'Ole Green' - 1970 Chevy C10 Engine Rebuild

[schovil69]

Since I've bee asking a lot of questions I thought I should show you all what they're about.

Years ago my Dad bought this pickup because he needed a hauler. Purchased from a local interior shop we later discovered vinyl had been applied to the lower outer door skins to cover some serious rust issues. The color was a perfect match and went unnoticed until the bubbling under the vinyl became noticeable. So, plenty of rust in this one but still no interest in a full restoration. This is a work truck and it's doing it's job...mostly. The old girl didn't have much for compression in at least one cylinder. It was hard to start and sometimes just wouldn't start in the heat. The engine leaked oil and I'm not certain what the last straw was but one weekend the engine came out.

I took the engine home, tore it down and sent the big pieces off to my machinist where the heads, block and rotating assembly were prepped. The machinist cleaned everything and refreshed the heads with new springs and hardened seats, cam bearings were installed in the block, and the rotating assembly was balanced after installing new flat top pistons on the original rods. First step was to wash and paint the block. Then installed the crank using Plasti-Gauge to check main bearing clearances. Next came the rod/piston combinations, again using Plasti-Gauge to verify rod bearing clearance. This build is meant to be as stock as possible but I went with a roller cam and valve train for some added reliability and boost in performance. The cam specs I selected will provide a slight increase of power while still leaving the truck sounding stock. I used a pushrod length checker to get the necessary pushrod length ensuring a well centered contact on the valve stem with the narrowest pattern shown. The stock 4-barrel intake was also cleaned up by the machinist and reused.

Everything assembled received a fresh coat of Chevy orange rattle can paint. It's high temp and will stick for the lifetime of the engine, if my previous builds have anything to say for it. Ample use of the bead blaster and application of elbow grease has gone into refreshing all engine accessories. Although not part of the original plan we cleaned and painted the engine bay except for the firewall. The firewall looks pretty decent for what we're working with. The black overspray on the fenders is from a previous owner and some light effort went into cleaning it up but what's left will remain until 'one day.'

There has been a good amount of scope creep on this engine rebuild project. The grill refreshing, wiring replacement, shocks(F&R), and many many small items that seem to be endless at this point. I'm more of a 'git-r-done' kind of feller over the 'stop-and-take-photos' kind of feller but will share what there is. For now, that will consist of before and after photos. Both of which were taken at about the same point in the process, one during removal and one during install from about the same angle.

[Steeveedee]

Nice!

[cericd]

Oooweee! That sure is purty. Makes me jealous. I need to do the same thing to mine.

[schovil69]

Thanks guys!

Since that photo the power steering pump, radiator, and wiring have been installed. The wiring loom on the radiator support in the photo contains the factory wiring. New wiring from AAW was used forward of the firewall and that loom has since been replaced as a result. There are two harnesses from AAW for this, the engine harness and the forward lighting harness.

The brake booster, bracket and master cylinder along with some other minor issues will still need addressed after this is a running/driving machine again.

A bit of scope creep set in yet again...I went to install a new hood to cowl seal the other day and decided to remove the cowl and clean out the leaves. It was at this time that the seam sealer around the antenna cable was noticed to not be sealing very well. So, new seam sealer and a screen to prevent debris from getting in there again will be installed soon. Then back to that hood to cowl seal and the cowl reinstallation and back to the engine/tranny.

Provided no more scope creep events the following is my list of items to complete,

To Do's:
Install power steering hoses onto pump
Install fuel line from pump to fuel filter
Install alternator
Install fan
Install fan/alternator belts
Install fan shroud
Blast/coat exhaust manifolds
Install exhaust manifolds
Install exhaust - need to verify existing studs are usable
Install carb - Its just sitting on top of the intake right now
Route starter wires
Cut/splice larger terminals for starter
Route temp sensor wire against block at driver side pan rail
Install heater core hoses
Install radiator cap/hoses
Torque balancer bolt
Install torque converter bolts
Install transmission lines
R/R tranny filter
R/R tranny pan gasket
R/R detent cable - tentative
Install/route battery cables
Fill oil
Startup

That should be about a days worth of piddling around with everything going right and I probably missed some small items. Hoping for a weekend finish if all parts are on hand. Speedway wouldn't sell anything yesterday, saying their computers were down, and the oil and tower clamps for the radiator hoses will be coming from there. Other items are in the mail and the detent cable issue is still being worked but that should not prevent startup.


