'68 318 to carbed Magnum 5.2: Check my checklist

[cudak888]

The Magnum heads exceeded every expectation upon inspection and testing - and no cracks to boot.

Cleaned up the decks on both the heads and block, and put them in today with new Fel-Pro head bolts. She's looking nice:

Mind you, this is more or less a mockup. I'm short two rockers, pushrods, an intake (the Eddy was there mainly to keep the lifter gallery free of paint as was the oil filter and spark plugs) and that nasty looking lifter.

Still, there's enough here that I can put it in the engine bay and worry about all of that later.

I have a week off, so it's going into the car without drilled heads. I'm going to bite the bullet and dig up a Magnum-compatible M1 intake and call it a day. Could be worse.

EDIT: Just realized that the dipstick isn't strictly in its factory spot. Arrugh...

-Kurt

 

[sireland67]

Why do you think their is an issue with the dipstick?
My 360 mag is a little taller than LA but not enough to hurt anything.

 

[cudak888]

Why do you think their is an issue with the dipstick?
My 360 mag is a little taller than LA but not enough to hurt anything.

Factory placement seems to be the bolt to the left (from the front of the engine, not from driver's position) of the one I have it mounted to (and thus keeping it off the timing chain cover) but that mounting option may have shifted a bit with the Magnum heads.

At any rate, I tried moving to the bolt further left, but the tube is too short. It'll have to stay like this.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Teardown of the original motor for removal officially began today (complete with a lot of GoPro footage - TBA), and it's pretty much ready for removal as it sits:

There wasn't a single bit of antifreeze in it - just water. I'd hit a rusty gusher every 10 minutes. Oh well, constipated motor.

Photo doesn't show that I made sure to pull the 1967-style, poly-318-compatible timing chain cover before the evening was out. Can't wait to throw that on eBay and (hopefully) turn it into some play money for the rest of the build. Unfortunately, this cover also confirmed my fears - this is a '67 motor with a '67 gasketed distributor. So much for reusing the dizzy for startup. Ah well, it forces me into doing the HEI ignition module upgrade which I planned on anyway.

That said, I made it a point to mock up the large-flange, driver's side 1992-1993 Magnum exhaust manifold (P/N #53006619), as I don't believe I've ever seen photos of the clearance one gets when installing these manifolds in a power-steering equipped B-body:

Looks tight...

...but it isn't:

Rear exit dumps so perfectly between the trans and torsion bar, you'd wonder if Chrysler actually considered backwards compatibility with the B/C-bodies, given the coil-overs in Dakotas and B-series vans. (Please ignore the rubber line on the other side of the torsion bar - that's the previous owner's so-called repair of the trans cooler supply line and should not be found in any stock B-body):

Pretty sure I've heard they don't fit the same SBM w/PS combo in A-bodies, unfortunately. Someone would make a killing repop'ing 340-style manifolds if there weren't so many cheap headers out there.

The saga continues tomorrow...

-Kurt

 

[Abodybomber]

The Magnum heads exceeded every expectation upon inspection and testing - and no cracks to boot.

Cleaned up the decks on both the heads and block, and put them in today with new Fel-Pro head bolts. She's looking nice:

Mind you, this is more or less a mockup. I'm short two rockers, pushrods, an intake (the Eddy was there mainly to keep the lifter gallery free of paint as was the oil filter and spark plugs) and that nasty looking lifter.

Still, there's enough here that I can put it in the engine bay and worry about all of that later.

I have a week off, so it's going into the car without drilled heads. I'm going to bite the bullet and dig up a Magnum-compatible M1 intake and call it a day. Could be worse.

EDIT: Just realized that the dipstick isn't strictly in its factory spot. Arrugh...

-Kurt

Nice......

 

[cudak888]

I think something used to be here.

Anyone for a '68 Satellite gasser? Put my A-body in shot to keep the natives happy ;)

Interesting B-body left-side engine mount observations. Though these mounts look like A-body mounts, the rubber isolator bolts farther forward on A-bodies:

• The 360 has one less ear (bottom rear) than the 318 for mounting, but retains the same double ears up front.
• The left engine mount has material spanning all four ears. Some online discussions had me thinking that the mount would need material welded to it. No need.
• The forward bottom mount hole - necessary if you want all holes properly bolted on the 360 - is not drilled on my mount, but the steel is stamped with more than enough material to drill the necessary hole without any issue.
• The modification requires no welding. Drill it, bolt it, forget it.
• The isolators are NOT original. The rubber is marked "Made in Korea."
• Some sites report that the rear ear casting on the 360 sits farther forward, requiring a shim. From eyeballing my photos, it certainly appears such.
• Note the addition of the third freeze plug on the side of the block.
• Doug Anderson's article reported that these later blocks move the bolt hole for the transmission reinforcement brackets forward 1" on the side of the block. Sure looks that way. You can hardly see the original, but it's behind the chain holding the engine down. Compare its position with the center head bolt, then do the same comparison on the 360. Sure makes a difference to visualize it.
• I don't know if the 1989 360-to-A518 brackets are going to work. Might need 1988-91 LA-to-A500 brackets.

