Here comes the Judge, my 69 GTO

I know that this isn’t an engine swap, technically I’m just refitting the original engine that’s had a rebuild, but there are so many little differences with the new larger alloy heads & those massive headers that only just fit & the intake is a high rise item vs the original etc that this thing is just fighting me every step of the way…. & if I lose any more skin or blood this week I’ll be re-naming the car Christine (for the record I don’t name cars… MrsXB does, but I do not)

Decided to hook up all the heater hoses so I can fill the radiator up, connect the bottom hose to the water pump & the heater core return hose to the pump no issues



Went to connect the top hose…. & nope… no go, the original formed hose is expecting a near vertical opening to connect too



I can’t just use my original which I cleaned up to replace the shiny new one as the new one is not a flat bottomed design it has a groove cut in for an O-ring… bugger… need to find a new top hose that will work now as the angle difference is too great to “bend” the top hose I have to fit…



For the heater core feed hose, if you look at the back of the heads you can see that each head has a barbed outlet to flow hot coolant into the heater core… the tap size for these is stupid big & I couldn’t find a blanking plug that I can swap one with & I refuse to jam a bolt into a cut off length of heater hose as that’s just pure hackery, so for now I’ll connect both up with a T-piece but I don’t like this & will want to change that later I think as there are just too many connections that could leak





I was trying to decide if I would swap out the hard vacuum line that feeds the transmission with a soft rubber one



But then I decided that it’s not that bad looking so I’ll keep it, it runs from the front of the Carb were it will get its vacuum feed from



Down the back of the engine block & connects to this modulator on the passenger side of the transmission.. this is an adjustable modulator that determines how far up the rev range the trans waits to shift up a gear, hence why it wants a vac signal from the Carb



This is not to be confused with the kickdown function, which on a TH400 trans like mine is a an electric switch that’s triggered by a switch on the top of the throttle pedal.. mine was not connected, so I’ll need to trace & run a wire for that now

With the trans still out I figured this would be the best/easiest time to swap out the stock shifter that I have in the car for my 1968 Hurst His & Hers shifter that I had gotten a while back…



The top cover is clipped on so that pops off pretty easily



Then the shift button is gently prised off with a small screwdriver



It’s only clipped onto the shaft anyway



Then the snap ring that holds the shifter knob in place can be removed



Six screws hold the console to the floor… with them up done lift that out leaving the shifter body bolted to the floor





Unbolt the shifter & place it on the bench for the obligatory new vs old side by side on a bench photo

Also the transmission is now fully installed back in the car too, no progress pics taken as it’s not really a job you stop halfway thru for pics

quietsailor wrote: »

Epic, though isn't it amazing how every small change has a domino effect of needing more changes, you'd think the air filter would just fit!!!

And for the heater hose barbs - are thet removable? Could you bring one to a plumbing supplies and they might have a plug for it?

The heater hose barbs are removable but I suspect that my engine builder probably thread locked them to be sure they didn't leak so they will be a prick to remove...

I plan to email the support guys at Butler Performance (they've been great with any questions I've had) & get the correct size & thread pitch off them so that I can order the correct blank & have it here so when I pull the barb off I can block the hole instantly.

Ok… so I’ve put off the wiring as long as I can… so I’ve chatted to some mates & got some great ideas so this is how I’ve ended up doing this. I have 3 new things in the car now that require not just a positive & negative battery connection but also need a switched 12V connection so that they are only turned on when the key in the ignition is switched to the on position. These 3 things are:

The new MSD ignition box.
The new in tank Fuel pump
The electric choke on the new Holley Carb

Now I don’t want to wire any of the above into the 51yro wiring of the car at all if I can help it.. so I’ve gone with an approach to combine the above 3 into a single feed that will be fed via a relay that will itself be the only thing wired into the old loom, this relay will be triggered from a 12V switched source.. so it looks like this for now..