Here's a couple interesting photos exhibiting the slack of the ole timing chain that I took during tear down:

[schovil69]

Not sure why the photos rotated. Can someone maybe straighten them out and let me know how to fix it?

[LT7A]

Great work on your rebuild and engine bay refresh. Think it's great to leave the firewall with its original paint if at all possible. Some rubbing compound might help with getting that overspray off the fenders. I'll repost those pictures, what I did is save them to my phone and rotated them. In taking future photos, if you put the bottom of your phone to the right when you take the picture it should be oriented correctly when you post it and if you post it and see that it's rotated, you can probably just do what I did and save it off the website back onto your phone and rotate it, and repost it. Hopefully that makes sense.

[yuccales]

Engine bay looking good!

[schovil69]

Thanks, LT7A for the assist. An attempt with a cutting compound was used on the firewall and the fenders. All do look better than they did. The overspray on the firewall came off and looks pretty decent. Those fenders, though, are more like a direct spray than an overspray. I might come back to them later.

[schovil69]

Originally Posted by yuccales

Engine bay looking good!

Thanks!

[schovil69]

Months ago I bead blasted the passenger side exhaust manifold and it's been sitting in the workshop remaining quite surprisingly rust free. Last night I went out there to get going on that part of this project again. First stop for the driver side exhaust manifold was the parts washer. My workshop is a 20' x 18' garage that currently houses an immobile '56 Belair project I'm working on in addition to this pickup project. It's quite crowded in there at the moment so to add usable workspace in there I place a 4' x 5' sheet of plywood on top of the parts washer. So, the menial task of using the parts washer meant moving several items from the '56 project(and find a place for them) to clear off the parts washer cover. I then donned my gloves, apron and face shield to ensure a good sweat during the cleaning process. While I was in there I scrubbed the manifold, heat riser cover, and a bunch of hardware. I like to ensure parts are dry prior to going into the bead blaster so I set this aside to dry and turned my attention to the air supply.

It gets very humid here and stays that way once it sets in for the summer. I was getting water in my air tools even after going through a dryer. To help remedy this, I had built/installed one of those copper tube heat exchangers to help with moisture in my air supply but did not have enough 2" x 4"s to properly secure the tubing. After cutting the wood to size I painted it white to match the walls, screwed the tube to the wood and the wood to the wall. I used the wood to lift the tubing away from the wall providing better air flow on all sides to aid in the cooling process.

All this took as much time as I was willing to put in for the evening and left me with a sweat soaked shirt from collar to hem and a half hour to catch up with my wife. I have 1-2 hours in the evenings to get things done at home, if I'm lucky. Tomorrow evening is date night with my daughter who's home from the east coast. Bead blasting and coating these parts will have to wait. Maybe Friday evening I can get back to making progress on this.

The exhaust manifolds will be coated with Eastwood's gray High Temperature Manifold Coating being applied from spray cans. The heat riser cover will be a high temp black spray paint, not sure of the specifics right now but can post that if someone is interested. I believe these are the stock colors. Let me know if they are not.

[schovil69]

The exhaust manifolds are looking good again. I am replacing the studs and wish I would have done so prior to coating them but recoating them if necessary after removing the existing studs should be an issue. The heat riser cover is black, which it may or may not have been before but it's black now. I found a small bracket that I had forgotten and blasted/painted it. If I recall correctly, this bracket had the brake booster hose routed through it. I also found the vacuum line that goes from the transmission to the intake manifold and cleaned it up along with added new hose.

[schovil69]

Power steering hoses are connected. The starter has been replaced with a Power Master high torque version. The connection terminals on this starter are larger than what was on the new wiring harness. I removed those terminals and crimped then soldered new terminals onto the harness. I used hemostats as a heat sink and accidently soldered it to one of the terminals but a quick reheat resolved that situation.

