Day 22 - Engine block! Almost there!

It's been a long long time. Truth is I've not been in shape at all for months. I'm still not in a good place but I decided a trip to the garage would be some therapy. My friend Håkan and the garage neighbour Micke joined me for some additional hands. Big thanks to them! This is kind of an important post, a bit of a milestone. In my latest post I promised to get back on the oil pump internals so I will start discussing this matter.

When I removed the distributor I forgot to pull out the drive gear that is attached to the bottom of it. It stretches down to the oil pump via a shaft.

Distributor drive gear coming out. When it was
removed, the oil pump internals fell out from the
bottom of the engine block.

This is what it looks like where the oil pump used to go...

This picture shows how the distributor drive gear attach to the oil pump,
straight through the block. Providing kind of a double functionality.

I went on to remove the crank shaft pully. Attached with 5 bolts.

Crank shaft pully removed, showing the harmonic damper or
vibration damper. Without this the engine would vibrate to pieces.

I used an air impact wrench to get it off. By doing this, the crankshaft
does not have to be secured. If you are to rotate this bolt by hand, chances
are the crankshaft will just rotate with it, and the bolt will stay in place
unless you lock the crankshaft in to place.

To get the harmonic damper off, a special pulling tool is required.
It is absolutely crucial to make sure this pulls evenly on all sides
since any side force will damage the crankshaft according to Haynes.

Once harmonic damper is disassembled, it is possible
to remove the timing cover. The top 4 bolts are one size
and the bottom 4 are another. Interestingly enough.

And finally, the timing chain is visible. Notice this is
double on the 400 big block whereas a 360 for an example
has one single chain. Despite this, the deflection was really
bad and the chains were quite loose. Acceptable deflection is
a quarter inch, tops!

The fasteners for the crankshaft were already stamped with numbers
1-5, but in order to make it more visible we marked it with a white pen.
This is really when you can't screw things up. Everything needs to go
back the exact same way because of the different wear of parts.

Picture showing our enhanced markings.

We started disassembling each connecting rod. It had two bolts,
a cap and two bearings. One top half, one bottom. We placed the
bolts on their correct sides(rings on the picture) and placed the
bearing and cap in the correct orientation at the side.

While making sure that bearing, rod cap and bolts were still in their
correct orientation we slid the pistons out of the cylinders, and
reassembled them instantly and put them into a labeled box on the
corresponding side.

Piston 1 with connecting rod, labeled and reassembled in box.
Also, the two halves of the connecting rod was already stamped
from factory, further giving a good idea which is which.

Three pistons in the box.

All pistons and connecting rods removed from the engine block!

Labeled and organized. I will buy some plastic bags that I can
wrap around each connecting rod, to make sure the bearings can't
get far from their correct rod.

And finally, placed the box, with everything numbered in front
of the engine, to demonstrate orientation.

That's all for todays post! You have to admit I'm really getting there! ;) The last weekend of this month, me and my colleague will head to his familys engine restoration shop to get things cleaned and measured. Can't wait to update about this!