Final Engine Assembly Questions

Thanks @Fireball.

What do you guys put between the surfaces of the bell housing / transmission adapter, and between the engine and the bell housing?

 

Nothing

 

X2.

 

How about dressing bolt threads in those locations? Anti seize, or blue locktite, or nothing?

 

I've never personally used anything on bellhousing bolts. Just make sure they are properly torqued.

 

If a bolt is threading in to aluminum, I often use a very light touch of anti-seize compound.
-Donny

 

I was thinking about that, I had to clean the threads out of one of the holes as the bolt was binding slightly and a piece of broken thread “ridge”came out.

 

Cleaning all the threaded holes with a tap is a really good idea too.

 

Yup, I did that to all of them.

I need to go check Moses book and re-read the FSM for some guidance on the procedures to install the clutch and pressure plate, and then mate the trans/transfer case to the engine and bell housing.

I’m sure you guys have some great suggestions there too...

 

The rebuilder fixed his mistake and delivered the engine back to me last night, all free of charge. Saved me an hour and a half in the truck to go get it, which was nice. He replaced all the gaskets I had installed with new ones and re-painted whatever got disturbed, and fwiw was profusely embarrassed and apologetic. He said he was able to carefully peel back the cork gasket on the front of the timing cover /oil pan and safely replace it at that location with sealant and RTV as insurance. Guess I will have to watch that moving forward...

After work today I retraced my steps from the weekend, and caught up to where I was. Got the distributor to seat down, but the plastic cap is not going to fit. I either need to grind more off the intake manifold, or grind down the cap a few mm. I have taken too much off the intake already and I do not want to take more off if I do not absolutely have to.





Here is the overall view:


I have some questions about how to make sure I'm putting in the distributor correctly. Bear with me, I am a 100% beginner, I have never done this before - I understand the basic theory but in practicality this is my first time installing one on a newly rebuilt engine.

The engine is at #1 TDC, and I can rotate the distributor shaft so as to get the rotor to mate with one of the longer copper bars inside the cap.





If I can grind some plastic and get the HEI to sit down, am I OK if the rotor in it's current position is on the long copper bar that connects to the plug wire post that goes to #1?

 

This appears to be a 225 odd fire? If so position of the #1 in the distributor is more important than it is on even phased engines, like most are. It has to be in phase with the crank and cam.

Be sure to investigate this until you fully understand it.

Most engines are even phased / or even fire, and on such an engine the rotor can be pointed anywhere as long as you can align the distributor to fire #1 when #1 comes up to fire, even if you have to move all the wires around to get it right. You can't do that with an odd fire engine like the 225.

I hate to ask this but on another thread someone had a lot of trouble getting the timing right on his V6 and he too had made the statement that he had #1 at TDC, and a lot of time and effort was spent trying to help him until we finally figured it out. What he didn't understand about a 4 stroke engine is there are "always" 4 strokes and each piston comes up to TDC on two of them, commpression and exhaust.

So to set the timing it has to be at TDC on the compression stroke, he had it at TDC on exhaust stroke.

So, since this is your first time doing this I hope you won't be overly offended by my asking "Are you at TDC on compression stroke?".

 

I think the dist. has to go CCW so the plug is more at like the 2 o-clock position rather than the 4 o-clock. And you will need more grinding to the manifold, as well as the cap, and the button head bolt. I think the land that the bolt seats on needs to lower. I know it seems like a lot, but it really holds up well.

 

The rebuilder told me he delivered it at TDC, compression - where #1 piston was at its top-most stroke. If I understand this correctly, this is exactly where I want the spark to happen in this cylinder.

Please, don’t pull any punches...I’m in no hurry to move forward so I’m hopefully not going to do anything to the engine I can’t un-do. Trying to ask dumb questions and go slowly.

 

For what it's worth, here's a picture of the factory 231 manifold and HEI. The ear on the manifold is about half the thickness of the 225 manifold. Then they use a screw with a smaller hex. As you can see, the screw still overhangs the ridge on the cap a tiny bit:


As for setting the initial timing. The proper way is with the vacuum advance pointing straight forward and the HEI plug protrusion pointed 45 degrees back towards the carb:


This most likely requires a vacuum advance from a 76 or so Buick Skylark that has the hose coming off the side as above. If it comes off the end the hose can interfere with the fan.

When the distributor is in this position, the number one plug wire should be the post immediately counterclockwise from the HEI plug protrusion. That is also where your rotor should point when you install the distributor with the engine at #1 TDC:

That is how they were set up from the factory.

 

The rebuilder told me he delivered it at TDC, compression - where #1 piston was at its top-most stroke. If I understand this correctly, this is exactly where I want the spark to happen in this cylinder."

Not "exactly where" but just a starting point. Final adjustment to timing will likely need to be done with a timing light.

 

Thanks Guys. I think I misunderstood that once I set the shaft alignment by meshing the gears & oil filter tang, then I could rotate the housing around it, and place the cap in such a way so as any of the posts could be #1. Now I know better!

@timsresort do you happen to have a picture of how much you ground off your manifold? And how your entire dist. assy. is clocked? Or do you have a long-shaft HEI like this one?

I'm concerned that if I follow the positioning Fireball posted above that one of the hold-down screw protrusions will be directly where the manifold corner bolt is....but I can't go the other way and point the vacuum canister straight forward though because of the fan....

I know I'm not the first person to have this issue so I'm going to digging and searching on the forums and do some research - and read this thread.

 

The protrusions aren't where the manifold is or it wouldn't work in my Jeep above. Interestingly, the right vacuum advance seems to be unavailable at the moment. It looks like Summit can get some in early June: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ado-d1366c/overview

From the position I have pictured above, there are two additional positions at 120 degrees rotated ( 2 cylinders) where the timing will work. I think the one 120 degrees clockwise from my picture will clear the intake and upper radiator hose.

Note: you need to jump two cylinders when rotating the distributor (hence the two 120 degree possibilities). The distributor fires every 150-90-150-90-150-90 degrees. The odd cylinders always need to lead into a 150 degree gap to the next even cylinder. If you rotate the distributor 1 cylinder then you will be leading into the 90 degree gap and the timing will be off for the right bank.

 

Is it 100% necessary to replace the vacuum advance that came with the HEI with the one you suggest?

 

Actually, I've confused myself. You need to move *wires* every two cylinders if moving them but as long as the #1 plug is just counter clockwise from the HEI plug, you can rotate the distributor and rotor as needed because they both rotate together. Putting it in like this should be fine and your vacuum advance should clear: