Nervous Man's Engine and Tranny swap: sbc350 and sm465 (1 Viewer)

[cruiserjunkie]

Give the shaft heat its only really hard on the very outside. I took mine to a bunch of different shops and all failed to get a hole started. One welded a stud on but it failed instantly with torque at which point I drilled a hole in it with cordless drill and two brand new cheap bits from fastenal

 

[saryon7]

How much heat did you give it? Oxy/acet torch? Or some other method. I remember reading through your write up before which is why I thought my method would work, but it just dulled my best bits.

Give the shaft heat its only really hard on the very outside. I took mine to a bunch of different shops and all failed to get a hole started. One welded a stud on but it failed instantly with torque at which point I drilled a hole in it with cordless drill and two brand new cheap bits from fastenal

 

[saryon7]

Well things have been going slow lately. I got side-tracked with having to redo our kitchen cabinets. So I have been trying to crank out 30 cabinet doors and 7 drawers. I have been trying to finish up my research on how I want to complete everything. The transmission mount is the one holding me up, and I am leaning towards just making my own.

 

[saryon7]

One of the problems I ran into was my transfer case not wanting to separate. It might have had something to do with all the gasket sealer I used when I put it together last time.:whoops: I was able to find a puller that fit, however like so many tools in our old and tired shop, it was broken. It had a big fat crack through it and was about to break off. I didn't want to have to go buy another puller and since it was a cheap chinese pile of pot metal, I figured what the hell....Might as well try to weld it. I cranked the welder all the way up and was surprised to find, it welded easily. I laid down 3 fat beads and voila! The transfer case separated!

 

[saryon7]

I laughed when I first read this, but now I am up to about 6 months on this motor swap, and it isn't as funny anymore.

Clear evidence that you are sick. Seek help before it takes you 2 years to finish.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[saryon7]

Well, my engine sold so that was nice. I went and delivered it. It freed up a little space and netted me some cash.

 

[saryon7]

Since I wasn't able to drill the input shaft, I needed to come up with some other ideas. Since some people had suggested heating up the shaft, I figured I would give it a try.

I found a sheet of diamond plate with a hole in it that worked perfectly for a heat shield for the rest of the transmission, so I figured I could safely try the oxy torch. I heated the dimple in the end of the shaft till it was red, and then let it slowly cool. You can see how it looked after I was done. I was worried I might have damaged the temper since there is a little blue on the shaft, but I suppose I will find out after I drive it for a bit.

 

[saryon7]

After all that, I was pretty excited to put my fancy guide on and drill out the input shaft. I still met with abysmal failure. THe drill bits just wouldn't make a mark It was time for the big guns!

 

[UZJ40]

What's your guess now on when it'll be back on the road?

 

[saryon7]

One of my old machinist teachers runs a shop and was nice enough to let me use it. It was awesome to be back in the shop using such cool machines! I know it was technically work, but it was sure fun.

I had what I thought was a great idea on how to accomplish it and luckily they had a mill big enough to accommodate me. It fit, but just barely. I wanted to try using the bell housing as a stable base to align the shaft perfectly. While very surprising, one of my ideas actually worked well. It is nice when a plan comes together.

I drilled the hole with a cobalt drill bit and then tapped it for a 1/2" fine thread bolt. Here's how I did it.

 

[saryon7]

That whole thing worked out fantastic and I am back in business.

 

[saryon7]

So,now that the output shaft was taken care it was time to try to put some things together. When test fitting, I found that the gear in the 3spd. transfer case wouldn't fit over the output shaft. This seemed odd since I never heard anyone else mention this problem. The shaft looked like it had no wear on it and my trasnfer case gears looked almost new too so it might just be they hadn't worn out enough to fit together well.

To fix the problem, I spray painted the shaft and then pressed on the gear as far as it would go, which wasn't far at all. I then took a dremel with a cut off disc to the interference parts. It seemed that the peak of the shaft was fine, but the valley part was too big. After repeatedly painting and grinding, I got them to fit together well. Hopefully things turn out ok. It was a fairly tight fit still so I do kinda worry about the gear cracking as the shaft heats up.

 

[saryon7]

In the meantime I did a little work to the engine. I put the intake manifold on, the flywheel and clutch, and the water pump and pulleys. I went with the brushed aluminum since I am not a big fan of chrome. The valve covers will probably get changed out eventually, but they are what came with the engine.

Because the Jegs intake manifold is slightly different sized, I had to use extra thick valve cover gaskets for everything to fit right.

One of the unforeseen costs associated with this job was all the bolts. The engines don't come with any bolts so every time you buy an accessory you have to track down and buy the bolts. It really adds up!

 

[saryon7]

My buddy came over and lent me a hand. Here you can see him tinkering with the carb on his thunderbird. He shortly after this pic. was taken changed out to a six pack carb setup. And even though he dropped my waterpump on the ground twice, he is about the best mechanic I have ever met.

One thing I forgot to add too. Even though I had just rebuilt my parking brake just prior to this engine swap, the rear seal had started leaking. I went back and forth on how I wanted to fix it. After talking with georg I decided to go with the housing with a double seal. Hopefully that will keep away any leaks.

 

[saryon7]

So, this was a very exciting day. The engine, transmission, and trasfer case all went together! It was so cool seeing everything finally all one unit. It all slid together really easily. I just hope I remembered to grease the pilot bearing. I think I did.

 

[saryon7]

I think about a month. I will admit though that I have been saying about a month left every month for the last 3 months!

What's your guess now on when it'll be back on the road?

 

[Shawn Russell]

I'm sorry you had such a problem with getting the shaft drilled and tapped. As you found out, the shaft is REAL HARD. You really need to do it on a mill, and most find that applying heat to it helps a lot!

I hope other people see this, and will just skip to the mill option.

I do like that you have the bell housing avail to help level the tranny in the mill. Great idea! I will pass that along to others.

Keep up the good work!

Shawn

 

[saryon7]

Well, now that the drivetrain is together, it is time to stuff it into the cruiser. I was so excited to see that engine start to go into its new home! With a little finagling, the drive train dropped into place. I must say the load leveler I bought at harbor freight was well worth the money.

 

[saryon7]

Here's a look at the ramshorn manifolds. I bought them from ebay and they seemed to be of great quality. I painted them with some exhaust paint. They look gray for some reason, but they are actually black. Must be a camera thing.

 

[saryon7]

I had the same typical problems everyone doing this swap go through. The engine sat a little too low for my liking, but if I raised it any more, I would not have been able to keep my heater. Since I am a baby when it comes to the cold and my cruiser has no top, I figured the heater was something I needed to keep. Not sure if a later model heater would have had more room or not, and it seemed like a lot of time, money, and effort to find out. I just decided to keep the engine a little lower.

Since the engine was lower, it sat low against the radiator. I have heard many people ask about overheating issues with an sbc, so this has me a little worried. I am hoping that since I have a brand new engine and cooling system, that having the fan a little lower than center will be ok. I am planning on making a shroud later on in the build.

The gear shifter would hit the heater box if I could put the engine as high and as forward as I wanted. I had to put the engine back enough to clear the heater box, so I tried to give it just enough room. This will mean though that to take the tranny hump off I will have to remove the heater box. Not the best solution, but I have made worse.

The last issue and probably the biggest problem was the exhaust manifold hitting on the steering box. No matter how I adjusted the engine, I just couldn't get it to fit correctly. It was an impossible puzzle.

While I wrote this up pretty quick, the actual fitting of engine placement actually took about 2 weeks. I pondered it for a week before I made any decisions and then started to move things around for another week or two.