engine bay work/interior clean up

good update! today julie flew in, and after i picked her up with my best friend cassy, we went by my dads and got some workin in:



worst pic of me ever.



me and cassy working.

we spent a good 6-7 hours sanding, degreasing, and what have you, to accomplish this:





still have to do the firewall and etc... but we got a good amount primered, and it already looks so much better. hopefully we can get some spackle paint on there soon, and just make the engine bay look REAL nice.

while me and cassy were doing this, vlv's own individjulie, and the most wonderful girlfriend ever, did this:









very nice!

we spent 77 total, but most of the cost was for a k&n air filter.





i'm hoping we can get back out there next weekend, and get the rest of the engine bay finished. tonight felt awesome though, good progress to me.

merry xmas to all of you out there! i'm in jolly olde pittsburgh, but my dad is at home playing around at my expense (hahah!). looks like my air cleaner came in the mail, and my dad installed a dual roller chain in place of the regular timing chain we had gotten because he apparently got a "sweet deal". he also grabbed some new headers for me that he is positive will fit with a little help from our pal "mr. sledgehammer". i am hesitant, but we will see.



he's nerding out while i'm making pierogies. i'm not sure who has it better!

motor day one

ok so last night, me and my buddy mikey went out to my dad's to get some early motor work done. the first thing we did was hoist our donor motor up in the air, compliments of my dad's nice crane.





the main reason to get this up in the air was to remove the oil pan, and bolts for the oil pump/pickup. this motor had been sitting for years without an intake manifold on it, so when we drained the pan, it just bled water for what seemed like 2-3 minutes. thankfully oil followed the water, and rested some of my worries about the pan being rusted and junk.

once we had the donor engine robbed, we got the 289 going into the comet into the air:



first thing we did was replace the back freeze plug before we put it onto an engine stand. having the transmission off, and such easy access, it only made sense.



once we got the engine on the stand, we rolled it into my dad's shop, and removed the intake manifold. my dad did this while i was eating pizza, stinker!



next began the process of getting the surfaces clean so that the new gaskets/manifold would have a good seal. this translates to spending a good 15-20 minutes scraping cylinder heads with a razor blade.



on the upside my latest hair dye job looks excellent! thanks revlon!



clean(er) surfaces! yay!

next thing we did was pull the water pump off to see how it was doing. it seemed to not be turning great upon inspection by pops, so we got it off and this is what we see:











CHECK YOUR LEASE, CUZ YOU'RE LIVING IN CORROSION CITY.

also upon checking the timing chain/gears, there seemed to be a lot of play in the chain. with all of this discovered, a quick phone call to autozone, and a short trip down the road, we came back with the following:



timing cover - 110 dollars



water pump - 30 dollars



timing chain and gears - 20 dollars?

my freshly paid off credit card is now 200 dollars deep again. oops!

also, in the mail/trips to napa the following came:



mallory unilite mechanical distributor - 110 dollars



clevite high performance (high pressure, high volume) oil pump - 42 dollars (thanks napa guy!)

to get the top end sealed up and reduce the amount of gunk that could fall into heads/oil galley, here is a great picture of my dad polishing up some chrome edelbrock valve covers we liberated from the donor motor. not bad for free! i have to say though, it was a contest on who did a better job on the valve covers, and mike's left hand cover was looking pretty nice!



after that nonsense, we got the new timing cover up in place to check out some issues we had sensed in the force. this timing cover was missing a timing tab, which we are obviously going to need to time the motor. we ended up robbing the timing tab off the other 289, but our major issue is that this one is a left hand mount, and does not match the marks on our harmonic balancer. the harmonic balancer that is on is not in great shape at current time, but replacements vary from 100-400, so we are doing what we can.



we installed the new gears and chain, and it is a lot tigheter, less play to the chain now. looks snazzy too!

after getting this on, we went back outside and went to work on the oil pan, which had been sitting in degreaser for oh, around 3 hours.



to say this thing was a sludge beast is an understatement. we spent a good while cleaning everything out. my dad did some tig welding on it to fix where the drain plug was (he created a flatter surface for a better seal) and we flattened out a few dents in the pan, as well.