Scope creep has reared its ugly head again. When installing a new cowl to hood seal I removed the cowl cover(?) There were leaves in there that a vacuum took care of. Then we had to clean in there, then a new antenna was ordered, then new screens were ordered to prevent the buildup of leaves in there, then the seam sealer around the antenna cable was thought to be the cause of a phantom water leak where the glove box fills with water so seam sealer was purchased. A nice run-on sentence to show the level of exasperation felt when scope creep occurs. Just a quick rebuild of the engine...nope.

The wiring is finished aside from making a few connections but the routing is complete.

A few parts are on order, so I spent yesterday evening in the yard and garden and washed the block and heads for the '56 in preparation for paint.

My todo list has been reduced with a few items added as well,

To Do's:
Install cowl screens
R/R antenna
Seam sealer
Install cowl cover/hood to cowl seal
Install fuel line from pump to fuel filter
Install alternator
Install fan/alternator belts
Change studs on exhaust manifolds
Install exhaust manifolds
Install engine lift cables
Install carb - Its just sitting on top of the intake right now
Install heater core hoses
Torque balancer bolt
Install torque converter bolts
Install transmission lines
R/R tranny filter
R/R tranny pan gasket
R/R detent cable - tentative
Install/route battery cables
Fill oil
Startup

[schovil69]

Another day of productivity. My step son was a huge help today. He climbed under the pickup and replace the rear shocks. He spent a lot of time under there. They were a pain and frustrated him but he took his breath in, studied the problem, then hollered for help. lol. He stuck it out and did the work and I'm glad for it. Then, while changing a headlight he pulled the ground wire out of the terminal of the brand new AAW wire harness. I was surprised this occurred but was able to remove the terminal from the connector and solder the wire to it and reinstall it in the connector. Whew...wasn't sure I would be able to save it. So, then I sent him back under the pickup to get started on changing out the transmission filter and pan gasket. He removed the tranny mount bolts and one side of the cross member bolts when dinner arrived and we called it a day.

Meanwhile, I was working on top. I had soldered in some larger terminal connectors for the starter wires the last time I worked on this only to discover today I had a major lapse in judgement last time and had to redo this with smaller terminals. So, I was finally able to connect the starter wire. Do both wires attach to the small terminal of a PowerMaster starter or just one of them?

On the other side of the block I had to remove the heat shield hold down bolt which also secures the spark plug wire holder and the temp sensor wire holder. The holder for the temp sensor wire was not oriented properly and was blocking the hole for the oil dipstick tube.

The carb is now secured with the throttle connected. I used tower clamps on the upper and lower radiator hoses as well as the spark arrester hose. The antenna showed up while working on the pickup today, but the grommet broke when removing the old antenna cable. The hunt for the grommet begins.

[schovil69]

Haven't been back over to work on finishing this since Saturday but came across a couple photos of the SBC disassembly and my step son torqueing the heads during assembly.

[schovil69]

The bare block on the stand in my previous post is a 454 BBC that is destined for the Belair. Here's a peak at what it looks like now,

[cericd]

Lookin' good!

[schovil69]

Originally Posted by cericd

Lookin' good!

Thanks!

I'm hoping to get over to the pickup this week or weekend and wrap things up.

[mr.mud1]

great work,the engine looks very good.not that it makes any differance,your heat riser can be what ever color you want it to be but i've used alot of new ones from years ago working in an exhaust shop,any i ever took out the box,were bare cast iron.i painted the exhaust manifolds on my engine and followed instructions on the can,baking them in the oven?boy was i in trouble but the manifolds looked great!!take care.Greg

[schovil69]

Originally Posted by mr.mud1

great work,the engine looks very good.not that it makes any differance,your heat riser can be what ever color you want it to be but i've used alot of new ones from years ago working in an exhaust shop,any i ever took out the box,were bare cast iron.i painted the exhaust manifolds on my engine and followed instructions on the can,baking them in the oven?boy was i in trouble but the manifolds looked great!!take care.Greg

Haha..I can imagine the trouble from baking parts in the oven. I'm glad you posted this. The heat riser tube and manifold cover appeared as it was not painted or otherwise coated when new. I wasn't certain, though and did not find any new ones on the market. With the corrosion these parts had painting them seemed the best option.

