swear jar. Measured the inner distance of the control arms, averaged them out and cut spacers out of 1" angle. They worked pretty well keeping the stock shape while pressing in the bearing shells. Only problem is if you over shoot with the impact the spacers will fly out, gouge your thumb knuckle, then make you seriously pucker as it arcs through the air right towards the drivers door. Luckily my thumb took most the energy and it landed short.

But.. one more step closer. The metal is thick, but soft? Now I understand why they flex so much and need to be boxed. I'm holding out until I can afford adjustable arms.

[RichardCranium]

Nice progress!

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by RichardCranium

Nice progress!

Thanks Darren, trying to get this thing done!

Not too much to report from the weekend though, nursing this thumb sucks.

Got the diff put together, actually had some arp assembly lube, put that on the bolt heads, red loctite on the threads



Went to pull the old pinion bearing off, set it up in my jig, walked away to get a 3/4" socket, it fell over and bearing fell off. There was no tension on the bearing except for the bearing puller snugged up to it.. Little concerning. Got the factory shim, cleaned it up, put on new pinion along with new bearing. Installed the pinion races into the diff, installed the pinion, then didn't think I was holding my tongue right getting the yoke on.. Nope. Hope you can see this:



For some reason the factory yoke is too small, doesn't even come close to engaging. Luckily I had found a s10/blazer yoke in the midst of re-arranging the garage. It fit, but the ujoint size is a lot bigger.



Wrestled w/ what route I wanted to take, called Summit, I had to wait until Monday to talk with their tech dept. Said f'it, blasted and painted the blazer yoke, while it was drying I blasted and painted the coil spring retainers and bolts. I've got a blazer driveshaft in the shed, going to see if it'll fit the trans tunnel w/o getting close to anything, if so, will run it w/ the bigger u-joints. If not I'll run the stock chevelle driveshaft w/ a conversion joint on the rear. Stock chevelle uses a 1310 u-joint (retainer on outside of cup). Blazer/S10 uses an SR44 ujoint (retainer on inside of cup). It's a 1330 ujoint, just has the snap ring on the inside of the cup..

Got everything installed and snugged down, have .011" backlash, supposed to be .007-.009". Got to shim the diff to the pass side a hair to get what I need, then I can check the pattern. The factory shims are a little thinner and the diff is installed tight. Going to be fun trying to get them in without bending them.



Got my box of junk down ready to dial it in.. only done this a time or two..



And this is how it sits. Haven't got anything else done. Took last night off, thumb is still hurting pretty good. Smacked it hard enough to bruise the opposite side of the knuckle.

[Hotwire]

Had a little fun. The diff was tight with all the metal being clean and dry, no good spot to pry on to pop the diff out of the housing. Tried one desperate move and it worked. Had an old belt laying around, use it to keep from marring up good metal when I need to clamp down. I wiped it down, wrapped the diff up, put a hub puller on my slide hammer upside down and tangled the belt up in it. Couple of pops and the rear was out!

Next desperate attempt was going to be straddling the axle w/ the engine hoist and use it to pull the diff out.



Got some time last night but was interrupted by neighbor trying to troubleshoot no brakes on his Ford truck..

I got out the mic and really measure the factory shims, then dialed in the backlash. Manual calls out .007-.009, came up right at .007, called it good, and checked the pattern.

Pinion is a hair off but I'm running it. The pattern mimics the test pattern that came on the gear from the factory. White marking is the factory run.





Blazer yoke blasted and painted, surprised it fit so well



And the rear how it sits. Hoping to button it up tonight and get the brakes replaced / new lines ran.

[Mr. E]

Keep it up. It's great to see a diy project on here.

[patl]

If its gonna get abused, I would check that upper crossmember. They really need some bracing /boxing. My 64 broke on the passenger side. Now I was running brackets every weekend, driving it to work and doing late night doughnuts LOL....

[Hotwire]

Originally Posted by Mr. E

Keep it up. It's great to see a diy project on here.

Thanks man, it'll be far from anything amazing when I get done, but it'll keep me entertained.

Originally Posted by patl

If its gonna get abused, I would check that upper crossmember. They really need some bracing /boxing. My 64 broke on the passenger side. Now I was running brackets every weekend, driving it to work and doing late night doughnuts LOL....

