'68 Satellite 4-door light refurb...and big fat engine swap.

[dieseldazzle]

What made you want to not swap the a518 out of that van into your coronet as well?Excellent post. I'm curious about what timing cover and water pump you end up using in your swap.

 

[cudak888]

What made you want to not swap the a518 out of that van into your coronet as well?Excellent post. I'm curious about what timing cover and water pump you end up using in your swap.

Two words: Floorpan modifications. That, and the yard isn't cheap. Engine cost me $400, heads $300, and that trans would have been another $300. Honestly, I would have liked to add overdrive, but it's not happening now. Heck, I'll be happy when the damn thing can move around the front yard on its own power. One less car to push.

I used the '89 LA 360's stock timing cover, which is the same as the 1979-up covers - the one in the center here. Factory put a fuel pump blockoff plate on it for the '88-91 TBI LA roller cam engines, and retained the long-snout camshafts complete with fuel pump eccentric to keep everything together under the timing cover.

(From http://www.stevensparts.com/TIMING COVER.htm)'

Ironically enough, the engine in the car is a '67 318, so it has the poly-style timing cover with the extra bolt hole and passenger-side timing tab. Also a gasketed distributor.

(They must have used a whole tube of RTV when they shoved this thing back on. Yech).

As for the water pump - we'll see. Radiator doesn't look too good, and the Ram Van-type radiators may or may not be a drop-in replacement (Rock Auto says 27.5" wide, the stock B-body is supposedly 26", but I haven't measure either to find out if this is actual size difference or if the radiator is being measured from different points). I still haven't figured out the radiator shroud yet. The factory unit may not mount to the later radiator, and it's broken anyway (not to mention that they aren't cheap either).

At any rate, this is the other pile of stuff coming off:

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

I think something used to be here.

Anyone for a '68 Satellite gasser?

Interesting B-body left-side engine mount observations:

• The 360 has one less ear (bottom rear) than the 318 for mounting, but retains the same double ears up front.
• The left engine mount has material spanning all four ears. Some online discussions had me thinking that the mount would need material welded to it. No need.
• The forward bottom mount hole - necessary if you want all holes properly bolted on the 360 - is not drilled on my mount, but the steel is stamped with more than enough material to drill the necessary hole without any issue.
• The modification requires no welding. Drill it, bolt it, forget it.
• The isolators are NOT original. The rubber is marked "Made in Korea."
• Some sites report that the rear ear casting on the 360 sits farther forward, requiring a shim. From eyeballing my photos, it certainly appears such.
• Note the addition of the third freeze plug on the side of the block.
• Doug Anderson's article reported that these later blocks move the bolt hole for the transmission reinforcement brackets forward 1" on the side of the block. Sure looks that way. You can hardly see the original, but it's behind the chain holding the engine down. Compare its position with the center head bolt, then do the same comparison on the 360. Sure makes a difference to visualize it.
• I don't know if the 1989 360-to-A518 brackets are going to work. Might need 1988-91 LA-to-A500 brackets.

And one other thing. This motor is SUPER GRIMY. Block has as much oil crud on the outside as it does on the inside:

Also - I have a theory of what's wrong with it, and why it has three cylinders with abnormally low compression readings. I don't think the cylinder walls are scored, and I don't think the valves are sticking open.

I think it's blown both head gaskets, and the reason it hasn't been obvious is because there wasn't ANY coolant in this engine when I drained it (or when it drained itself out of the timing chain cover bolts). It's full of water - entirely. Even an engine filled with water usually has some old coolant in it that'll work its way out during a teardown, but not a drop of green ever showed it's face out of a cooling passage during the entire removal.


If this engine has a dual head gasket failure, and never had coolant in it, it would explain two things: 1. The rust on the rockers and rocker shaft, and 2. The fact that the oil hasn't turned to expresso yet.


We'll find out when I swap engines on the engine stand. Should be interesting to see the inside of this thing.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Previous owner thought that the trans cooler line could be repaired with a rubber hose, so I need to bend a new line and install it tomorrow morning, before the engine goes down.

Cleaned up the engine bay a bit today, sprayed the K-frame, and touched up the factory undercoating. Came out decent, seeing as I wasn't aiming for anything but "better than it was before":

In other news, motor mounts are on. Had to drill the left mount, and shim the right for the B-body brackets. The front ears on the 360 are also notably thicker than the 318, and required longer bolts. Probably discussed before, but here it is again anyway.

Reference photos. Don't you love those not-so-flat rear ear surfaces? Bends the bolt nicely. Yech.

And, thanks to some wheeler-dealing with forum member mderoy340, I now have an M1 intake atop the Frankenmagnum:

The best part is that this is the version of the M1 that supports Magnum heads and the LA offset water pump bypass and thermostat outlet. It's the Mopar equivalent to the Crossfartwind intake. Part number is P4532588:

-Kurt

P.S.: The replacement lifter came in from RockAuto. I filled it with oil and put it in the bore. It felt terrible. You could feel casting flash scraping against the bore. I pulled it out, and put the pitted lifter right back in. Figured it was the lesser of two evils, i.e.: Don't screw with success since '89...