And one other thing. This motor is SUPER GRIMY. Block has as much oil crud on the outside as it does on the inside:

Also - I have a theory of what's wrong with it, and why it has three cylinders with abnormally low compression readings. I don't think the cylinder walls are scored, and I don't think the valves are sticking open.

I think it's blown both head gaskets, and the reason it hasn't been obvious is because there wasn't ANY coolant in this engine when I drained it (or when it drained itself out of the timing chain cover bolts). It's full of water - entirely. Even an engine filled with water usually has some old coolant in it that'll work its way out during a teardown, but not a drop of green ever showed it's face out of a cooling passage during the entire removal.

If this engine has a dual head gasket failure, and never had coolant in it, it would explain two things: 1. The rust on the rockers and rocker shaft, and 2. The fact that the oil hasn't turned to expresso yet.

We'll find out when I swap engines on the engine stand. Should be interesting to see the inside of this thing.

-Kurt

 

[txstang84]

...down the rabbit hole we go, eh?

 

[cudak888]

...down the rabbit hole we go, eh?

Not today, tomorrow. Previous owner thought that the trans cooler line could be repaired with a rubber hose, so I need to bend a new line and install it tomorrow morning, before the engine goes down.

Cleaned up the engine bay a bit today, sprayed the K-frame, and touched up the factory undercoating. Came out decent, seeing as I wasn't aiming for anything but "better than it was before":

In other news, motor mounts are on. Had to drill the left mount, and shim the right for the B-body brackets. The front ears on the 360 are also notably thicker than the 318, and required longer bolts.

Reference photos. Don't you love those not-so-flat rear ear surfaces? Bends the bolt nicely. Yech.

And, thanks to some wheeler-dealing with forum member mderoy340, I now have an M1 intake atop the Frankenmagnum:

The best part is that this is the version of the M1 that supports Magnum heads and the LA offset water pump bypass and thermostat outlet. It's the Mopar equivalent to the Crossfartwind intake. Part number is P4532588:

-Kurt

P.S.: The replacement lifter came in from RockAuto. I filled it with oil and put it in the bore. It felt terrible. You could feel casting flash scraping against the bore. I pulled it out, and put the pitted lifter right back in. Figured it was the lesser of two evils, i.e.: Don't screw with success since '89...

 

[cudak888]

Everything went as perfect as one could ask for, except for the passenger engine mount, which refused to line up with the K-frame without some persuasion.

Unfortunately, when I went to install the bolt, the welds on the nut at the other end gave way. All of them were cold welds. Bolt still wasn't centered when I installed it. I can still tighten the two, but I still have to center the stepped edge of the bolt with the engine mount. Won't be easy no matter what I do (and I'm not out of the notion of considering a new mount, not that I expect it to be different in terms of fit).

Otherwise, the M1 intake, B&M flexplate, and center sump pipe and pan were pretty much the only aftermarket doo-dads I needed to throw on the Frankenmagnum to make it fit. The rest is glorious excess.

And in other news, Greaseball gets taken apart:

I was hoping for '67 closed-chamber heads since everything else on the engine was dated '67, but the engine threw a killjoy and dumped open-chamber 675's on me:

See anything interesting?

Hello there, Mr. Burnt Valve. Looks like that water-in-the-coolant-only mantra of the previous owner came back to bite this engine in the butt.

Still haven't found the culprit of the third problem cylinder, but really didn't have time for figuring that out yet. To think that I may have been able to solve all of this with a simple valve job or another pair of heads.

But then we wouldn't have this fun thread, would we?

-Kurt

 

[txstang84]

Goo...those heads look awful.

shortblock looks ok from the outside...you plan to pull it apart and inspect? Would make a fine candidate for a backup engine...

 

[cudak888]

Goo...those heads look awful.

shortblock looks ok from the outside...you plan to pull it apart and inspect? Would make a fine candidate for a backup engine...

It looks OK, but the cylinder walls are uniformly worn with a slight ridge at the top of the bore. I don't have a ridge reamer or the dingleberry tool either.

