Lets Build a SPRINT
 

First let say Thanks to all who recently helped me with some of the last bits needed for a possible project.
Didn't have a plan but after realizing after many downsizing events over the last few years,
I still had about 85% of parts needed to assemble one more 1966 OHC 4bbl engine.
I didn't really have a plan and still don't ;)

My thinking is based on some of these parts have been on the shelve for years, so why not assemble an engine.
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1797/...1c02c2fd_z.jpg
It's just a planning stage now and will not likely start util mid summer,
but again just wanted to say Thanks.

Cheers!

Nice!
I built a Qjet carb & tuned one years ago in a 67' Firebird 3-speed stick.
Once tuned it carried the car along nicely!

Of course you will want a 250 crank :D

Hey Jeff, i have a acc drive housing just lying around, if you want it, send me your address and I'll ship it to you no charge. I can send pix if you want.

george

here are some pix;
http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...d.php?t=687962

George

Following.
I have 2 complete base 250 engines and 1 complete Sprint that the bottom end was in a pretty sorry state but the head and Cam are good. Two sets of Sprint manifolds and one correct Q-jet. Should have a couple on engine stands soon to evaluate.
Please post details as you move along.
Thx.

George,
Thanks for the offer but I have that covered.
Maybe another Cammer member can use this?
Cheers.

Good idea, Jeff. Same offer goes out to anyone. I don't need it and it needs a new home.

George

FIRST ORDER
 

Will be to have the Block and Rotating Assembly taken over to the shop for inspection.
If anything is too far gone that I'm back to a holding pattern.
Hope to get to this after the holidays.

Cheers.

Interested and sending PM.

Slow advance...
 

Not much has been happening with this little project, still scouting parts.
Likely going to tackle the head first over the block as it can always serve as a reserve.

I did finally gather all the correct 1966 Only timing belt cover parts.

I have only once encountered an aluminum belt cover, cool piece. Your NOS Y pipe looks pretty choice too :)
Let's get cracking, it's almost summer!.

PLEASE STAND BY...
 

To be clear this is going to happen but is just not a priority.
My machinist has his summer schedule lining up so this has caused me to re-route to other things,
Such as Bolt-On's.
My thinking is getting these ready serve two purposes.
ONE is they are now ready for unforeseen issues. TWO they need to be done ;)
So far about $70 on the Dist & $60 on the Starter.

Next maybe the carb...

Looks good. I have two complete Sprint engines from air cleaner to pan. A '66 and a '67. When we finish working on the car for this season, then we're going to tear into them.
I'm looking forward to seeing your progress, Jeff. It's always great to have a nice spare engine laying around. Nothing wrong with taking your time, though. Building these engines can not be rushed!

Hi Jeff, You inspired me ! :D I finally got around to working on my "spare" Sprint engine. Fathers day allowed me to make stupid progress on it. It has been in the ready to assemble condition for over a year ! If you look at the pictures you can see my solution to making sure the cam cover goes on without causing anything under it to go askew. The same shaved bolts can be seen in the picture where I fit the intake to the engine. I did run into a glitch. It seems I have a 1969 belt cover, not the 68 I need. Anyone have one to trade ? I'll post pictures of the 69 next weekend.

Shots of the end of Fathers Day ( around the time I hit the "glitch" Forgot to mention that the cam cover in the first three pictures (above) is the junk cover I used when painting the block. The "H" cam & cover is in the last picture

I was trying to say the last three pictures show the H cam & cover installed on the engine. Not sure how the last picture wound up upside down.:eek: Must be a senior thing:old:....I can build an engine but have little hope of posting pictures correctly......lol

Nice work Wayne!

Nice! I guess I better get my a$$ in gear ;)

Onto the Accessory Housing...
 

In an attempt to maintain some forward motion I'm continuing with the bolt-on theme.
After contemplating using one of my old spares I chose to tackle the assembly that I know was fully functional to save some hassles.
Clean up & tear down showing all good/minimal wear.
In the past I've always left the housing raw aluminum but this one will be painted as factory.

Onto the re-build...

All right !:drum: Now were making progress. I have a little nifty trick , if you paint the exhaust with the Duplicolor Engine Blue it turns silver when you first run the engine. ( I found this by accident ) but the result looks great ! I started welding up my engine run stand today. ( just the wheel mounts ) I'll post some pics when it gets interesting.