I appreciate the insight! I've seen braces for people running coilovers as the shock tower wasn't meant to take the full weight of the car. I'll look them over when I pull everything out to run fuel lines to make sure it's ok. I don't have the cash flow to run brackets every weekend but I'll probably be driving it like I do!

Got diff final sealed and drum brakes freshened up last night. Spent time cleaning all the hardware, took longer than I anticipated, along with undoing some jackassery. Slow going with the thumb still, drum springs were really fun..



Looks like the PO did some brake work too. I had to research the correct routing of everything to get it right. He even put the adjusters in backwards so the kickout pawl wasn't even close to touching the adjuster.



The adjusters were seized up, had to let them soak, break free, then clean them out and grease them. Started on brake tubing, I had purchased 2 different length tubes, one's too short. Also realized I have to do something w/ the t-block, hose I purchased isn't going to work.



While I was at it I flapper disked the face of the drums as they had a large buildup of rust/primer/red paint on them to make sure the rear wheels ran true. Put a light coat of rustoleum satin black spray back over the bare metal. And the stopping point. Napa run after work, taking back steel fuel line and paying more for Nickel Copper line, will be easier to work with and be a little more corrosion resistant, swapping u-joints to SR44, running blazer driveshaft, and getting the right brake hose/tubing.

[Mr. E]

Ni cop is awesome stuff. So easy to work with it makes it well worth the money.

I'm about to replace all of the ss lines I ran around the front of my car a few years back.

[Hotwire]

Thanks man, just trying to uncoil this steel is ridiculous, figure I need to buck up and do it right.

Next thing to figure out is running down the frame rail, how to transition to the body and up to the back of the intake. I have heat sleeve I can put on it to get over the exhaust, just not sure how I want to run it. I might run to pull a part tomorrow morning and see if I can get a set of lines from a silverado that runs down the trans then tie in to the nicu stuff..

[Hotwire]

Daughter is starting up softball again so updates may get spotty. Did a lot of family this weekend but made some garage time.

Went to yard Sat morning and found a complete undisturbed 04 Tahoe with compete fuel system. Grabbed intake to tank lines and flex fuel sensor for $30. Need to go back and pick some trucks of their plastic fuel line hangers. Thinking about tacking little pieces of angle to the frame, drilling a hole, and mounting fuel line that way. Granted the fuel line exits driver's side while stock chevelle is ran on pass side, not sure which way I'll go.



Came home and tried to get things done. Wemmens came home mid brake job, got to talking, then went back to work.



Had to get another stick of brake tube, got the brakes done, then started on the bushings. The box looked like it was opened before I got it but looked like everything was there. It's missing a little snubber that goes on the end of the factory shell. Summit is sending me one. Left side missing.



Installed jounce bumpers, springs, and tires. Diff clutches are tight, can't turn the axle at all by hand, can't wait to cut some donuts! I'm checking this off, on to painting engine, then installing engine/trans, running fuel lines and wiring.

Hopefully last of the rear pics, I'm as tired of them as everyone else..

[Mwilson]

nice!

[Shrt Bus]

Great progress... :thumbs up:

[Hotwire]

Thanks guys, I'm definitely wanting to see this thing on the ground.

Finally got to mess with the good stuff. Glad to see the engine is pretty clean internally, was taken care of. The oil pump has no scarring or wear, that's a big thumbs up sign for me.



Have to clean out my parts washer tank, get fresh solution in there, then cleaning the covers of the engine and bolts, painting in my normal scheme, regasketing the engine, porting/shimming oil pump, then throwing it all back together.

[Mr. E]

That does look pretty clean.

[Hotwire]

Got the parts washer cleaned out and new solution filled. Man it was completely nasty and long over due..

Parts cleaned



Then started porting the oil pump. Can't find all my bits but knocked it out best I could.

Inlet before



After



I had taken a picture of the outlet before but got a call and am assuming it didn't save it..

Outlet started, got called in to dinner, little more smoothing/blending to do

[Hotwire]

Finished up the oil pump and shimmed the relief spring.





Painted





Then while I had the engine open I swapped the stock springs with new springs I had laying on the shelf. 12589774, same spring used on LS1, LS4, LQ4, LQ9, L92. Nothing special, but figure it'll help till I can afford a cam and springs.





Painting the block tomorrow, sealing it up, then hopefully installing flywheel, clutch.