This is the fused busbar box for want of a better name, you can see that I’ve wired the first 4 spades together these are in turn fed by the 30A relay





I’ve made up a bracket to mount this box too & have mounted the relay next to it too… now I’ve cut all the wiring to the size that I can in time turn that bracket around 180 degrees & have the whole lot sitting under the top of the guard & out of the way…. But for now I want it out in the open as messy as that looks so that I can troubleshoot everything much easier





The other larger relay you can see above behind the guard is the relay that came prewired into the loom for the fuel pump. I’ve wrapped up the 3 wires that require the 12V switched feed together to make it a little neater



These then attach to the wiring block to all be fed from the relay which will be switched by my one & only 12V switched wire feed, I really like this little block as I can run fuses in line here & with the plastic waterproof cover easily see if they are blown.





All I have to do now run this single wire to a switched 12V connection somewhere in the engine bay, I’m probably going to use either the Tacho or Wiper feed wires



Now all I have to do is to take the positive & negative feeds from the fuel pump wiring & the MSD wiring that want a direct connection to the battery terminals… I’ll be making fresh new battery cables for this as the old stuff is so stiff & the coverings very cracked from years of heat cycles

Progress has been a bit slower than I’d have liked but this engine install is fighting me at every turn… it’s not massively different but just enough bits are just moved slightly enough that my original parts no longer fit right & so a lot of the final finishing bits are becoming a lot more customised than I expected, I guess I could just take the roadkill approach & just whack it together “good enough” & be done with it but I’m trying to do it right so that will take a little longer I guess…

First job sorted was the top Rad hose, the tolerances on the rubber fittings was super tight & it’s much harder to work with a metal hose than a flexible rubber one that’s for sure… I’m happy with the connection to the top of the radiator itself



I can’t get the connection much better than this on the block side, if it’s going to fail & leak it will be from here I’m sure



I’m happy with how this turned out but won’t know if it seals properly until we can fire the car up & get the system hot & pressurised..



My new lower profile air cleaner turned up, this seems to be the lowest profile you can get anywhere so this is as good as its going to get



Because it’s lower & as such will flow less air, I’ve gone for the matching filter top hat so that it can flow more air thru that too vs the old solid chrome hat





It’s now not touching the heat shielding mat on the underside of the bonnet now when I close the bonnet down but I might look into removing the under hood mat in the future & seeing if I can fit the Ram Air III vents to this bonnet



I’ve had to modify the power steering lines as the new brackets move the PS Pump a little too far outboard for the original hard lines to work, but that’s sorted now & all connected up



For some odd reason the coil wire end on the MSD distributor wasn’t the current end to work with the MSD coil so I cut off the end & made up the correct end & cut the wire to a nicer length too… no need for the extra 10 inches of wire they supplied

Now I have taken two dozen or more pics of the nightmare that was the days I played with getting this set-up.. but let me condense it down so I don’t drive you mad with picture after picture of partially installed exhausts… so the destructions ask that you set the mufflers in place first as they have a specific spot that they fit in just in front of the diff where the floor is raised under the rear seat, so I hung them in place first





& that’s pretty much the last thing that went to plan… so I could/can assemble the rear sections that go up & over the diff & then turn out at a 45 deg angle just past the rear wheel









But to do this I needed to modify the hangers from being straight to bending forward as the mufflers were hanging too close to the diff





But when I have the rear sections exactly as they need to be then when I start building forward the angle that the centre X box needs the exhaust to be at means that there is no way to connect all the way forward to the headers

Now clearly this is very illegal & I can’t run the car like this on the road, but I figure its good enough to allow me to get my engine builder out so that we can start the engine & bed in the cam & set the timing/tuning of the carb etc…. then I will simple take the car to an exhaust shop & get them to make up the final rear sections that go from the mufflers over the diff & out the rear… I need to get him around to do this ASAP before he flys home over the XMAS/NY holidays

Now there are still a few issues to be sorted, the fuel lines for the carb can’t be tightened (long story will be in the next update)..

I also can’t use the gearbox, the neutral/reverse safety lockout for a 69 GTO isn’t electronic it’s a physical linkage that runs from the steering column down the firewall & attaches to the same bracket the shifter cable does… well mine now fouls on the new exhaust headers…



So I can have Park, Reverse & Neutral if I really pull on the shifter but I can’t have Drive or 2nd or 1st I can’t get the linkage off to modify the end of it to allow more clearance without removing either the gearbox or the drivers side header (which needs the engine lifted up an inch or so to do)…. Also the drivers side header is actually touching the hard brake line for the passenger side front brake..



