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I misjudged the space on the passenger side today after a F-150 zipped in front of me in the parking lot. I coasted by but just scraped the concrete pole. I bought a Bondo brand sunction cup dent remover. It needed grease on it to get enough suction. After touch up, you can hardly tell. The rear quarters are getting done first anyways. I pulled the Qjet off and will be going through it tomorrow. I talked to the machine shop, my block is supposed to be done. Their crank guy was out sick, no hurry till I get the pistons and rods. I messaged Mark, the Mahle pistons and a bunch of other parts are getting sent next week. Finally progress!
Machine shop called, they asked me what brand my cam bearings were. I said Clevite, he said we need to know to find them, they are somewhere in back🙄. We will see come Friday, if I get a machined block.
I talked to Mark, it sounds like the Mahle pistons are shipping, I assume both sets ordered. He emailed them as I believe they are drop shipping them to me. Mark sent the Canton oil pan and pick up, rockers, roller cam and connecting rods. I will contact the machine shop, I want the block, along with my 4 main Halo and the longer studs and it completed next Friday.
Last edited by olds 307 and 403; June 19th, 2021 at 05:57 AM.
Picked up this $360 off, $209. I also gained $50 Canadian Tire money. Now I have $100 towards another tire for my Dakota. I had the cart from my last welder, it really well made with bog pneumatic tires. It is a flux core welder, I always ran out gas and the speed **** was broke on the other one. I also have an auto darkening helmet that needs batteries, hopefully still works. I have to weld in my O2 sensor for my wideband.
Yeah, I did a quick test weld, I need practice😊. I'm going fishing tomorrow, probably a lot in the next week. I am calling the machine shop Monday, going to try to negotiate a hostage release. There better a block for me to pick up a week from tomorrow or I may have to storm the place🙏.
Talking to my Daughter's Boyfriend who has the same welder mentioned it welds like turd with the heavier .035" wire and an extension cord. My shop might be considered one big long extension cord🤔. Basically a triple 12 gauge wire trenches from the hose 75 feet away. I talked to the machine shop. My crank has not been ground but wasn't expecting it done, hopefully next week. The block is supposedly done except the cam bearings. I was going to get it Friday but they are closed Thursday and Friday due to Canada Day coming up. So he said they can probably hammer cam bearings innit and get it done tomorrow. My Wife goes back to work Friday Night and I was hoping to go pick it up Friday Morning first thing, so much for that. Now do I leave fishing early to get my block? Really?
It is bored and honed to 4.100", decked .016" to clean up which might require slightly thicker gaskets, I believe the Mahle pistons sit .013" below deck. It was also align honed on the mains with the ARP studs.
Oh and Skyhigh(Dave) from CO who also ordered his Mahle 4.100" pistons in the same batch just received them with a $175 brokerage fee, mine might be double but should be here soon.
I ordered a 18.9L drum of brake cleaner and 4 containers of aluminum oxide blast media, will be here tomorrow from our Canadian Tire sister store. I still have some crushed glass as well. I am stripping the accesories of the Duplicolor garbage, I sure it will peel anyways. This will replace it, VHT low gloss metallic black engine enamel. I also bought some rust converter to use on my block and iron Flowkooler reverse rotation water pump. My other auto dimming helmet is toast, this was on a good sale. I also ordered a Dorman R4 compressor delete pulley, a carb brush cleaning set that should work great in the block passages. I also ordered the Edelbrock BBO intake gaskets, will use on the eventual Edelbrock aluminum heads, rubber steel core valve cover gaskets and .042" head gaskets from Amazon. It should give .039" clearance as my Mahle pistons should be .003" out of the block with the necessary tp straighten .016" deck mill. That will be 9.65 to 1 compression with 65cc chambers and ideal quench. With a wideband tuned rebuilt and slightly tweaked by me Everyday Performance 800 cfm Qjet with 34 to 38 degrees in by 3000 rpm and 10 degrees of vacuum advance, hopefully will run great on 91 non Ethanol.
I'm glad your going first, I will try to learn all I can from you guys. Those pistons are pretty sweet Looking forward to seeing you build this bad boy
Yeah I try and wrap my head around theses fees and they never make sense, you 118.00, me 175.00 for brokerage fees for the same box and weight and I'm on a boarder town to the USA, the bluewater bridge is in my town, 1 hour away from Mahle or farmington hills and your all the way to Sask, we take it dry in Ont haha. So for the piston to wall clearance are you going to use what Mahle says or is that to tight?
Yes, the clearance should be built into the pistons, Mark Remmel explained that to me, it makes sense. Mahle states only more clearance on endurance, racing and filled blocks.
Yes, the clearance should be built into the pistons, Mark Remmel explained that to me, it makes sense. Mahle states only more clearance on endurance, racing and filled blocks.
Well that's one less thing to worry bout, what range for clearances are you gonna be looking for when it comes to the bearings?
