Alpine Green

I don't have a lot to catch up on (as far as the blog is concerned) but there's enough here in eye-candy to post. Last time, I cleaned up the crusty dumpster that is my engine, and had the heads rebuilt. Today you get to see it go back together. It's a satisfying post at the very least. But first, let's finish tearing the engine apart.

The five-oh being as crusty as it is, the timing cover was an absolute unit to remove. Two of the bolt heads twisted right off. I eventually found that this was because the bolt shanks had rusted and expanded, wedging themselves tight in the timing cover holes. Getting them out was a fun hour and a half. Coincidentally, an hour and a half is on the longer end of the typical wrenching session these days, so progress is glacial.

With the timing cover off, it could pull out the stock camshaft. The explorer cams are notoriously mild, which makes sense. They were designed to shuttle would-be pretentious suburbanites to and from the Eddie Bauer shop (and the Olive Garden!) at the new shopping mall, in their Eddie Bauer branded chariot, while listening to the latest Michael Bolton album and threatening to confiscate Zackery's Sega Genesis if he didn't stop pestering Britteney. So of course Frank and Barb wanted a nice smooth idle, and Ford obliged by giving them camshaft with 190/200 duration at .050" and only .450" lift. And Frank and Barb loved it, at least until the divorce, when Barb took the 1996 Eddie Bauer Explorer in Evergreen Frost Metallic along with Frank's golf clubs which were in the back. Frank still can't prove that Barb took them, but she did. And she sold the set at a pawn shop for 35 dollars.  The driver cost Frank four times that, in 1994. Zackery was prescribed Ritalin shortly after the divorce, who could have seen that?

I ended up going with a Lunati VooDoo camshaft, all thanks to a Hot Rod article. Duration is 221/229 at .050" with .549"/.550" lift. It's a very mid-range camshaft, that should peak right around 6000 RPM, and hopefully make near 340 HP at the flywheel.

Thankfully this cam is a roller cam, so I don't have to worry about wiping out a lifter and wrecking the cam during break in. I've never had a flat tappet engine and have no experience with that kind of thing but it sounds pretty stupid. That's right baby boomers, flat tappet cams are stupid, and you never hopped a Coke can with your Chevelle!

While I had the timing cover off, I decided to install a new timing chain. It is adjustable, so I can advance or retard the cam timing by a few degrees if I really feel it's necessary to move the torque curve up or down the RPM range.

After installing the head bolts, I remembered that the lower head bolts go into the coolant passages and need sealant. So I got out my trusty MAP gas torch and attempted to melt out the grease I had previously applied to the threads. Not sure if it worked, but an attempt was made.

Once I got the heads installed I could finish setting up the valvetrain. After assembly I quickly found out that there was a lot of extra lash between the rocker arms and the valve tips. They were looser than Barb after a few post-divorce margaritas. I am new to pushrod engines like this Small Block Ford, so I had to do a little research. It turns out the Lunati camshaft has a .200" smaller diameter base circle than stock. This allows the cam lobes to have more lift and still fit inside the cam bearings.

The fix for a reduced base circle cam is longer pushrods. I picked up a set of +.100" pushrods to take up the slack.

Now I could button it all up. Here's to hoping that I don't have to open it up again for a very long time.

After taping off the orifices, the color could finally go on. I was looking for an old school industrial look to offset the bling of the stack intake. I also thought a subdued green hue would pay homage to the Little Green Monster from which the original engine swap came. Detroit Diesel Alpine Green checked all the boxes, so on it went.

I couldn't be happier with the color.

*** BONUS CONTENT ***

For the first five years I had my dear old welder, Joan of Arc, I didn't have a garage to store/use her in, so I stored her in the living room and carried her out to the carport a couple times per week. Now I have a garage as well as a wife, so no more living room welder storage. But now that I have a garage, it makes sense to have a welding cart. I figured I would save a little money and repurpose an old file cabinet. This is just a for cabinet with an angle iron frame around it and casters on the bottom. The casters were the most expensive part.

Jen says I need to paint the welding cart a solid color. I'm thinking black, unless anybody has a better idea.