CATCH UP, MAN!

I'm going to have to get this blog caught up to date. I AM working on the body of the '79 El Camino, but I didn't share all the cool details that preceded the body work. Let me invite you back into the shop with me.

I don't want to embarrass anybody, but if the car you drive has door glass that you crank open & closed by hand, you either have a "base model" or a double-throwdown, full race hot rod that doesn't use power stuff because you are gnarly. My Elkie was a base model: crank windows, no air-conditioning. To its own credit, however, it came equipped with the V8 and a Saginaw 4-speed with 3:08 rear end gearing and was always fun to drive.

Now, the car is not longer a base model. The power windows & door locks along with the A/C from a newer model El Camino I found languishing in the junkyard have rescued this maiden from obscurity. It's like a young, teen age girl from Darkest Malbondigas buying her first eye shadow & mascara.

I know: the sight of this baby is making you rehearse your old pick-up lines, isn't it?

I always look forward to the wiring process on a TPI engine swap. Not because it's so fun, but rather as an opportunity to do a better and cleaner and more efficient job than the last one. It's like repentance. So, this time I set the engine and transmission on the floor of my laboratory and wired it completely before it went into the engine bay. It turned out to be a really good idea and I was able to shorten much of the stock wiring harness I was working with and I wasn't contorting myself in the process.

I debated with myself earlier whether to use the stock wiring harness that came with the '87 Corvette TPI intake assembly & computer, or to use the aftermarket wiring harness from Painless Performance Products that I've had laying around the shop just waiting for the right opportunity. I've used the Painless harnesses before and I've also made my own harnesses, but I'd never re-used an OEM harness. That challenge settled the controversy for me and it's worked out well.

This meant that I had to install the engine with all the wires dangling, but I would rather hassle that than have to try to do the wiring while it's in the chassis. 

If you look at the picture you can see the '90 Camaro 5-speed transmission and the integral mounting bracket for the hydraulic clutch slave cylinder. I decided to use the hydraulic clutch after I went to the trouble to recondition the stock mechanical linkage. I knew I would have the challenge of installing a fluid reservoir somewhere but I was curious just how much more smoothly the hydro unit would work in this big car. At the time of this writing the results are in and I can report that it works very well indeed.

Although you probably can't see it in the photos, this stock bell housing places the transmission on a tilt of 17 degrees counter clockwise. As my research has revealed; it helps point the shifter more toward the driver, since the shifter is mounted directly over the center of the transmission tailshaft. My older manual transmissions mount the shifter on the driver's side of the tailshaft housing, so they're already close enough to the driver.

I'm using a stock steel flywheel and clutch assembly, but I had the machine shop resurface the flywheel. It's not worth doing this much labor and then have a slipping clutch because I skipped an important step. When I'm faced with the choice of making the extra effort, or saving time and money by skipping it, I always opt to take the time and do it right. Future Doug will be thankful for my diligence. You may notice in the picture of the rear of the engine that I'm using two oil pressure sending units. One is used to send a signal to the ECM (computer) and the other is wired to the stock oil pressure gauge in the dash cluster. If the ECM doesn't get a signal indicating that there is sufficient oil pressure, it'll shut down the engine, or prevent it from starting. That's why I re-use the sending unit from the original TPI installation.

Once I had the new engine settled into the front motor mounts, I tried to level it from front to back. You can see the yellow angle-finder resting on the valve cover. I shouldn't say that I was leveling the engine; I was trying to get about 3 or 4 degrees of tilt from front to back - lower in the rear. It wouldn't easily go into place and I had to actually crawl underneath the car and get my shirt dirty to see what was holding things up. It turned out to be the very end of the tailshaft housing hitting the transmission tunnel. 

As you can see; the original doors are in place in this photo, but these were swapped out for later model units with power windows and locks.

The area that was hitting was between the new and old shifter location so when I removed the stock shifter console, I made a cut in the floor pan from front to back, and that allowed enough clearance for me to get the engine to level at the correct angle. I was able to reuse the stock transmission crossmember by cutting the mounting tab off and moving it slightly and re-attaching it. This time Archie the attack dog wasn't in the shop to molest me while I was under the car, vulnerable, and blinded by my welding helmet.

I cut the shifter console off the floor pan and relocated it to the new shifter location. I bent some sheet metal to the correct shape and patched the gaping hole in the floor that was no longer being used and sprayed some grey primer over the bare metal. 

I still had a problem with the shifter. It came out of the floor and came back and toward the driver too closely. I had taken it apart and turned the shifter around in the bracket but that gave it an odd angle. I decided to cut it off just a couple of inches above the pivot ball and weld it back the way I wanted it to fit my new seat notch.

After I'd cut mine I saw a good video by Paul Cangialosi from 5speeds.com  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VHU6eHDPrE and I like the way he does his better and although mine works fine, I may change later to a short shaft with universal threads on the top so a future owner of the car can have the option to change the shifter knob to an aftermarket unit, if desired.

Doug