Mark suggested .0022"-.0025" rods and .0025"-.0028" mains, I left those numbers with thr machine shop. That should allow a 10W30 oil with really good pressure.
These kind of posts are what keep my faith in all of us car geeks. Plenty of people have the cashish to go buy a completed car. I get that. I am not hating on any of you. Posts that show progress and love for old iron? That's what this is All about for me. Rock on Brother. Cheers to you. Not only for your effort but for informative posts.
Yeah, I could have bought another current model Challenger instead, great cars, probably will get another one. I drive Olds because our families 75 Cutlass and especially our 81 Delta 88 were really good cars. The Olds were head and shoulders better, thanks to the 307 and 350 Rocket especially. The mid 70's cars, Ford's especially were criminally bad quality wise, Dad stopped being a Ford man because of it. When I found this rough 70S, the styling is best of nearly any year, not to big and bloated like later years. I plan making this a nice driver. Cutlassefi has released a ton of new parts to help our 350 compete, these pistons are really nice. I'm sure the Molnar rods will be great as well. Once they show up, they will get dropped off for internal balancing.
I decided to blast a few of the parts. The filler tube wasn't bad but oil filter adapter cover were. I taped off the oil filter adapter openings and both ends of the oil fill tube. I also painted the Flowkooler water pump, it had basically no rust on it.
Ok, so I ran a 7/16" tap in 1 through 4 mains, cleaning after each hole and a 1/2" tap in #5. I then hit with carb cleaner and blew them out with compressed air. I installed 1-4 hand tight as ARP specifies. I used a Die on the 1/2" bolts for #5. I hit all the the blasted parts with clean cleaner, compressed air then brake cleaner. Then VHT Gold metallic engine enamel, multiple light coats.
Machine shop just called, it looks like the 330 crank was ground .020"/.020" undersize. I was told.010"/.020" years ago when I bought it off Ebay. They were puzzled after measuring due to no stamping, my offset ground 330 crank is stamped.
Oh and I can use these studs with these rocker arms. Notice how much shorter the Harland Sharp Polylocks are than the Comp Polylocks. Mark was right, imagine that😊, the cam is right.
Good thing I checked the pistons and rods. I thought when the pins are floating they just go into the rods. They do not fit as is, the small end needs honed to fit the pin. Apparently this is the norm according to Mark. The rods look to be around 800 grams but this little scale is acting goofy.
Well after a long 11 hour day of fun at work, I went looking for my other balancer off the 403 to replace old denty. Found it, blasted off the Duplicolor with aluminum oxide and painted with a couple of coats of VHT Black Metallic Engine Enamel. I also removed 20 pounds in the form of the removal of the POS R4 with a delete pulley.
Thanks Dave! My Wife dropped off Mahle Pistons and Molnar rods at the machine shop to have rods honed fit to the pins, now they can weigh for balancing, along with a balancer and flex plate. Incase they want it but should not need it for internal balancing. Will see if they can complete it before the end of the year. Oh, I ordered an Edelbrock top end for a fair price off Ebay to get the .042" thick head gaskets. Well, they are no longer the white head gaskets, they are now standard blue Felpro .041" head gaskets, fine, will give me .038" quench. The valve cover gaskets look to be the same material as heavy duty Felpro pan gaskets, latex covered cork without the rigid core, at least not that I could feel. Maybe Mr Gasket Ultraseal?The intake gaskets are the nice rubber bead around the ports and the exhaust gaskets a fiber material. Not a bad price with the free shipping through Amazon. I also received the carb cleaning brushes, they should work quite nicely in the block passages.
Last edited by olds 307 and 403; July 8th, 2021 at 05:52 PM.
Oh and it looks like all clearances will end up around .0025", piston to wall, the Mahle clearance at a 4.100" bore. I also told the machine shop I wanted .0022 to .0025" rods and .0025 to .0028" main clearances. It should be nice and quiet with no cold piston rattle and great oil pressure hot and cold with 5 or 10W30 engine oil.
Talked to the machine shop again today, supposedly going to try to grind the crank this week. Katherine dropped off the pistons and rods on Thursday. She got there, the doors were locked. She saw an employee at the side door and gave him the parts. He said they were there, maybe up front. I said good, don't loose them, that is $1250 US in pistons and connecting rods. I mentioned again the pins need honed to fit. If they do these two things, only balancing left.
Decided to glue on this gasket to the reverse rotation Flowkooler water pump. Since this gasket does not exist outside of buying this pump, gluing to the pump is much more ideal than the cover. Of course, I used the best RTV on the market.
Talked to machine shop today, the crank is ground! It is .030"/.030", they need rings and rod bearings to internally balance. I told them to get me rod bearings to speed it up, nope. They called direct to manufacturer's, Clevite, Federal Mogul and King, no one had any in stock. Sent Mark a message with the rest of the parts needed, hopefully they are available.
June 12th, 2021, 07:37 PM
Looking forward to seeing you build this bad boy 
