SkinnyG's '61 Apache

[cwcarpenter98]

Seeing long steppers makes me want to swap my long fleet to a long step. Your truck looks really good, and I think that you should build it however you want to build it

[SkinnyG]

Bottom end all apart. Bearings look really good. Almost "I might reuse these" good.

[SkinnyG]

Parts ordered. Thanks RockAuto for the discount code, saved me $36CDN.

Summit Racing got me the things RockAuto didn't carry.

I -did- order ARP head studs. I waffled over this for months. Golly are they pricey. Theoretically ARP bolts are certainly good enough, but I think I feel a bit better (and lighter) knowing that this is the best way to go. If I venture close to 22psi, I'll wish I had run studs. I know, I know, the Sloppy guys re-use torque-to-yield fasteners, and they still live to tell the tale.....

I also ordered all new bearings. Even though these bearings look really good, they have taken a bit of schmoo through them, embedding the junk like they are designed to do. I figured "I'm here, why would i not put fresh bearings in?"

Interestingly, if I ship Summit's stuff to my Customs Broker in the States, I have to pay WA sales tax, plus the broker's fees and taxes. If I get it shipped to my house, it's really not that expensive. I don't know how Summit is doing it, but I like it.

Or, I miss-read everything, and I have a BIG bill coming......

[SkinnyG]

Top end all apart. Valve guides are on the loose side of still acceptable.









Rock Auto delivers! PAC-1218 valve springs should arrive early next week. ARP junk from Summit Racing will ship once the back ordered crank bolt comes in.



Going pick up some diesel to soak and clean the heads and pistons.

[SkinnyG]

Engine cleaned up real easy!



And my porting kit came in!

[SkinnyG]

Sold my last beast, so I should dig into this project real quick. Yay!

[SkinnyG]

Grrrr.

I soaked a head in Diesel for a full week, but it wasn't coming clean very easily. So I took them to a shop and said "clean 'em, do the guides, do the seats, and surface them."

I came back the next day, and they only surfaced the heads. I asked why, and they said they need the valves to check the guides. I said I had measured them two different ways and they're loose, just do them. They were adamant that they needed the valves. So (instead of walking away like I should have), I brought them the valves the next day.

Came back to pick them up, and they said proudly "We didn't even measure them, we wiggled them, they're mint!" You suck, machine shop, you suck. They did cut the seats, but they ended up cutting them pretty deep and now there is a deep ridge around the valves hindering flow.


See the edge above the top cut on the exhaust? Ugh.

Thing is, seat cutting is referenced off the guides. If I do the guides now, the seats have to be re-cut as they will not be concentric with the guides, and then the valves go deeper into the head. Grrr.

I thanked them, paid them, took my stuff, and I'll never go back, nor will I ever recommend them to anyone else.

I recognize I'm not a professional machinist, but dang it, just do what I ask and bill me accordingly. At this rate, though, I may eventually run out of machine shops.

So, I spent a number of hours re-shaping the valve seat area in the combustion chambers to get the flow back, and figured while I'm at it, why not polish the combustion chambers?

Since I didn't have any old valves, I turned down some round stock to 0.313" and threaded one end 1/4-20, and cut out some 1/8" flat and turned them to protect the valve seats.





Research indicates possible advantages being:
More combustion heat applied to piston
More heat kept in exhaust to spool the turbo faster
Less carbon build up
Less "edges" risking pre-ignition and detonation

Could also be pipe dreams and voodoo.



I polished the piston tops as well. Because why not. My labour is free.



After a fair bit of research and debate, I likely will not hog out these heads with porting. I think the swirl ramp in the intake bowls is a good idea for low-speed throttle response, torque and fuel economy. I haven't decided if I will remove the rocker-stud boss in the intake port (done on pretty much all ported and aftermarket heads).

Of course, on one side of the fence you have "Awesome! That's the best mod you could do right there!" and on the other side you have "Dude! You just ruined those heads." Well, I did what made sense to me. We'll see if I get lucky.

[SkinnyG]

Painted the valve covers because I needed a distraction. Gray, as the general consensus is the V8's were painted gray in '61. And the interior will be gray (which -is- the '61 colour).



I mistakenly ordered Gen3 rings for my Gen3 block. Turned out the engine had Gen4 guts inside. I found out my mistake after gapping the first rings and discovering they didn't fit the pistons.

