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Michael Ketcham posted an update 2 years, 2 months ago
Its been a year ago this month that I blew my engine on the way to a car show. It took until December to find a replacement and I road tripped with a friend to pick up an engine and tranny from a 1984 Chevette with 14000 miles on it. Lined up a lift and stand over the winter and started working on it this spring. Because the car was built around the engine it was a 2 month struggle figuring out how to get the old one out. The engine wouldn’t lift high enough for the rear transmission mount to clear the frame at he tunnel. Ended up cutting a notch in the frame brace so the mount would slide directly forward. Finally out, I relined the firewall with heat reflective material and replaced rubber mounts and repositioned my brake master cylinder slightly to give me more room at the steering column, New engine cleaned and prepped, and dumbed down so it would think its a ’79 (less smog crap, better gas mileage and more horsepower). Rebuilt my old carb and used ’79 vacuum lines. New engine slid in pretty easy since at that point I kinda knew what to expect. The hardest part after that was reinstalling the fender, grill and cowling, and getting everything to line up. Road tested today (about a mile) and everything works except my water temperature gauge (Classic instruments gauge lights up, pegs when I turn key as it should and drops to 0 when engine starts). Hurricane Ian pushing some rain this way so I’ll keep it in the garage a few days and get that issue solved. I’ll try to drag some pics from my gallery…
