I've been playing around this week with air conditioning. I was able to make a bracket setup that worked on an original 322 nailhead and uses a modern pump. I didnt use an electric fan this time, and there was a surprising amount of air flow through the condenser even with all the gaps around it, so the air stayed nice and cold even when the car was idling at a stop. You can see my hokey support from the top of the ac pump to the manifold. just temporary LOL, I have a nice aluminum threaded tube and ends in the mail.
Jacob, Are you going to the Buick Show in Vancouver on August 5? Would love to see your car in person! http://www.v8buick.com/index.php?threads/portland-bca-all-buick-show.322223/
Yeah I will probably go. I don't know if I will enter my car in the show though, Im not a member of the buick club of america, and I think I have to leave it there all day, morning till afternoon right? so you might see it in the parking lot haha
You don't have to be a member of the BCA to enter, and usually you are allowed to leave earlier, although I am not familiar with the setup for this particular show.
Look who's famous! Of all the car shows I've been to, the one that ends up with a picture getting taken is at a show with hondas, nissans and subarus... http://www.wweek.com/culture/2017/0...e-fast-and-the-furious-attended-by-thousands/
I've been looking at my blower motor housing and keep thinking I'm getting a lot of heat soak when the AC is on. I thought about wrapping it in some sort of heat wrap and then realized its roughly the size of a turbocharger... so i got a turbocharger heat blanket and it fits pretty good haha
I fired up the 56 convertible for the first time in a while and the oil burning is getting worse! this picture is after running it for just a few seconds. behind me is a wide open door. I'll be saving up for some forged pistons and rods, hopefully a January or February project
Some black friday sales helped kickstart engine rebuild 2.0. Got these forged eagle rods! finishing up a project in the shop now, hoping to get the Buick's engine out soon.
I was digging through my parts in storage and four these springs had I had custom made for this 56 Buick back when I had my first suspension. These are a heavier spring rate and will firm up the back end of a 56 Special or Century, and I think 55 cars too. if anyone is interested in buying them let me know. these were only used for about 1 year and are in perfect shape.
Started on the tear down! Will hopefully have it out and disassembled tomorrow, to the machine shop on Tuesday. Its always fun to see what the problems inside are. I have been having extreme blow-by and oil consumption so my bet is on a damaged piston.
Well it was a little worse than I thought. It would seem I had some detonation issues. The crazy thing is, after this damage was done I still drove it from Las vegas up the coast to washington just fine. And it was running and driving this week still making good power. Three different cylinders had issues: one piston with a sizable chunk missing, one piston with damage to the ring lands, and another rod bearing was getting chewed up. I doubt it would have taken long for that to turn into a knock or a thrown rod! The heads look ok. The cylinder walls look worse in the picture than in person, but worst case it will need resleeved and thats not too difficult or expensive. the crankshaft will probably just need polished.
LS1 engines would be cheap over there. Wouldn't it be better to just swap it out? That chunk out of the bore would = terminal to me
The damage isn't as bad as it looks. I am only needing to bore it out .007" and I'll be going to forged pistons ($650) and making other upgrades while I'm at it. LS1 engines cost about $3,000 US for a used one, and the issue is that theyre 15 year old performance engines. In my opinion, every one of the $3,000, 15 year old engine needs rebuilt. Also I have a better camshaft, ported and rebuilt heads, a better intake manifold and throttle body, etc so it doesn't make sense to start over. Also gives me a good excuse to have the engine balanced, and go to an underdrive main pulley. The newer LS3 engines are tempting but that would cost significantly more and I wouldn't be able to use my upgraded parts.
Heres a picture of my other 56 Buick, I'm in the process of a 2015 Chevy 5.3 swap in this one. This engine is an LT based engine, not LS, and is significantly different. Once you have all of your supporting parts set up- exhaust, intake, fuel system, motor mounts, computer, tuning, etc its not easy going between engine generations without spending some cash.
While the engines been a the machine shop, I've been working on cleaning up some wiring and under hood stuff. When I put this together, I was under a tight timeline. Its all worked well, but the wiring wasn't too pretty. For now, it will get worse before it gets better haha
If you don't mind, I would like to make a couple of suggestions on your A/C on the nailhead. Because the generator bearings arnt that big, especially compared to the a/c clutch bearing, what you can do is put an idler pulley in to tension the a/c belt and drive the generator off the 2nd grove of the a/c pulley. This is a trick I learnt for setting up systems on cars without enough pullies on the crank and getting a good tension on the compressor belt without killing generator bearings. The other is to also insulate the big air tube from your fan to the heater box. I love your idea of how you mounted the evaporator and also the turbo blanket. I will do the same to my 58 when I get to it. I wonder why you used an orifice tube set up and not a TX valve one? The evaporator must be original to a car not available over here in Australia or at least I couldn't find it in my books. Love this thread. Not enough people do warts and all threads on stuff they do
Got a lot more cleaning in the engine bay done. Re-did a lot of work on the wiring harnesses to get rid of all butt connectors, and tidy it all up. Should be getting the engine back from the machine shop shortly. With some luck I can assemble it this weekend!
That's not a bad thought on the AC system. I've played around with that idea but I haven't been able to make a bracket system to have all of those parts. Also, ive heard that running idler or tensioner pulleys on the back of V belts will shorten their life. I'm not sure if that's true but something Ive heard. Either way, better to damage belts than generators. For the air tube, I found a special two layered ducting that has silver reflective lining on the inside. I know its not as good as a thick foam barrier, but it seems to be helping. I used an orifice tube because I wanted to go to an entirely modern system. The pump, orifice tube (or expansion valve) and evaporator all work in conjunction and I figured I would have parts that would have came all from the same car. This system is based on a early 2000s chevy Silverado factory ac system. The trinary switch is another modern improvement to go along with it too. The evaporator has a different 90 degree fitting welded on the exit side, so its not something that can be bought off the shelf.
I'm normally a stock guy, but given what you started with, I have to say great job! I would recommend posting this over on the BCA forums, particularly in the modified section. There are a lot of guys over there with 56's that could benefit from some of the innovations you are making. http://forums.aaca.org/forum/13-buick-modified/ Cheers,
Thanks for the reply Jacob. Watching with plenty of interest If your interested (and have plenty of time) here is a build thread I did on a dodge phoenix I built. To anyone else that looks as well, please don't hijack this thread with comments on the dodge http://forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=38117&posts=305&highlight=my barn find&highlightmode=1#M534599