 

[cudak888]

Everything went as perfect as one could ask for, except for the passenger engine mount, which refused to line up with the K-frame without some persuasion.

Unfortunately, when I went to install the bolt, the welds on the nut at the other end gave way. All of them were cold welds. Bolt still wasn't centered when I installed it. I can still tighten the two, but I still have to center the stepped edge of the bolt with the engine mount. Won't be easy no matter what I do (and I'm not out of the notion of considering a new mount, not that I expect it to be different in terms of fit).

Otherwise, the M1 intake, B&M flexplate, and center sump pipe and pan were pretty much the only aftermarket doo-dads I needed to throw on the Frankenmagnum to make it fit. The rest is glorious excess.

And in other news, Greaseball gets taken apart:

I was hoping for '67 closed-chamber heads since everything else on the engine was dated '67, but the engine threw a killjoy and dumped open-chamber 675's on me:

See anything interesting?

Hello there, Mr. Burnt Valve. Looks like that water-in-the-coolant-only mantra of the previous owner came back to bite this engine in the butt.

Still haven't found the culprit of the third problem cylinder, but really didn't have time for figuring that out yet. To think that I may have been able to solve all of this with a simple valve job...

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Ordered a pair of replacement trans cooler lines. This is how the box arrived:

Sure enough, the one line I needed of the two is bent. I could probably straighten it out, but that's not what I paid for. It's particularly off-putting, because I ruined three 6' bend-to-fit lines trying to make that curvature a week ago. Now this one arrives damaged too.

Murphy is working overtime here.


-Kurt

 

[Mopar Man 73]

Awesome thread! Can't wait to see more.

 

[cudak888]

Awesome thread! Can't wait to see more.

Thanks! There will be updates as the front end of the engine comes together (not to mention a Roadkill-style video of both my Valiant and the Satellite - I'm into video production quite a bit), but it may have to wait a bit for a replenishment of the "play money fund" - namely, whatever I make on from eBay sales of the remaining parts.

Incidentally, does anyone have a set of good, used Magnum pushrods and one pair of Magnum rocker arms? Those are the last bits missing from the engine internals.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Latest progress. New water pump installed, along with the old engine's fuel pump and fuel line. I'm going the 1970+ route with the water inlet on the passenger's side. I'm hoping I won't regret this.

Almost installed the '89 van's power steering bracket (actually got to the point of installing the rear bracket, as seen below), but got fed up with the fact that it requires a needless 1/16" spacer on the main bracket's lower bolt. Heck with that, I'm going to pick up the proper '70+ brackets.

You can barely see it, but the van's '89 mini starter has been installed too. Didn't clean up that well, but it's passable.

I'm probably going to stay with the 1989 pulley wheel and crankshaft pulley. Gives me a few extra belt options.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Ok - small update, but lots of things learned about the 1980's B-series van/Ramcharger PS bracket. This is what I had to work with, which didn't make much sense:

Enter a few photos from various Ramcharger sites:

"So that's where it goes." Turns out the PS pump was cockeyed all this time due to the wrench adapter being moved up top.

Now knowing how Ma Mopar intended its installation, I went ahead and installed the 1989 brackets this evening. I put a washer at the bottom to space out the bottom bolt, which would have originally been spaced forward by the magnetic pickup adapter, but otherwise, it's as originally intended per 1989 specs:

Lots of space to read the drivers-side timing marks, and the two-bracket setup (not including the PS tensioner) is super simple:

This is the point that I realized that the dogbone is in the way of one of the water pump holes used by the Bouchillon Sanden brackets. Then it finally dawned on me that the dogbone is a spacer for the air pumps used on these engines. It isn't needed at all, not even for reinforcement (the casting is really light aluminum and wouldn't hold up to much stress at all), which is what I thought it was for in the first place. What's more, it's so soft that it could be easily filed (or even just reversed) to work with the BPE bracket, but why complicate things?

Soon as I have a new bolt...bye, bye dogbone.

That said, I'm going to order a PS pump rebuild kit, and remove the dogbone soon as I have the Bouchillon brackets on hand.

-Kurt

 

[Mopar Man 73]

Looking good, keep it up.

 

[cudak888]

Opened up the power steering pumps tonight to "see what I could see."


1989 Ram Van B350 unit at left with press-fit pulley; 1967 (1968) Satellite unit at right with Woodruff keyed pulley:

Since the '89 bracket uses those three holes in the pulley for easy access to the mounting bolts, I'm going to use the later pulley for the purpose, even though it's a bit larger. The van had a virtually identical steering box to the Satellite - I'm hoping the difference in pulley diameter won't make that much of a difference.


Not sure which flow valve to use though - the old valve from the '67 pump is 1/16" shorter, but has the same three washers as spacers against the spring.