It’s also way to close to the chassis in points but I’ve been trying to ignore that… but I’ve failed at ignoring it…. Build a restomod they said… it’ll be fun they said… sooooooo If you’re a regular reader of my threads you’ll know that I’m a bit mental…

As such my plan is as follows… get the engine builder over to start & bed in & tune the engine… this will rock the engine under torque & bang it against the frame rails were the fitment is too tight… this will leave witness marks on both the headers & the chassis rails..

Then I’ll drop the gearbox back out & remove the ****ing engine again….. this will allow me easy access to rerun the front brake lines as they can’t stay were they are… also I can easily get to & modify that gearbox linkage & finally I can use a die grinder to add some relief clearance to the chassis when the headers hit & some light tapping with the muscle car special tool (the big ****ing hammer)… I really don’t want to do this & I could probably arse about & try & fix these things with the engine & gearbox still in the car but in the long run I’ve learnt over the years that the long way is often the faster way with working on cars….

Ok… so even the simple task of fuel lines to the side of the Holley Carb here has become a headache… how can this be hard??? To save time & effort I bought a pre-made to measure set up to bolt onto the carb rather than making up my own…

If you look at the design of this Holley there is a machined standout block on the front with the Holley name on it



This interferes with the operation of tightening up the hard fuel line to the car, as these fitting are soft aluminium I need to use the soft AN spanners on them & with the design of the fitting (they curve the edges of surfaces FFS) & the design of the Carb I can only get 2-3mm of the spanner onto them & can’t turn the spanner more than an qtr turn either so no way to tighten the bloody things up



So I can’t use this piece



So I bought the one they offer which has flat surfaces machined into the shaft so that will be fine for tightening now..



But of course the fix can’t be that simple…. The old one is a female end & the new one is a male end….



So now I have this nicely made up section that runs between the front & rear fuel bowls but I can’t connect it to the new down pipes I have…



I’ll look to see if I can’t get some female to female connectors so that I don’t have to make the whole thing from scratch. Another bit I’m not happy with is the clearance between the new Moroso oil pan & the drag link, when the steering wheel is turned to full left lock it raises & it rubs against the pan





I’ll have to do some research & see what I can do here… the stock idler arm & pitman arm are flat, so I need to see if there is a drop version made that will drop the drag link down a few mm… if not worst case I guess I’ll just have to grind some clearance into it





I’ve been doing some thinking on how to solve my header fitment issue…

First thought was of course to just bash seven shades of ****e out of the header tubes with the hammer… bit too roadkill for me, so it’s a no.

Second thought was to grind/cut out some of the chassis rail & then cut up some pipe so that I could weld in new steel that was curved to allow for the header to sit into a recess… I was really liking this as an option & it will be my fall back plan.

The winner for now I think is that I will loosen off the bolts holding the header to the heads that will allow me to swing the header towards the engine but keep the bottom edge of the header flange hard against the head face. That will give me the position/angle that I need to have the clearance I want & then I can measure the gap between the top of the flange & the face of the head… then I will get the face of the header flange ground down at that angle to give me the clearance…

Then the engine came back out….









Now we’re in a snap lockdown here in Melbourne for the week so I can’t take the exhaust header to be machined this week.. so next I’ll sort the changes to the brake system I want next

Right, time to get back into this… I couldn’t find any machine shop that had a machine that could hold the exhaust in place & grind down an angle on the head mounting face… everyone wanted to just smash it with a hammer..

I’m really trying to avoid this option but I guess that it might just come down to that being my only option, I’ve tried to bend the tubes & that seemed to work for a while whilst the metal was hot but sadly metal tends to have a memory & after it fully cooled overnight it seems to have mostly returned to it’s original shape… but I think I got a tiny bit of movement. I bolted the exhaust to the engine & I used a webbed strap & a hand winch to pull the exhaust toward the engine as I headed the pipes up. This worked fine & gave me a full 10mm of movement & I was really happy with that but the following morning it had fully cooled off & pretty much gone back to where it started…









Next I took the heat to the chassis rail & then used the precision special tool to percussively persuade the metal & rounded out the sharp edges where the exhaust runs, I’m hoping that I’ve moved stuff enough with these two actions, I’ll put the engine back in this weekend hopefully as that’s the only way to be sure..







