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Engine Start-up

I finally fired-up the engine for the first time this past weekend. I had primed the oil before I dropped the distributor, set the base timing close to 10 BTDC, filled the engine with coolant and the 700r4 with about 5 qts of ATF. I temp wired the engine and enlisted the help from my brother-in-law to feed ATF into the trans while I fiddled with the engine (checking timing, setting the idle, checking temps, etc).... you can always use a few extra arms and eyes.

Everything when pretty well....for a short bit. The engine started right up and the base timing was pretty much bang-on but after a minute or so the outlet on the water pump feeding the heater core popped loose and spilled coolant onto the floor. I had plugged it with a simple press-in plug and meant to go back and plug it more securely.... and just simply forgot to do it. I has filled the radiator with coolant a few days prior to make sure I didn't have a leak but totally overlooked the simple plug.

So we shut it down, cleaned up the mess and had to drive to town to get a small section of ¾ dia hose (I didn't have on hand), a plug and some more coolant. Not a big deal except the clean-up was a pain since coolant can be rather sticky if you don't get it all mopped up. After the short diversion and addressing the problem, we fired it up again and was able to set the idle and check a few more things. I think I still need to add a couple of qts of ATF but I will do that shortly.

I rigged my Insta360 camera to capture the milestone and any Keystone cop moments and did a few edits on the video since it was about 2 or 3 hrs long. I'm still figuring out the intricacies of editing video but I did upload it to Youtube if you want a good laugh. The coolant leak happens around the 2 min mark if you want to fast forward and then we go get the parts necessary to fix it and give it another whirl.

Link: Initial startup of Chevy 350 w/700r4

I have a punchlist for the next items on the agenda. I need to address a few things on the body such as figuring out the A/C mounting and a few other metalwork type things then the plan is to place the body back on the chassis/engine combo and get it ready for bodywork and paint.