This little discovery has me ticked just a bit though. Since it's a 1980+ pump, it has metric mounting threads. Supposedly the pressure valve hose adapter is metric as well:

I'd like to avoid any metric if I can - bad enough to lug around imperial sockets alone - and I'm not sure if I can swap the '89 shaft onto the '67. I believe I have a third Saginaw spare from my '79 Lincoln as well, so I'm not without options.


-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

My China-in-a-box "KKS" 1970-style radiator arrived today:

Test fitting. It's getting painted black, no matter what. Sticks out like a sore thumb now.

I was pleased - not to mention a bit surprised - to see that it lines up more or less perfectly with the factory bolt holes.

It's about an inch and a quarter lower than the factory radiator, which - I believe - is to facilitate the use of this radiator in M-bodies - Fifth Avenues, late Furys, and Dippies. The angled cutout at the bottom right would certainly seem to suggest so, anyway. Radiator shroud mounts sure look like they're made to accommodate an M-body radiator shroud.

Chinese cap. Bah! Go play on a Kawei W1 and leave my Satellite alone.


-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Not much progress today. Tightened the crank bolt and mounted the main pulley.

I'm using the 1989 4-groove main pulley and dual pulley on the water pump. I know that I'll be guaranteed that it'll work with the matching '89 power steering pump bracket, but I'm not sure if the Bouchillon brackets will place the Sanden or the alternator in an opportune location. We'll see.

Also mounted the coil. After examining the Advanced Autozone Boys generic replacement from the '68 engine, I decided to use the original, rusty and crusty Japanese-made 1989 Mopar-branded coil from the van.

The electrical contact inside the coil's snout for the distributor wire appears to be a collection of high quality stainless steel bits - far better than any of the other parts store coils I have. That was enough for me.


I still need an M-body radiator shroud for this build. Anyone have one?


-Kurt

 

[Chargerjase]

Chinese cap. Bah! Go play on a Kawei W1 and leave my Satellite alone.

I see you have put a non Chinese cap on your radiator lol. This is taking shape nicely, keep up the good work.

 

[cudak888]

I see you have put a non Chinese cap on your radiator lol. This is taking shape nicely, keep up the good work.

It's a Motorcraft cap from my endless pile of junk '70s Lincoln parts, so I'm still bucking trends here ;)

Jokes aside, the rubber on it is pretty rough, so it'll probably get replaced with a Stant lever cap before it sees the road. Pity too, as the stamped stainless is nicer than usual.

The Chinese cap made for a nice paint mask.

-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

The rebuild kit for the power steering pump arrived today, so I took it upon myself to discover the idiosyncrasies between the two pumps:

The impeller assembly on the left, with the thick vanes, is from the '67/8 pump. On the right is the '89 pump, with thin vanes, and an extra slot across the circumference (presumably to suck in PS fluid via capillary action to assist lubricating the vanes?):

From what I've read, mixing and matching these to the bodies isn't advisable, as they wear to everything around them. Whether this is true or not, I cannot say. I'll take it as a given and not try to mess too much with it.

That said, the '89 shaft is an uncomfortably tight fit in the older pump, so the shaft bushing will have to be swapped in the hydraulic press tomorrow. Not fun...

EDIT: I completely forgot to post these photos two weeks ago. This is what was in the oil pan of the '68 318. Molasses oil:

Not a pretty sight. I'm glad I chose to replace the engine and not just throw a pair of heads on the original motor.


-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

A bit ticked today.


I swapped the main shaft bushing in the Saginaw pump with my hydraulic press, no problems at all:

However, the shaft, when reinserted, hardly spins at all without the pump pulley installed. And even then, it's a chore and a half.


I started to suspect the metric nonsense - or my installation - so I ripped apart a spare SAE Saginaw pump from my '78 Lincoln and swapped shafts on each pump. Not only was the '78 shaft tight in the new-bushing '89 pump, the '89 shaft bound tight in the '78 pump.


Is there some special trick to seating these that is escaping me?


-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

All issues sorted with the pump; wound up using the core from the '78 Lincoln with the piston from the '68 pump as-is (no shimming or other such modifications), though the vane is from the '78 as well. Housing remains the early '68 unit.

Fits nicely there on the '89 LA van bracket (only took two freakin' weeks). Still need to find a non-metric bolt for the top back bolt, which is presently a dual-ended stud.


I might hold off on doing the exhaust on this side and splurge on a Firm Feel steering gear. I want this car to be highway safe, and those stock PS boxes are probably the furthest thing from highway safe that I've ever known.


-Kurt

 

[cudak888]

Cranked over on the starter and test oil for the first time today, just to make sure the pushrods and rockers were playing nice (after running it by hand a few times). Took a quick video too, which will be part of a larger feature on both my Valiant and the Satellite:

[video=youtube;VeZ5ZxsXfN4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeZ5ZxsXfN4[/video]

As for sound - right now, it sounds like a Denso mini starter.

-Kurt