Winter Beater Build 2.0- '66 Short/Fleet BBW

[theastronaut]

To get it back on the road quickly, I threw in a spare long tail 3 speed I had laying around. It sorta acted like it wanted to pop out of third (never actually did) but the shifter would move up under power around an inch. The overdrive was too much for the 250 to pull and actually made mileage worse, I'm guessing the lower rpm with less manifold vacuum while going up hills made the power piston richen the carb up more often than before, it was getting around 10 mpg. So I decided to rebuild the original three speed using parts from the spare three speed to make one good trans. I'll redo the 4 speed and use it with the 327.




The original trans had multiple issues- the needle bearings on one end of the countergear got destroyed which took out the bore of the gears and shaft. The input bearing retaining nut had backed off which chewed up the face of the retainer, and that may have been the initial source of shavings that took out the needle bearings in the counter gear. The shift detent levers were worn very thin and were barely hanging on, so I welded those up and filed them back to the original diameter. The c-clips and washers were also bent so I straightened the washers and got new clips. The countergear, shaft, and bearing retainer from the spare 3 speed were in good shape, so with a rebuild kit I was able to put get the original trans back in good condition and I got it swapped in this week. It's smoother and quieter than ever now.













Back together.





I got the parts engine pulled from the free 1500, so far it looks like the longblock is ok but both heads have cracks between the center bolt hole and water jacket. Seen a lot of post where people use them anyway with no problems, they might could be saved via a thin sleeve with Loctite sleeve retainer/sealer. They wouldn't work as-is with the old bolt pattern intake I have though, unless I made adapter plates which would be pretty easy and would align the ports better. Not sure if I'll try to use them, or pick up a pair of the AFR Enforcer/Skip White NKB/Bluepring aluminum heads for it. The Vortecs would have better low rpm power and probably better mpg so they're tempting to try out. It would be super easy to swap heads later on if the cracks caused problems down the road.









Stripped the modern stuff off the 5.7 and gathered up random carbs I had laying around for a quick mock up. I'm going to Run to the Sun so I'll check the swap meet for a large journal 327 crank.





Dug through the wheel collection to see what I can scavenge to make wider front wheels that clear discs, put more tire under the spindle for a better scrub radius, and have a deeper outer lip. I have a couple late 60s Kelsey Hayes wheels that look to have disc inner barrels, if those will actually clear the discs that'll give me 1.5" more backspacing relative to the stockers with 1.5" spacers that's on it now. I can cut the outer half of the barrel off and weld on a 1.5" wider barrel half to get the look I want on the outside- still staggered front to rear but with a deeper lip than stock.