----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 10:00
AM
Subject: RE: [Chevelle-List] small
block motor opps!!
OK, John.
Lest you feel too stupid, allow me to ahhhh one-up you. I hauled my car down
to Gary Levitt, a frame guy with a very spiffy Brewco 360 degree frame
machine. All I wanted him to do was "dimension" the car and prove that the
frame was square. You see, I've been chasing a vibration bug all summer and
started to think the frame might be slightly out of square, blah, blah blah.
Anyway, I decided to PROVE that it was either OK or not and took it to
Gary.
He dug into
the job, dimensioning away, and found that the frame was - for some weird
reason - higher on the passenger side than the driver side. Well, he chewed
on this factoid for a couple hours, trying to figure out how in the world he
could correct such an oddity. I mean, the lower control arm heights were off
by 3/8 of an inch! When I got there we crawled all over the undercarridge
while it was up on his Brewco. Could not figure out what was wrong.
Meanwhile, I'm getting sick to my stomach thinking - oh no, I bought a real
pig this time - one that can't even be FIXED!
Then I
happened to glance at the tires...five minutes later, while staring intently
at my toes and blushing with embarassment (really), I confessed that it was
none other than yours truly that mounted the 245/60's on the left and the
225/70's on the right the night before I broght it in to Gary's shop.
Apparently I had suffered a "Homer Moment" (dohh!).
Ok, I'm
posting this in hope that nobody makes the same mistake I did this past
Sunday, I have a 66 Malibu I am restoring and it has the original 283
motor with all the smog stuff on it, here in Calif we are not required to
have smog checks on car 25 yrs and older. So I proceeded to remove
all the smog pump and components, the smog pump is held on by a 1/4 in
thick plate by a intake manifold bolt. I then proceeded to put the intake
manifold bolts back into the manifold using the same bolts. I
buttoned everything up and started the car to make sure I did not have a
vacuum leaks and hear this very LOUD popping thru the carburetor. After
checking every possible item on the motor I decided to remover the valve
covers to see if I dropped a valve or worse!!! YIKS!!! the #4
cylinder intake rocker was off to the side and the pushrod was
bent.......The longer intake manifold bolt went thru the head and screwed
down onto the pushrod........I had no idea this bole hole went thru the
head and into the pushrod area. Now I have to try and find the
other half of the pushrod that fell down into the lifter valley...I
felt so stupid..I figured if the bolt was to long it would just bottom out
in the head! .This should be filed under "Stupid things not to do on
a Sunday"
Signed
NAH...I'll
leave this
blank!