While it could be done (right down to throwing the 308 heads on it after a quick DIY lapping), I wouldn't really be that far ahead.

Easier to eBay the remaining parts to someone who just might need them.

-Kurt

 

[txstang84]

no argument there...

 

[cudak888]

Ordered a pair of replacement trans cooler lines. This is how the box arrived:

Sure enough, the one line I needed of the two is bent. I could probably straighten it out, but that's not what I paid for. It's particularly off-putting, because I ruined three 6' bend-to-fit lines trying to make that curvature a week ago. Now this one arrives damaged too.

Murphy is working overtime here.

-Kurt

 

[txstang84]

I've worked those before, sorry to hear they have bends that aren't supposed to be there...but as long as there aren't any pinches in the line, you can round them back out with a hand bender. I've done the same thing with brake and fuel line kits. I can't really tell by the pics but it looks like the ends are undamaged and have the proper bends.

In the end, if you're not pleased with the item, now you're stuck sending them back. Hindsight being 20/20, you might have been able to reject the box when it arrived since it was collapsed...one more annoyance.

 

[cudak888]

I've worked those before, sorry to hear they have bends that aren't supposed to be there...but as long as there aren't any pinches in the line, you can round them back out with a hand bender. I've done the same thing with brake and fuel line kits. I can't really tell by the pics but it looks like the ends are undamaged and have the proper bends.

In the end, if you're not pleased with the item, now you're stuck sending them back. Hindsight being 20/20, you might have been able to reject the box when it arrived since it was collapsed...one more annoyance.

I already tried it - they're straight now. The repop is very strong.

That said, even though it's more or less fixed now, I didn't order them bent. I'm willing to wait for a set the way they were intended and send these back.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Latest progress. New water pump installed, along with the old engine's fuel pump and fuel line. I'm going the 1970+ route with the water inlet on the passenger's side. I'm hoping I won't regret this.

Almost installed the '89 van's power steering bracket (actually got to the point of installing the rear bracket, as seen below), but got fed up with the fact that it requires a needless 1/16" spacer on the main bracket's lower bolt. Heck with that, I'm going to pick up the proper '70+ brackets.

You can barely see it, but the van's '89 mini starter has been installed too. Didn't clean up that well, but it's passable.

I'm probably going to stay with the 1989 pulley wheel and crankshaft pulley. Gives me a few extra belt options.

-Kurt

 

[txstang84]

If the .060" washer is that annoying to you, you could epoxy it or weld it to the bracket and repaint it...problem solved.

 

[cudak888]

If the .060" washer is that annoying to you, you could epoxy it or weld it to the bracket and repaint it...problem solved.

I've been considering it, but I'm a bit concerned about the original way Dodge engineered this thing. I'll admit that the single bracket itself is simpler than the 4-bracket 1970+ design, but I'm still skeptical:

First off, I'm not entirely sure how much of that has been played around with - and I know that pump was swapped. The dogbone bracket does belong there from the photos I've seen of other vehicles, but I haven't the slightest idea why there is a tensioner behind it which does nothing - though it was probably thrown there as a jury-rigged spacer (in which case, what's supposed to be there instead?).

That also leads me to the question: Why did Chrysler put that cast iron dogbone bracket there in the first place? They weren't present on the earlier 1970+ style brackets, and it doesn't particularly tension anything. Near as I can figure it, all it might do is prevent stress cracks on the shell of the aluminum water pump.

Then there's the single crossbar spacer at the bottom of the pump, which spaces out the bracket at the bottom. Again, no real good reason for it, unless stress cracks are a worry - but I don't want to put a bracket in if it doesn't have a real purpose other than to obscure more of the front of the engine.

With all this concern about brackets and such, I'm also wondering whether that orphaned tensioner-type bracket behind the dogbone belongs somewhere on the PS pump. Right now, the only way to tension it is by grabbing the pump shell and giving it a good yank to the side - no provisions for a breaker bar.

Not to mention the fact that this bracket completely obscures the timing marks from the front (though they can be seen from the side).

Decisions, decisions...

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

From: http://poorboy1.proboards.com/thread/6069/1989-ramcharger-resurrection-wheeler-project?page=17

If this setup is correct, then either the PS pump was sitting cockeyed in the van, or there's yet another washer missing in the mix.