ACCESSORY HOUSING
 

Finally finished up. Thought I still had bearings and seals, but I didn't so ordered and waited.
As things came in I took a closer look compared to OE and thought I would point out some minor differences in the bearings I ordered.
This is compared to the OE Torrington J-108. What I noticed was roller count.
All three of these bearing were listed with matching specs but the BA108 has fewer rollers and my thoughts are more is better,
so I went with the SCE108 which was an exact match to the J108. The BA might not be a problem but WTH.

Moving on...

In an effort to prevent complete stalling I'm still picking away at the little stuff.
I thought I would share a very minor item. Parts Cleaning.
I picked up some Purple Power for the first time,
and very pleased to report that this product is fantastic.
I had this old pan soaked, stripped, prepped and painted within half a day.

Hey Jeff...I like the shiny stuff...lookin good ! I just noticed that I do not have a air cleaner housing 4 bbl....not sure how I missed that ?:confused: Anyone have one they would like to part with ?
On another note the engine run stand is finally coming together:clap3:. I'll try to post some pictured this weekend.

Had a chance to take a few pictures, so here is the still unfinished stand & the control panel for it...Hope they are all the right way up this time....Nope...only 3 out of 4 LOL

LAST of the BOLT-ON's
 

Are now complete, Machine shop should be getting ahead of the backlog so I'm going to have to jump in. I did the exhaust in the VHT Flame Proof Cast Iron and will likely go over it with the DP 227 once I have it all bolted on.



Wayne, Nice Stand!

Looking good, Jeff. Did you blast the exhaust manifold before painting? Do you think the rust will bleed through? (love the cast iron look of that paint)

Soaked the Manifold in Purpler Power to de-grease it, Rinsed, then blasted.
The Flame Proof paints are real good and hold up well.
This is 3 coats with 35/45 min between each. Once I'm at the point of bolting it on engine
I'll go over it with the 227 for a more factory look.
I've always finished my engines with the cast on the manifolds and love the look but thought I'd give this one a more correct look.

It's been years … decades, actually, since I used VHT paint. Last time I painted exhaust manifolds, I used Details Cast iron Gray. Looked great going on but didn't last long until it burnt off. Looking at the left over can, it says 1,200 plus. Will try the VHT.
OK, so what is DP227?
THX

Sorry that should be PK 227

POR 15 manifold grey is the best I've found.

Doesn't even smoke on first heat up. Stays for years.

b-man put us onto it;
See post 4 here

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...haust+manifold

The engine test stand is my wife's old tread mill. I was in the process of trashing it when I realized how beefy the frame was. Sawzall, welder & some grey primer....two days later and there it is ...a test stand. HEY LOOK, I'M into recycling. LOL

I didn't bother with a different paint on my exhaust, just shot it with the Dupli Color Pontiac high heat engine blue. happy accident ,... it turned a nice grey silver color. (I'll get some picks up later in the week) It's been on the car for two years now, still no chipping

HEAT CONTROL VALVE/GATE
 

Happily was able to get everything loose upon initial disassembly.
Found a somewhat suitable thermostat coil spring and a simple test shows it functioning as it should.
Decided to finish off the manifold with 3 coats of metallic blue, last can so figured why not now ;)
Gate shaft is fairly tight so doesn't look like I'll have to sleeve/bush it.
Now I just need to get a suitable anti rattle spring and all should be good.

IT RUNS !!!:clap3::horn: Fired it up for the first time today . Jumped to life without a hitch. For the first run I only went about 5 minutes. As you can see in the picture the exhaust is starting to change from Engine blue to a nice Gold/Silver. How close are you getting Jeff ?

NICE...
 

Need a Vid ;)

My plan has come to a full stop.
Had to go north and move my mom down here as she can't live alone anymore so that has been my focus since last month.
Hope to get back on track soon.

Family first ! Hope all is well with your mom .

Dang, I'm seriously jealous about that sweet engine run stand.

Find an old tread mill. Those things are built like tanks ! That's where the entire frame came from. With the exception of the radiator & battery the rest was bits and pieces laying around in boxes and on shelves in the garage. Oh yea... and an old can of grey primer ( gotta love the old 16 oz cans )

Down but not Out...
 

