Saturday, November 9, 2013

Engine is 90% complete.

I am pretty sure I can get the engine installed in Lulu this week. I have been working on getting it all back together and ready to be installed and I think it is just about there. I have a couple more things to powder coat and it will be ready. I think it would of been ready last night and installed today but I ran into a couple snags. I was planning on running the fuel injected exhaust system on it because I have a brand new muffler for a fuel injected engine and it sits really high up so I would have more ground clearance. Last night as I was getting the exhaust ready to install onto the engine I found out that the drivers side heat exchanger was rusted out. I determined it was too bad to weld and was too bad to drive safely. I have 2 sets of older heat exchangers so I decided to use the best set on this engine. It will probably be for the best because I can now use the heat risers so my carb will not ice up in the winter. I will need to fabricate a bracket to get the older heat exchangers to work with my newer heater cables but that shouldn't be too bad. Here are the before and after photos of the engine. This picture is just after I pulled the engine from the baja and removed the exhaust. The weather really took it's toll on the 2 years it was in the baja.
 Here it is now after we spruced it up and assembled it so it is ready to get installed. Hopefully it stays looking this good now that we will have a full hood to cover it up.
 I think it looks pretty good. I hope it will run as good as it looks.
 I adjusted the valves today while it was up on the stand. It is much easier to do it here before it's installed in the car. I decided I need to powder coat the valve covers and the header I am going to run on it and then it will be ready to be put into the cart.
This project is taking longer than I wanted it to but hopefully it will be worth the extra time I have been taking. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks it will be on the road. Check back and see if it happens before Thanksgiving comes.

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