The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Rebuilding my '63 327

I got the intake manifold cleaned and installed today. Tomorrow is paint day. Now that the engine is closed up, I can paint it. Then it's on to creating the new hard lines for the PCV and fuel.

I had a few successes today. I managed to assemble a lot of the little extras like the custom PCV hookup I talked about earlier in this thread. It runs from the Road Draft tube hole in the back of the block through a 3/8" hard line up to a fitting in the base of the air cleaner. I used a brass fitting for that part and and used an old brake fitting spring clip to hold it in. That makes it easy to disconnect if I need to remove the air cleaner.

I got a lot of the little things added like the custom hard line for the fuel. Water pump, thermostat housing and oil filler/breather are installed as well.

Please ignore the socket still hanging on the balancer bolt. I had been using it to spin the engine as needed.

Now for the Not-So-Fun stuff.

I'm having an issue with the distributor. I am using the same distributor I took out of the old engine, and the same rod that goes from the oil pump up to the bottom of the distributor gear. I did replace the Oil Pump with a new one I got in the master kit. It is an EngineTech EP55. Says it is correct for 1963 327.

For some reason, it will not seat properly. I have about 3/16-1/4" left before it will seat on the intake manifold. (see picture Distributor_01)
I know that it is in the groove of the oil pump shaft because when it is not, it sits a lot higher off the seat.

I measured the depth from the intake to the oil pump shaft and it measures 6 3/4". (see picture Distributor_02)

The distributor shaft measures 7 3/4" from seat to tip (see picture Distributor_03) and has a 3/4" depth in the recess that the oil pump shaft seats into. That adds up to approximately 1/4" left over, which would explain why it is not seating properly.

My question is, did they ever make an oil pump with a longer shaft? The master kit was ordered for a 1967 327, but I had to change blocks to a 1963 327. I didn't think that would make a difference.
My old block (casting # 3892657) was specifically for the year 1967. My new block (casting # 3782870) says it was used from 1962-67. Date stamp of A23 tells me it was a 1963 block. I am still using the original intake from the 1967.

Any suggestions? I would hate to have to take the oil pan off, but will do it if I need to. It just seems odd to me.

Edit: Crossposting this to the Engine Forum as well. Might get seen by more people there.

After posting in the Engine Shop, I got a response asking if the heads had been milled. My response was no, but the block was decked.

Based on the assumption that decking the block caused the problem, I started doing research on that. I found that yes, that can cause my issue. The solution is to use a distributor shim kit to readjust the distributor height so that it is not bottoming out like mine is now.

Once again, Stovebolt members came through and helped me solve an issue. Thanks!

Nice work on the hard lines. But you have the line to the air cleaner plumbed to a PCV at the old draft tube location. I thought that the PCV should be connected to a manifold vacuum source and the air cleaner (atmospheric) line connects to a valve cover. See diagram

SimS

Ditto on the PCV routing- - - -it won't work that way. The line from the air cleaner needs to be plumbed to the oil filler tube if you choose not to use a filler cap with a breather in it. Then the PCV gets plumbed to manifold vacuum, either at the base of the carburetor or the port between the carb and the distributor.
Jerry

I am using a filler tube with a breather cap (integral filter), I could route to the port behind the carb, but I thought there was enough vacuum in the air cleaner to pull fresh air from the cap, through the crankcase, thereby carrying the fumes out and back to the air cleaner and into the carb. I guess I am incorrectly remembering the set up on my old '63. It had a port from the air cleaner in the PCV system.

I was trying to avoid what amounts to an open vacuum leak into the manifold.

Thanks for catching my errors. I'll reroute as needed.

On a more important note:

as noted in the Engine Shop forum, and with much assistance, I did correctly solve the distributor problem. It was the plastic collar on the oil pump shaft that wasn't seated properly. That has been corrected and the distributor was test fitted and it now seats correctly.

I did get the oil pump primed using a home made tool and a large drill. Approximately 48 psi for a little over 3 minutes.