[schovil69]

I've just returned from a vacation but managed to get a few items checked off the list prior to leaving. Changed the tranny filter/pan gasket and installed the carb.

To Do's:
Install cowl screens
R/R antenna
Seam sealer
Install cowl cover/hood to cowl seal
Install fuel line from pump to fuel filter
Install fan/alternator belts
Change studs on exhaust manifolds
Install exhaust manifolds
Install engine lift cables
Install heater core hoses
Torque balancer bolt
Install torque converter bolts
Install transmission lines
R/R detent cable - tentative
Install/route battery cables
Fill oil
Startup

[schovil69]

I've been taking two hour cracks at this project since my last post.

Some quick testing revealed only one of those wires are necessary at the starter. The AAW wiring harness used does not have a wiring diagram associated with it. A search of the AAW website turned up nothing. Dad did the research on the antenna wire grommet but came up short there. Then while looking things over one day I found the antenna was shipped with a new grommet. We made quick work of installing the antenna and cowl screens followed by the cowl and hood to cowl seal. The old seam sealer was scraped away and new stuff applied prior to covering everything up. Belts and hoses are all secured. A couple clamps for the heater hoses ordered on August 9th finally showed up on the 27th.

I soldered a couple more wires for the wiring(choke and battery-to-forward harness) to complete the wiring. Battery cables are routed and installed.

I used a torch to heat up the exhaust manifold studs so they could be removed. The first one twisted right off using the stud removal tool. After that, I used vice grips to turn the stud back and forth to loosen it from the manifold prior to using the stud tool. This worked like a charm and now I just had to deal with the broken one. I used the torch to blow out much of the broken stud. Once I got as much as I dared without damaging the manifold I gave it the heat treatment one last time and quickly got in there with a drill bit. This worked quite well but did not get it all. Once the manifold cooled down I used a tap to remove the remaining broken stud material left from the torch...worked just as I imagined. The manifold were then cleaned up and re-coated and new stainless steel studs installed.


I had a heck of a time figuring out the shifter linkage. Dad wanted it replaced from tranny to the column. I posted a question about it on the forum here and thanks to Don D I was able to take care of it. Turned out I was missing the part that clamps the vertical rod. Don posted photos that cleared things right up. https://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vbo...d.php?t=837492

The manifolds went on next. Driver side then passenger, which is about when I remembered I wanted to leave the passenger side off until the tranny lines were installed. Oh well, it's installed and staying.

Stainless transmission lines went in with a lot of manipulation and force. I first ran them under the motor mount perch before coming to the realization they are to be routed under the engine. I pulled them and went about getting them re-routed properly. One was pretty bent out of shape after all this but getting it back to where it needed to be was nearly effortless.

I made a hard line for the fuel filter to fuel pump using -6AN fittings on 3/8" NiCopp. It turned out as planned and has a nice look to it.


The transmission crossmember was still loose from the pan gasket/filter change so I buttoned that up. This is where I noticed the driveshaft will need to be removed to get it into the transmission. It was not removed when removing the engine/tranny. I removed the U-bolts at the carrier and unbolted the carrier bearing to get the space required to insert the drive shaft into the tranny then buttoned it back up. Also noticed was the vacuum modulator tube was missing. Located that and installed.

Back up top I started filling the tranny by dumping in three quarts figuring I would check it and go from there. As I waited for the fluid to drain down I turned my attention to installing the valve cover gaskets. In the middle of that I saw tranny fluid leaking onto the floor. I jumped back under the pickup and immediately saw it leaking from the pan. My step son did not get all the pan bolts tightened. I should have checked this prior to buttoning up the crossmember because now I'm taking that loosed again so I can get at all the pan bolts. So, crossmember loose, tranny mount bolts removed, still had to raise tranny to get at two pan bolts. Everything tight and buttoned back up...disaster averted.

