Firewolf
07-08-2008, 01:23 PM
I just registered so i thought i would introduce myself and my car. I live in the portland metro area of oregon and my car is a 1968 Pontiac Firebird. Ive owned the car for about 6 years and finally getting to painting and fixing the floor so i can drive it.
The story of my car....
I bought it from a guy in washington who had ripped the motor apart with it still in the car and had not worked on the motor in quite a few years when i bought it. So in my infinte wisdom i decided to just pull the motor out of my dad's 80 cadillac that had a 70ish oldsmobile 350 motor swaped in for the desiel that used to be in it.
Now some of may know that a 350 olds motor is different than the 350 motor that came in firebird's. I did not! So happy in my ignorabce i went to town porchasing all kinds of cool stuff for my swap. Headders, motor mounts, cool heater hose covers and general stuff of that nature. So the big day comes swap time!!!
I pull the old motor of the bird comes out no problem. Now time to put the new motor in. My dad sugested putting the headders on first and so i tried that.... no dice. So pull it back out take the headders off and put it in... well it kinda fits lol. so i got to put the headders on...
yea you guessed it no way in hell these are going to fit. Steering box is in the way. ok so fine ill just put on manifolds lol yea um they dont bolt up to the pipes. Ok so send it to a really good muffler shop the get the pipes all up to the manifold but the angle wont work. So off to wrecking yard to get a crossover manifold. Find one they weld shut the normal spot the manifol attaches to the exhaust pipe and run it out the crossover hole.
Next up steering. I take it to a auto shop to have the strreing components replaced and get new wheels and tires and an alingment, so all happy in my car i drive it home. I park it and it has a funny smell, like something burning. So i pop the hood and i dont see any smoke. Drive it into garage and go get a flashlight since its dark. So im looking and looking and all of a sudden i notice the ground is black and cement isnt black. So what happened was teh previous ownet had welded on an extra 1in to the bottom of the oil pan, np in the caddy but in my firebird the engine was much lower and somehow it hit the ground when i was driving and chrunched the pan so create a small hole and leak all the oil out all over the garage floor. YAY new oil pan and ya know what they only make chrome oil pans.
The car is HOT... So i get back from driving it a few blocks just for kicks and i pop the hood and my motor is HOT. HMMMM so i shut it off and let it cool down and check the radiator and its dry. So i add some water and keep adding and adding and adding so 5 gallons later im thinking ok something is wrong here. So i go looking and find a puddle of water on the passenger side. Comming from behind the glovebox. Come to findout my heater core is cracked and leaking. Only 2 days after i had it put in. So it bypass it and take it back to the shop so they can fix it. A few days later same problem so i take it back and tell them its leaking again. So they install another and then a few days later same problem. So im a bit pissed at this point. I go back and they want to look at my car for a few days and come to find out that my valve cover is hitting one of the pipes and breaking the tube off the core. So i get a completly internal heater core put in like the ones they add to cars that never had heater cores. Come to findout this was caused by the motor having a 66 degree V angle. When the one that was supposed to go in there is a 45 degree angle V.
So thats the story of my car lol next time ill do research first!
The story of my car....
I bought it from a guy in washington who had ripped the motor apart with it still in the car and had not worked on the motor in quite a few years when i bought it. So in my infinte wisdom i decided to just pull the motor out of my dad's 80 cadillac that had a 70ish oldsmobile 350 motor swaped in for the desiel that used to be in it.
Now some of may know that a 350 olds motor is different than the 350 motor that came in firebird's. I did not! So happy in my ignorabce i went to town porchasing all kinds of cool stuff for my swap. Headders, motor mounts, cool heater hose covers and general stuff of that nature. So the big day comes swap time!!!
I pull the old motor of the bird comes out no problem. Now time to put the new motor in. My dad sugested putting the headders on first and so i tried that.... no dice. So pull it back out take the headders off and put it in... well it kinda fits lol. so i got to put the headders on...
yea you guessed it no way in hell these are going to fit. Steering box is in the way. ok so fine ill just put on manifolds lol yea um they dont bolt up to the pipes. Ok so send it to a really good muffler shop the get the pipes all up to the manifold but the angle wont work. So off to wrecking yard to get a crossover manifold. Find one they weld shut the normal spot the manifol attaches to the exhaust pipe and run it out the crossover hole.
Next up steering. I take it to a auto shop to have the strreing components replaced and get new wheels and tires and an alingment, so all happy in my car i drive it home. I park it and it has a funny smell, like something burning. So i pop the hood and i dont see any smoke. Drive it into garage and go get a flashlight since its dark. So im looking and looking and all of a sudden i notice the ground is black and cement isnt black. So what happened was teh previous ownet had welded on an extra 1in to the bottom of the oil pan, np in the caddy but in my firebird the engine was much lower and somehow it hit the ground when i was driving and chrunched the pan so create a small hole and leak all the oil out all over the garage floor. YAY new oil pan and ya know what they only make chrome oil pans.
The car is HOT... So i get back from driving it a few blocks just for kicks and i pop the hood and my motor is HOT. HMMMM so i shut it off and let it cool down and check the radiator and its dry. So i add some water and keep adding and adding and adding so 5 gallons later im thinking ok something is wrong here. So i go looking and find a puddle of water on the passenger side. Comming from behind the glovebox. Come to findout my heater core is cracked and leaking. Only 2 days after i had it put in. So it bypass it and take it back to the shop so they can fix it. A few days later same problem so i take it back and tell them its leaking again. So they install another and then a few days later same problem. So im a bit pissed at this point. I go back and they want to look at my car for a few days and come to find out that my valve cover is hitting one of the pipes and breaking the tube off the core. So i get a completly internal heater core put in like the ones they add to cars that never had heater cores. Come to findout this was caused by the motor having a 66 degree V angle. When the one that was supposed to go in there is a 45 degree angle V.
So thats the story of my car lol next time ill do research first!