Now that it’s painted again you can hardly see the war crime of butchery I’ve performed here

Next issue I ran into was with the new flexible braided lines for the front callipers, I can’t use the original lines as they use a bango style connector, but when I put the new lines on the end that connects to the hard line isn’t the same shape on the new lines as the old lines.. the new lines are a perfect hex end, but the original are rounded on two sides



Why does that matter I’m sure you’re asking.. well the brackets on the frame that hold these ends won’t hold the ends of my new lines & they rattle about a lot when I turn the wheels left to right.. & I just knew that that constant slight rattle would eventually cause a stress crack & a leak in the hard line





So I had to order some new brackets that hold these lines solid





Now with these welded on I can connect these flexi lines up which means I can start the job of making new hardlines from the Wilwood master down







Hopefully I get some time to focus on this more this weekend & get the other little jobs sorted so that I can drop the engine back in next week sometime.

Got a bit more done on the brake lines, you can see here the 3 new lines leaving the brake bias adjuster module, the rear most line runs to join the rear brake line & was easy to do, the front one is the drivers side line that just drops down to the calliper on that side..

The middle line is the new routing of the passenger side hard line that I can’t send down & across the front cross member any more, so I’m going back to the firewall & across the engine bay that way





It’s awkward dealing with the large roll of tube.. but I wanted to get it close to limit the chance of me measuring it wrong & cutting it way too long or worse too short



Now I have it cut & run & I’m happy with the path it takes, it’s well out of the way & nowhere near the headers now…



The end stops just above my new bracket on the passenger side



Now why does it stop there & not just connect to the flexi line I hear no one ask…. I’ve run out of bloody fittings, well I haven’t I have a bag of them but I’ve run out of the correct size fittings



I have a heap of slightly larger sized ones but they don’t fit, they look good but I only get half a turn of thread & they bind up



I did think of using one of the old fittings, here is the best of the old ones but I knew that if I did that it would eat away at me inside… it’s a horrible affliction that I suffer from



Tried all the parts places local that were open on Sat but no one sells brake line fittings as they don’t want people who normally ask for the installation service for their newly acquired air freshener to have a go at DIY double flared brake lines I guess.. I’ll have to go to a specialist place during the week or order off the interwebs I guess… anyway that stopped play on the GTO Saturday… so head over to the Challenger thread soon to see that I did on Sunday

The drivers side cable just runs straight down thru it



The passenger side I’ve routed up & over the tailshaft before it turns forward thru the guide



I really like how neat that looks… sometimes it’s the little things



Now it’s time to reinstall the engine again… at least I know how its done now, so we laid the headers in & cable tied them in place



Pick up the engine again



Then hang it into the engine bay about an inch higher than the mounts.. that allows me to pull the headers up into position & bolt them on



Then lower the engine down & bolt it in….





The clearance looks better for now but I won’t know for sure until I bolt the transmission back on & that pulls the engine to it’s fully installed angle… I hope to do that this week.

Ok… there’s no easy way to say this… long story short I wasn’t fully happy with the amount of new found clearance in the pic above, the gap was like 2mm at most (where the black marker is on the header tube below) & I just knew that with the engine rocking under torque load it would constantly smack.. also I didn’t like how close my newly run hard brake line was to the header either, I had just 2 inches of clearance & I figured that in traffic with no real airflow that wasn’t enough of a gap & the fluid would get way hot in that one spot & maybe even boil… you can see the gaps in the pics below





With the engine back out I reran the hard line way across & out of the way (not sure why I didn’t do that the first time TBH)

Before



After



Before the engine came out I marked the new area to be massaged into a new profile (or beaten with a big ****off hammer)



Heated the frame & massaged it then smoothed it with the grinder so that it would hopefully not look butchered from above





I also decided to seal up the front circuit of the brake distribution block that I had moved, I’m still using that block to run the rear line down to the Diff but the new Wilwood setup has a front left to right distribution built into the forward/rear bias adjuster.. so I welded up some brake line fittings & screwed them into the block to seal it up & make it look a little halfarsed