I started with the steel rod, but I was having trouble keeping it centered on the intermediate shaft for any length of time, so I got creative. I cut a piece of 1/2" copper tubing and cut slots on one end to allow it to be crimped to the rod with a hose clamp. Then I set the tube to be just longer than the steel rod and let it ride on the outside of the intermediate shaft and the steel rod dropped into the slot and drove the shaft with no problems. It didn't come loose after that.

The PCV valve prevents an "open vacuum leak into the manifold".
The very small orifice inside the valve, meters only a small amount of vacuum to do the job.
A 1990 4.0 liter Jeep engine does not use a PVC valve. They used a tiny hard plastic vacuum line which provided the correct restriction to do the job.

Thanks Carl. I've never opened up a PCV to look at the guts. I knew it had a check ball of some sort to prevent a back fire from going into the crankcase. I didn't know the size of the orifice was a limiting factor. Either way, I have remedied the issue and now have the PCV routed into the manifold port behind the carb.

The pulsations in the intake manifold from individual intake strokes makes a PCV valve take small sips of air out of the crankcase, not a constant flow. The plunger inside is designed to almost completely cut off the flow at times. There are also a few different designs of PCV, depending on the displacement of the engine it's used with and the volume of flow it allows.
Jerry

Cool. Thanks Jerry. I love learning new things.

Engine is all together now, including flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate. Ready to install tomorrow. I did change the throw out bearing as well.

Engine has been installed!

There are still a bunch of little things to hook up and get done, but the heavy lift is over.

IT IS ALIVE!!!!

See it run...

That's awesome 62 Stick, it's a great feeling when everything starts coming together.

I owe a lot to the Stovebolt Crew here. They kept me on track and made me rethink a few things that might have made things worse, not better.

I was able to take the truck out for a quick spin around the neighborhood a little bit ago. Sort of a shakedown cruise. It runs so much better than when I parked it a month and a half ago.

Another Stovebolt, back on the road again.

I'm jealous of how quickly you rebuilt the motor and got her back on the road! Congrats!

Thanks Apache,

Longest wait was the machine shop. First to get them started on it, then when the cracks were found, waiting to get an answer back on a customer owned block they had at their shop. Owner did decide to sell it to me. I took the block to the machine shop on Monday, 12/11/17, got it back on Monday, 01/15/18. Just over a month. It only took 13 days to rebuild and reinstall.

I took the truck out again today to see how it runs on the freeway and normal city streets. It ran great. You can really feel the power in there. I haven't wrapped it up yet, it only has about 10-12 miles on the engine so far, but I can tell it's going to be a lot of fun once it's gone through break in.

Thanks again to all who helped in this project.

UPDATE: 4/30/2018
It's been 3 months and a little over 1000 miles now. Engine is running great! Thanks again to all that contributed knowledge and expertise to this project.

I ended up having to rebuild the rear end as well this winter, but thankfully, because of all this work, the truck was ready to become my daily driver when I lost the engine in my motorcycle. It's in the shop getting replaced under warranty.

It's been a year now and the engine is still running strong.
No major hiccups at all. At least not with the engine. Other things have needed attention, but all easily repaired and have managed to keep the truck on the road with little to no engine maintainance other than oil, oil filter, and air filters.

Thanks again to the Stovebolt Crew for all the help

Gotta' love the gen 1 small blocks, simple, effective, low cost. Good to hear it's dependable.

Dave, thanks for the updates, the one thing members really fail at is checking back and keeping the members updated with how things are going.
There is a reason why Gen1 smallblock chevs have been around so long is because they are really good engines.

I'm really glad as well. My bike is down for some much needed work, so the truck is a daily driver for now.

Well, it's been three years now. Still running strong.

I had a buddy of mine take a video of the truck and how the engine was running. I finally got it posted to You Tube.

Here's the link to it. Enjoy.

1962 Chevy C10 start up and drive off.