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

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It's pretty crowded in the engine compartment and I wanted to move the battery as far forward and as high as I could, so I built a simple battery mount out of angle iron to hang from the inner fender. I'm not sure if I even checked the clearance between the engine mount and the stock battery mount, but I assume I would have had the same issue as you. The mount works very well. I can post a few more photos of the mount itself if you like.
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Sure, post em up. I would love to see your mount. When you mounted it on the fender, did you use the coil mount or something else. I think my mount will work pretty well, but have screwed up many other things on the cruiser and had to go back and redo it so it would be good to see yours. Plus it helps build the knowledge base. And, nice looking cruiser! That thing is awesome.

It's pretty crowded in the engine compartment and I wanted to move the battery as far forward and as high as I could, so I built a simple battery mount out of angle iron to hang from the inner fender. I'm not sure if I even checked the clearance between the engine mount and the stock battery mount, but I assume I would have had the same issue as you. The mount works very well. I can post a few more photos of the mount itself if you like.
 
I guess you're asking about the ignition coil mount. The vortec doesn't need it, so I drilled out the spot welds and removed the coil mounting bracket. You can see where the mount was removed in the last photo. The battery mount is bolted to the fender on the horizontal ledge and on each leg down the angled section. I made it large enough for a full-sized battery, but I run an Exide Orbital which is smaller than a standard lead-acid. It worked out well to clear the radiator, shock, and alternator and it's rock solid.
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Wow! That is a really nice set up. I like the way you did that. Very smart. It tucks the battery up and out of the way. It also leaves a lot of space around the engine so you don't have the exhaust heating up the battery. I thought about doing that for exactly those reasons.
I was worried that it would put too much stress on the body panels. If I had heard your reassurances before I started building, I would have copied that design. It is really clean looking. And if my design doesn't work like so many of my other "bright" ideas, I will copy your design if you don't mind.:beer:
 
Thanks. Help yourself. I can't tell how you plan to mount the battery at the moment. Are you going to have enough room with the lower rad hose and fender installed?
 
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Well, I have been stingy with the updates lately because the class I teach is right in the middle of a robot competition. Still one week to go until the build time is over. Then, I can breath a little bit. I have only had time to do minor things here and there. I am pretty close to finishing this project, so hopefully I can be driving it by the time the nice weather hits.

I finished off the fuel line. I put a filter after the tank and right before the fuel pump. I also bent up the hard lines and added a fuel pressure gauge.

I found an adapter finally to convert the stock land cruiser temp sender to my intake manifold. THe manifold has a smaller opening than the head does, so it was a major pain finding an adapter. I even tried turning my own on the lathe, but that didn't work either. I finally went with a fitting that was close and rammed the sender home. I think the threads will be a close enough match to seal, but if not I may just plug the hole and be done with it.

I also had to redo the gauge mount as the wiring was hitting the heater box.

I am currently working on designing the fan shroud. We just got a cnc plasma table so I am trying to figure out how to use it.
 
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I also got the dipstick tube installed. Gonnan be way to hot to check when the car is running I am afraid though, lol.
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Sweet, lookin good

...via IH8MUD app
 
I made a battery tray bracket similar to to spotcruisers except I ran my vertical angle iron straight up from the inside of the frame rail which is bolted to the frame. It does not touch the fender, I don't think Toyota's bracket was mounted to the frame. You might want to reconsider that glass fuel filter. A friend had 1, one day his engine quit running he raised the hood & saw the glass had broke & spewed fuel all over the place. It could have been worse.

Your build looks great, nice attention to detail.
 
Thanks everyone. Nice to see people are interested and care. In regards to the glass fuel filter... I think they are plastic, but I wanted them clear for at least the first little bit since my tank has been sitting awhile during the build. I will switch to the metal type once I do the first change.
 
Well the robot competition is going into its last week. That means....PANIC TIME!!!! Here are a few pictures of our robot setup. Not a whole lot to look at yet, but will go together pretty quick this week and I will post some more pictures. I am proud of my team. It is only our second year competing in the NASA FRC competition and our team is working well.
I make my students do the whole thing too. They have to: conceptualize, design, pick apart the designs, draft, fabricate, wire, program, and debug their robot. There are lots of teams where the mentors do some of the work or other teams that have professional businesses just build their designs wholly or partially. My students do it all and we usually do it pretty cheap. This year I think we will be spending about a $1000. Some teams spend $50000!
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I had a little time to squeak in some Land Cruiser work last week. We just got in a cnc plasma cutter recently and I have been trying to get good at it. So, what better 1st project than a fan shroud. I drafted it up in autocad and then translated it into torchmat cad, and finally into torchmate cam, and voila!

I couldn't believe how well it worked. I build a sample out of hardboard to find all the dimensions, then drafted it in autocad. It was amazing! It went together like a puzzle. It didn't require the normal hours of " hammer massaging" it usually takes to get my projects to line up right. There was only one "mistake" and that was be bending the metal a little off. I have never actually worked sheet metal so still have a lot to learn about where to bend to get the curve right where you want it. I just bent on the line and that made everything about 1/4" off. I should have probably started and 1/8" to 1/4" back from the line.

You can see me putting it together below. It isn't quite done yet. Since my engine sits too low, I had to make the curve go a little below the fins of the radiator. I still need to fabricate this section and do a nip tuck on the section I bent wrong on the bottom. You can see the screw up in the last picture.
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Here is what the shroud looks like now. I might be able to finish it this week, but not sure with the robot competition winding down.
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Good job. :)
 
My SBC sits little low in the frame too.* When I made my shroud I found the trickist part was where the lower rad hose goes into the rad & the way the lower hose has to run to clear the fan & then connect to the rad. Be sure to install the hose to make sure everything fits. This area presented some changes to my original design.* Of course, I had to do the bend and tweak method.* Mine certainly did not end*up looking as nice. ******
 
Lol, well let's wait and see if mine stays this clean. I think I am going to have some trouble with the same part you mentioned. I just bought some hoses to try yesterday so I will do a mock up on Monday. My fortune foretold I had some "bend and tweak" tuning in my future. But thanks for the kind words.

My SBC sits little low in the frame too.* When I made my shroud I found the trickist part was where the lower rad hose goes into the rad & the way the lower hose has to run to clear the fan & then connect to the rad. Be sure to install the hose to make sure everything fits. This area presented some changes to my original design.* Of course, I had to do the bend and tweak method.* Mine certainly did not end*up looking as nice. ******
 
Thank you very much. It is always nice to see people think I am doing something right. :cheers: Sometimes I worry the lack of response is like the quick intake of breath when you are just about to watch someone get kicked in the nuts...and then suddenly everyone ooohs when it all goes wrong! lol

Good job. :)
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Got the fan shroud finished up. I first tried light green primer. Then I tried John Deere green just because I had it there. Didn't look like it went well with the cruiser. I sprayed it blue, but didn't really get a chance to check it out before I left for the day today. I will grab a picture tomorrow and see what people think of it.
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