So I ordered a new set of Gen4 rings, and gapped them 0.026/0.028" (should be safe for upwards of 22psi boost or so) and installed 'em!

[SkinnyG]

I drove the '61 into the shop today to have a good look-see at the bottom; help formulate my game plan. It all looks pretty typical.









It -looks- like it could lay rocker easily, as the frame rails are a lot shorter on these X-Frame trucks. Pancake the front crossmember, sure. Do something about the bottom of the X, maybe. Will the Trailing Arms tuck in high enough at the back of the frame??

I picked up a set of 88-98 2" spindles as well as a Ford 9" axle, plus some 18" Grand Cherokee wheels (5x5 pattern). I need to figure out how I want to deal with all that. The axle swap is easy. Keeping the torsion bars is nice and convenient and affordable, but a challenge.









Something in the front of the truck kept creaking as it sat on the lift. That wasn't scary at all </sarcasm>.

[SkinnyG]

Motor's done.

'61 Apache - Part 6: 6L LQ4 Refresh - YouTube

[SkinnyG]

[SkinnyG]

[SkinnyG]

Got the cab off today.

[SkinnyG]

50% off at Pick-N-Pull this weekend, so I bought brakes.

A few weeks back I bought a 73-87 crossmember.

Into which I will be adapting 88-98 2" DJM spindles (they were cheap, and I need to alter the track width to match the 9" axle and 18" Jeep steelies I have).

Onto which I now have 88-98 C2500HD big piston calipers, and 99-06 master and hydroboost.

Also picked up the e-pedal controller for the LS swap.

[SkinnyG]

Parts yesterday:



Parts today:

[Ronzo]

I like it, hello from Alberta!

[SkinnyG]

Greetings right backatcha!

Motor's out.

[SkinnyG]

Read a story and tucked the kids into bed, then got the front crossmember completely unbolted. Torsion crossmember tomorrow, then yank the axle and trailing arms.

[SkinnyG]

And we're naked.

[SkinnyG]

Spent a bit of time trying to get the rest of the U-bolts and spring bolts out of the trailing arms. Lots of penetrant, and the French Wrench, plus judicious application of the air hammer (much to the chagrin of my neighbours), and they're out. There will PLENTY of Never-Sieze going back in, let me tell you!

[SkinnyG]

Who likes pancakes?

Two inches removed from the crossmember.







This took all day. Not my best welding, but I also welded it as far as I could reach on the back side as well. There is so much surface area of weld, and each half is bolted in its own way to the frame, there should not be a problem.

Tomorrow, I will be going through ALL of my grinding discs and flapper wheels making it pretty.

[caseyjones]

I LOVE pancakes!

[SkinnyG]

Half a grinding disc, one flapper disc, four surfacing discs, and I did not destroy my zip disc.

Life is good.

[SkinnyG]

For future reference: you can fit a 73-87 crossmember into a 60-62 frame, but only the top rear bolts on the sides will line up, and only the front two (four) bolts on the bottom of the frame will line up.

So I'm making a drilling jig that will reference two of the existing '61 holes, and provide a pilot hole guide for the '84 holes, moving the crossmember forward 3/4". This movement, coupled with moving the lower control arms 3/4", should position the wheels about 1" to 1-1/8" forward in the fender. The control arms are moved forward for more caster, which works -wonderfully- on my '77 Silverado, but really only moves the wheels forward about 3/8" of an inch because of where the spindle sits.








The bottom two holes don't quite line up with anything useful.

[SkinnyG]

I lied. I moved the crossmember forward 1". I also drilled the sides for the lower two bolt holes. I may or may not do anything about the top two bolts. Depends on what gets in the way.

Cut the bump stop mounts off the control arms. Machined new 5/8" located holes to move the control arms 3/4" forward for better caster. I clearanced the crossmember as needed with an FBH (Fairly Big Hammer) to get the bushings to clear. There may have been some grinding too.

I trial-fit the front suspension. This is with 88-98 spindles sitting on 73-87 ball joints (no, it doesn't fit like that), and at what should be ride height, which, by my math, should be 5.3" ground clearance. The control arms are still 1" below the bottom of the frame, but that's a whole lot better than 3" below the frame (grin).