This has to be one of the slowest builds to date.
Getting machine work at the moment isn't possible so I'm still picking away at anything I can.
I can't make any internal parts purchases until I have the head and block inspected.

Hi Jeff, It's been a while & I was wondering how you are doing ? I found a glitch in my Sprint. The carb. always had a slight flat spot ( hesitation ) under hard acceleration. Turns out the secondary upper flaps had a notch in them that was causing a bit too much air flow. I pulled the upper secondary flaps off a spare carb. ( no notches ) swapped them & bingo ...no more hesitation ! I only found the difference in flaps when I was looking at the carb. on the test stand and noticed it did not have the notches , like the one on the car.

Wayne,
We're hanging in there, Thanks. Hope all is well on your end.
My build came to a complete stop.
The machine shop was acttive with their summer schedule even with all this 19 crap.
I was just getting ready to hopefuly reanimate this project,
since they should be winding down.

I should be able to get my Block and Head over to them soon.
Otherwise no much to report.
Glad you figured out your carb issue.

We are well. I have a new glitch with my second spare OHC 250 - The engine came to me quite a few years ago and was supposedly rebuilt. I hung a starter on it this week and found each cylinder develops only 90 lbs.. I opened it up and the cam looks new, as well as the rest of top parts. Pulled the head and , again, looks new. cylinder walls are smooth. Timing is dead on. Think I may do a "look for leaks by putting air pressure in the cylinders test " ( Senior moment...can't remember proper name for it ) Am I missing something ? (senior moments wise ) Any ideas ?

Head Gasket and/or rings would/could be of issue.

Had a chance to "play" yesterday afternoon, found ALL the valves ( intake & exhaust ) have seating issues. Not big, but just enough to let air begin to pass by at about 70 lbs. I would guess the person who did the head did not know enough about the OHC 6 or just never lapped the valves. Next chance I get I'll pull them & see what the story is.

It's funny how a little thing can cause a flashback to high school. If I didn't know better I would think this engine was a High School shop project.:cool: We had a few new engines, that the teacher stripped down each year and the "project" was to put yours back together correctly. :first:This engine seems the same....All the parts in the correct spots, but little things a-miss, like valve stem seals and so on are missing. Valves are brand new...straight out of the box and into the head..."We don't need no stinking seals or lapping....it just slows the build progress ! ":huh: LOL Can't wait to see the lower end.... Jeff, if I kind of Hi-jacked your thread, I apologize ! It was not my intent. Covid has me pulling out all the "someday projects " that's how I wound up working on the second "spare engine" As you said in a thread ( a long time ago ) these OHC-6 engines have a way of multiplying if left alone together too long . LOL

Have at it Brother.
I'm iching to get things moving again,
So in the meantime I'm living vicariously through your post ;)

Wife told me to go to the garage today, so I got some more done. I lapped all the valves - reset the springs & found a slight leak in 4 exhaust and 6 intake and exhaust.:confused: Ok this time with feeling ! LOL After the second round of lapping all are holding fluid with no problems. :hooray:( I use WD 40 ) as it finds the smallest of areas to leak through. I'll let it leak test overnight....

Ok, so where are we today ? :old: Ah yes, I remember now....I finished breaking down the engine today & found that it was, in fact, rebuilt using no new parts ( on the lower end) at all. :doh:The cylinder walls are all shiny and still had the OEM ridge. Did find a mouse nest in the oil pan ! Now the good news . The engine cylinders mick out at 3.875 to 3.877 :clap3: rings are somewhat worn but NOT TOO SHABBY for a '68 ! Seems the engine was well cared for and never rebuilt. Everything else in the lower end looks great also. This is going to be a re-ringing and go job. I know it's only a 1 Bbl but I am sure I'll find something to do with it in the future...( now I just have to find a 66 tempest ) Oops ! did I type that out loud ??? LOL

I've not given up,
 

just detoured slightly ;)
Block and rotating assembly just dropped off at the machine shop.

Small victories
 

When I dropped off the block/parts we went over some of the details.

One being, if at all possible was to retain the deck codes.

Happy to report after thorough testing at all points they said the Block does not need to be decked, so I can/will have the factory stamp/code.

Waiting for cylinder info so I can set up the next step.