The Grim Reaper
The Adventures of the Grim Reaper
Page was last updated: 01.22.00
The Re-birth of the Grim Reaper
(10.96)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 17:20:17 -0700
From: gdumpit (George Dumpit)
To: monte-list@darklair.com
Subject: [monte-list] Re-birth of an 86
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Post from: gdumpit@auspex.com (George Dumpit) Post to: monte-list
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On Friday October 4, 1996 my 86'SS was reincarnated as a 383/TH700-R4. Life began
at 6:30pm. 6 months after the removal of the ememic 305/TH200 my baby awoke with
a firery growl that only a proud father can be proud
of.... ;-)
The beast didn't get started without the annoying "Murphy" glitches though...
The New Accel distributor that was installed had a defective ignition module,
which delayed the firing by two weeks, until I finally decided to try out the
old distributor. Talk about scratching your head wondering why the damn thing
won't start.
Once the old distributor was installed, the engine came to life with just a click
of the ingition switch. After about 3 minutes of 2000 rpm idle, Rik Mentz waved
me to kill the engine. I cut the ingition, and got out of the car to see what
the deal was. Both of the headers were glowing bright orange! Ouch.... there goes
the pretty ceramic coating! I guess that we had set the initial timing to far
in advance or something... I remember one of the Mike's did his break in and the
same thing happened to him. Fortunately, I bought the Accel wires with the heat
sleeving and also the Nomex boot covers, otherwise I would've melted the wires
and boots for sure. After messing with the timing we finally got it to a point
where the headers wouldn't glow. Ran the engine for 25 minutes and then let it
idle to set the timing with the timing light.
The tranny was the next "Murphy". The fluid didn't seem to want to pump into the
converter or the radiator. I pulled off one of the lines to the radiator, and
it was dry. My worst fear just dawned on me..... The front pump could be broken.
At this point I shut down the engine and waited several hours for it to cool down
so that I could re-troque the header bolts.
For the Edelbrock TES, the only way to tighten the passenger side header is from
underneath. This involved removal of the y-pipe, starter, and spark plugs. Kinda
a pain, but not too hard.... I also used the Stage-8 fasteners with the C-clips.
On Saturday morning, I tried to get the tranny to pump again. Called a Tranny
shop and they verified my fears about a broken pump. Monday I had the car towed
to the tranny shop and it was the front pump. I broke it when I incorrectly installed
the tranny/converter the first time I had assembled the tranny to the engine.
This also took out the converter..... Late Monday, the car was done and I was
on my way home, shifted ok until it was supposed to go into OD. There was no OD!!!
I babied it home and called the tranny guy. He asked how long the tranny had been
sitting dry. I told him that it had been about 4-5 months and he said that the
valves were possibly sticking.
Back to the tranny shop on Tuesday for the valve body to be inspected. He cleaned
and reamed out the valve body and buttoned everything back up. Everything is now
working and I'm a happy camper. Now to put some miles on it so that I can *REALLY*
see what she can do.... ;-)
I feels good to *finally* have completed this phase of my project! Now... to recuperate
financially so that I can get the Auburn posi and Hotchkiss trailing arms... ;-)
I will be listing some of the little details that were minor frustrations with
the 383/TH700 swap in an up coming post.
George..
gdumpit@auspex.com
86'SS (Fire breathing 383 small block)
85'SS (42K on the clock and bone stock)