after all of this, we called it a night, and i took some photos of stuff sitting in place. manifold/valve covers have not been sealed up yet, just sitting to keep gunk from falling into the motor.







sure looks nice with all of that on it. my dad called me this morning, and it looks like he is going to try and replace the rest of the freeze plugs, and clean the sides of the motor. he's also out getting some nice stainless steel allen head bolts for the top end, and steel for the bottom end. things seem to be progressing quite well. thanks go out to mikey for getting me out to fontucky to work on this last night, and standing in the cold helping out as much as he could.

intake manifold/updates

update:

today me and julie met a dude in a parking lot and picked this up











small amount of corrosion on the back plates as you can see, but 75 dollars. this particular part (edelbrock performer rpm intake manifold) runs around 180 to 240 brand new.

# Performer RPM 302 Intake Manifold SB-Ford 289-302ci
# 4-bbl Square-Bore Carb Flange (non-EGR)
# 1500-6500 rpm

Designed for street 289-302ci Ford V8s. This dual-plane high rise manifold has excellent high rpm power while retaining throttle response. This intake manifold is a stock replacement/street legal part for Shelby Mustangs with 289ci V8 with OEM 4V carb. 1965-66. No provisions for exhaust heated choke. Aftermarket 4-bbl carbs are not compatible with Ford Auto Overdrive Transmission (AOD) unless used with Lokar Throttle Cable Bracket & Springs p/n 625-SRK-4000.

very stoked right now! still waiting for the edelbrock carb to come in the mail, for anyone not in the know, i picked up a 600 CFM edelbrock carb for around 147 off ebay. might need a rebuild, but a good deal considering how much they run new.



my dad called me earlier to inform me he is picking up brass freeze plug kits, and all the gaskets i need as a christmas present (thanks dad!).

next steps are hopefully picking up the mallory unilite ignition, and an oil pan/other parts i need to get the engine put together and buttoned up so to say. hopefully by next weekend i'll have some pictures of engine progress and by the end of the month (hoping) to have it dropped in and turning over, if not driving.

car day one

backstory:

for the last 6 months or so i haven't driven. i've been biking around orange county, or taking the bus. not the best solution in southern california. when faced with the option of getting a new car, or rebuilding my old car, i decided to rebuild the old car.

benefits -
cheaper car insurance (don't have to have full coverage)
cheaper registration
no car payment
car parts and fixing everything is cheaper, as i can do all the work myself

cons -
gas prices suck, and a 61 comet is invariably going to get worse mileage than a mid 90's acura, or the ilk
lack of some more modern luxuries

so today i took the first major step in rebuilding the car, meaning i suckered my dad into giving me a ride, and we went a bought a motor for the car.





more backstory:

i've had this car since i was 17. it originally had a ford 170 cid inline six cylinder in it. through some misfortune, that motor blew up (fan belt came loose while driving, motor toasted to death, hole in the piston, not a great memory). the motor that we purchased is a ford 289 cid v eight cylinder. not original to the car, and ford did not even put v8's into the 1961 comet or falcon, so no stock parts that can be found for cheap, etc...

reasoning:

i've always wanted to do a v8 into my old car, i mean if not just solely for the fact that i have a tim allen complex and like things that make loud noises. performance parts and also other parts are much easier to obtain for these motors as well, being that ford manufactured this block from 1962 till around 1990 something, so there's an abundance of interchangeable parts.

we also got a transmission which is a ford c4 three speed transmission. i don't know if it's running but for the price we paid for the motor and transmission, if it's not, it's worth at least the core price.



to anyone who cares, we also got the flywheel/flexplate with it, and the torque converter/starter. pretty swell deal.

when we finally got back home from picking up the motor, i took some pictures of the car in it's current state





















after taking the pictures, we mounted a new tire on one of the rims, and put it on the car so we could move it, as well as hooked up some of the steering linkage that i had taken apart some odd years ago.

we got the car moved onto concrete for better working/etc... and i did some clean up work on the interior







hard to tell but i scrubbed a good amount of the dirt off the front seat, and a few other areas. i need to go over it all with some vinyl cleaner next time i'm out there. the back seat i still need to clean but it had gotten too late to work and dinner was on the table.

i'll keep updating this as i go, and i hope someone enjoys this, because i'm having the time of my life doing this.