Dear WeatherCat classic car enthusiasts,
My trusty wagon has been conspicuous in taking up huge amounts of my time, but until now has suffered from a serious shortcoming - no engine.
As a quick recap, the story starts back in April 2014 when after only 3-months of operation, a lot of shards of non-ferrous metal were found in the oil pan - at least one bearing had failed. At this point, I asked Mike Tomaszewski and TA-Performance if he would be willing to take on this patient. Thankfully, he consented and thus started the long and twisted path to heading to my wagon?s return to health.
By December 2014 Mike finally was able to dismantle the engine and determine it was the rear main crankshaft bearing that had failed, damaging the crankshaft in the process. Unfortunately, TA-Performance had a large backlog of engine orders based on their aluminum big-block, so my wagon just had to wait her turn.
At last report Biquette had successfully made her presence at the Orinda classic car show - alas, minus a transmission! The reason was that the original GM 200-4R overdrive transmission was considered a suspect in having caused the rear main bearing to fail. In addition it was leaking profusely. Rather than taking a chance with it, I decided to go with a new 200-4R from Art Carr?s California Performance transmissions. One reason for this choice was that Art Carr promised me a transmission in 2-weeks. Getting the old transmission repaired would have meant sending it back to the builder in New York. That likely would have taken many months.
Well, two weeks came and . . . where?s the transmission? Art Carr was backlogged and 2 weeks became a month. Okay, if you own a classic you?ve got to be patient. Sure enough a 200-4R was finally delivered but it had . . . . a surprise!
Yup, that?s a nasty crack in the case at the base of the bell. Art Carr is now shipping transmission by strapping them down to a wooden platform. It appears that they might have overtightened this transmission and stressed the case to the point it cracked.
At least Art Carr quickly responded and rushed another 200-4R in a week. Soon the transmission was fitted and at last my wagon was able to run her engine for the first time in 18 months. Here is a video of one of the first runs:
https://youtu.be/GY1RfXjlFywMostly the news is all good. The engine starts very nicely and idles smoothly. However, it was also stumbling when you first nudge the accelerator. Even stranger, 3 of the spark-plugs were getting fouled. After a bit of troubleshooting, it turned out that the distributor failed somewhere between the engine being test run in August and now. So a another type of distributor was purchased that was more reliable.
With that problem solved it was time to see what this car could do. How?s this as a first example!
https://youtu.be/V7q01MnNOQAAs the Orinda Motors classic car guru says in the video and that?s only 1/4 throttle!
Here is another run at about the same time:
https://youtu.be/78k1iZRJkF4The rough idle is actually part of the EZ-EFI self-tuning process. It determines how to get a smooth idle by seeing how low it can go and then correcting for that.
I was able to bring my wagon home last Thursday and I?m tickled pink! The engine was performing very poorly before. It was extremely noisy and sluggish. Now it is extremely responsive and it has more power than I think I really want!
Better still, the engine is much quieter with all the changes I?ve made, my wagon is much more pleasant to drive. On the freeway the noise level is quiet enough to hear the stereo or have a conversation. Even the Vintage Air air conditioner works extremely well.
Having been able to take my wagon outside, I took a second set of photos of the engine in it's very pleasing green and clear aluminum color scheme. Here is the passenger side view:
Here is the ?in-between? view:
Here is the front view:
Here is the driver?s side ?in-between? view:
Finally, here is the driver?s side view:
This whole project really goes back to the 1980s when my Dad and I daydreamed of modernizing our then 20 year old station wagon. Many of things we talked about, like an overdrive transmission, seemed impossible then. My Dad died of a brain tumor in 2000. But before he died he asked that we take car of
?da? trusty wagon.? It has been an awful long struggle, but I think he would have been really pleased to see how she has turned out!
I?m sorry to have left the WeatherCat community without as much of my services during this long process. I certainly appreciate the support of everyone here. Unfortunately, there is still some important work to do, but I should start getting a little more time. Of course what would free up much more time is if it would really rain in California! Then I couldn?t do much of anything else besides work at the computer!
Cheers, Edouard