EDIT: Looks like it may be correct:

EDIT #2: Just looked at the bracket. This bracket behind the pump is definitely correct - whoever put the van together didn't know what they were doing. Going to use it.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

I went ahead and installed the 1980's Van/Ramcharger style P/S bracket this evening, knowing now how Ma Mopar intended its installation. I put a washer at the bottom to space out the bottom bolt, which would have originally been spaced forward by the magnetic pickup adapter:

Lots of space to read the timing marks, and the two-bracket setup (not including the PS tensioner) is super simple:

Everything went on fine - but then I realized that the dogbone is in the way of one of the water pump holes used by the Bouchillon Sanden brackets. Then it finally dawned on me that the dogbone is a spacer for the air pumps used on these engines. It isn't needed at all, not even for reinforcement (the casting is really light aluminum and wouldn't hold up to much stress at all).

That said, I'm going to order a PS pump rebuild kit, and remove the dogbone soon as I have the Bouchillon brackets on hand.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Opened up the power steering pumps tonight to "see what I could see."

1989 Ram Van B350 unit at left with press-fit pulley; 1967 (1968) Satellite unit at right with Woodruff keyed pulley:

Since the '89 bracket uses those three holes in the pulley for easy access to the mounting bolts, I'm going to use the later pulley for the purpose, even though it's a bit larger. The van had a virtually identical steering box to the Satellite - I'm hoping the difference in pulley diameter won't make that much of a difference.

Not sure which flow valve to use though - the old valve from the '67 pump is 1/16" shorter, but has the same three washers as spacers against the spring.

This little discovery has me ticked just a bit though. Since it's a 1980+ pump, it has metric mounting threads. Supposedly the pressure valve hose adapter is metric as well:

I'd like to avoid any metric if I can - bad enough to lug around imperial sockets alone - and I'm not sure if I can swap the '89 shaft onto the '67. I believe I have a third Saginaw spare from my '79 Lincoln as well, so I'm not without options.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

My China-in-a-box "KKS" 1970-style radiator arrived today:

Test fitting. It's getting painted black, no matter what. Sticks out like a sore thumb now.

I was pleased - not to mention a bit surprised - to see that it lines up more or less perfectly with the factory bolt holes.

It's about an inch and a quarter lower than the factory radiator, which - I believe - is to facilitate the use of this radiator in M-bodies - Fifth Avenues, late Furys, and Dippies. The angled cutout at the bottom right would certainly seem to suggest so, anyway. Radiator shroud mounts sure look like they're made to accommodate an M-body radiator shroud.

Chinese cap on my Chinese radiator. Bah! Go play on a Kawei W1 and leave my Satellite alone.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Not much progress today. Tightened the crank bolt and mounted the main pulley.

I'm using the 1989 4-groove main pulley and dual pulley on the water pump. I know that I'll be guaranteed that it'll work with the matching '89 power steering pump bracket, but I'm not sure if the Bouchillon brackets will place the Sanden or the alternator in an opportune location. We'll see.

Also mounted the coil. After examining the Advanced Autozone Boys generic replacement from the '68 engine, I decided to use the original, rusty and crusty Japanese-made 1989 Mopar-branded coil from the van.

The electrical contact inside the coil's snout for the distributor wire appears to be a collection of high quality stainless steel bits - far better than any of the other parts store coils I have. That was enough for me.

I still need an M-body radiator shroud for this build. Anyone have one?

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

The rebuild kit for the power steering pump arrived today, so I took it upon myself to discover the idiosyncrasies between the two pumps:

The impeller assembly on the left, with the thick vanes, is from the '67/8 pump. On the right is the '89 pump, with thin vanes, and an extra slot across the circumference (presumably to suck in PS fluid via capillary action to assist lubricating the vanes?):

From what I've read, mixing and matching these to the bodies isn't advisable, as they wear to everything around them. Whether this is true or not, I cannot say. I'll take it as a given and not try to mess too much with it.
That said, the '89 shaft is an uncomfortably tight fit in the older pump, so the shaft bushing will have to be swapped in the hydraulic press tomorrow. Not fun...

EDIT: I completely forgot to post these photos two weeks ago. This is what was in the oil pan of the '68 318. Molasses oil:

Not a pretty sight. I'm glad I chose to replace the engine and not just throw a pair of heads on the original motor.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

A bit ticked today.

I swapped the main shaft bushing in the Saginaw pump with my hydraulic press, no problems at all:

However, the shaft, when reinserted, hardly spins at all without the pump pulley installed. And even then, it's a chore and a half.

I started to suspect the metric nonsense - or my installation - so I ripped apart a spare SAE Saginaw pump from my '78 Lincoln and swapped shafts on each pump. Not only was the '78 shaft tight in the new-bushing '89 pump, the '89 shaft bound tight in the '78 pump.

Is there some special trick to seating these that is escaping me?

-Kurt