Back up top I drop another quart of tranny fluid and find the fill tube is not inserted completely and another leak appeared. Took care of that and drop another quart in there and yet another leak! This time, it's the detent cable. I questioned this in my mind but was uncertain and now I know it will need replaced. Waiting for parts. I ordered the Lokar detent cable/bracket and a pan with a drain plug.

I went ahead and filled the engine with oil so it will be ready.



The much shorter list of To Do's:
Install oil pressure gauge hard line
Install engine lift cables
Torque balancer bolt
Install torque converter bolts
R/R detent cable/pan
Startup

[cericd]

Ooh, that's lookin' MY-T-FINE!

[schovil69]

So, the list of TO-DO's is down to installing the engine lift cables and we proceeded with start up. The first time it tried to run there was backfire through the carb such that it appeared every cylinder was backfiring. Reverified everything accessible that is timing related and found no trouble there. While bumping it to find TDC on #1 it took off but was immediately shut down because we were not prepared to run it. I put the plug back in and the next time it started and ran as it should. The rockers were extremely noisy, though. Adjusted the rockers and the engine sounds better on that front.

Rocker adjustment is a bit non-conventional. Usually, I would run the engine then loosen a rocker until noise then tighten it until no more noise. For whatever reason, I am not able to fit the socket onto the rocker nut very well. It's nearly impossible in some instances. As a result, I have been resorting to adjustments with the engine off which goes something like this: Bump engine until a valve is depressed on a cylinder then tighten the other rocker on that cylinder until there is no more up/down movement of the rocker arm.

There's a remaining issue, though, that sounds like rocker arms needing adjustment that doesn't quite match that of rockers needing adjustment. To err on the side of caution, I plan to go back through the rocker adjustments and add an additional half turn after the rocker movement ceases. What's weird about this noise is that when standing beside the driver door with the hood up and the engine running, this sounds appears to be coming from under the pickup, like maybe from the rear of the engine. From the front with the hood up and engine running it appears to be louder on the passenger side of the engine.

Overall, it's difficult to locate the origin. It sounds to me like a metal on metal click and seems to occur regularly, like with every cylinder. Sounds like maybe an exhaust leak but placing my hand around the manifold to pipe connection cannot locate a leak. I don't feel any blast of air that I would expect from an exhaust leak. I'm wondering if it could be the distributor to cam relation but haven't pulled the distributor yet. A check of the oil does not reveal any evidence of metal in the oil which has put removing the distributor lower on my list of items to check.

Any other thoughts on the potential source of sound?

[schovil69]

Readjusted rocker arms, verified exhaust is sealed, pulled distributor but didn't see anything abnormal. The noise continues. The next theory is to check that the oil pump is getting oil to the top. Oil pressure is as it should be so this should be a no brainer but I'm running out of things to check for the cause of this noise. Again, the noise is similar to loose rocker arms but louder and appears to be coming from the block somewhere.

Next items to check after verifying oil pump operation will be lifters then timing chain. I cannot think of any other location for the noise. The engine runs fine and smooth. That is, it idles and revs as expected.

[schovil69]

Haven't posted in a while on this because I hurt my arm while sleeping some how. Woke up in the night and couldn't straighten my arm. Now, it hurts just to lift my hand depending on how it's oriented. I can limber it up and put it to use but I pay for that the next morning. Been a few weeks now and may need to have a doc look at it.

Using a priming tool I got the oil pumping up to the rockers. Not all rockers were getting oil, though. This, combined with the noise I've been listening to and others reporting issues with these lifters, has convinced me the lifters are the issue. I had a set of Howards roller lifters sent over.

As of Saturday the lifters are removed from the engine. I need to determine push rod length then reassemble. My plan is to use the difference in lifter seat heights between the Comp Cams and Howards versions to get the pushrod length followed by a verification using an adjustable pushrod. The pushrods I just removed are 7.1" long and the Comp Cams roller lifters have a seat height of 2.470". With the Howards roller lifters seat height at 2.661" the pushrods I now need should be 6.909". If this checks out with a good pattern on the valve stem I will use Comp Cams 7631-16.

It's darn shame to have to tear apart this good looking engine. The silver lining here is the engine doesn't need to come out for work to get done.