Recent content by 73 Mike

I'm just starting to assemble a motor. I have a freshly honed Motown block. It was boiled and cleaned after machining but I want to go through it and make sure no metal shards are hiding inside the oil passages. The gallery plugs on these blocks are threaded but I still want to apply sealer...

Is there a way of visually telling he difference between an SBC stroker and BBC 454 flex plate? Both are externally balanced.

Kevin, you've got some splaining to do! I've been driving across country with my family in a Saturn VUE pulling a 5X8 trailer containing all of the stuff that CA movers won't take ( a long list). Leaving CA, there were a lot of hills so I wasn't surprised when the fuel economy was terrible...

Usually, when it starts with the caption "waning, graphic content". I think BS, but this one is pretty crazy: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/08/bus-crash-china/2631789/

I had to rent a trailer to move some precious cargo to the east coast including all of the "toxic"aerosols and paints for my car, photo album and, of course, my wine and scotch collection. I drove the thing home from U-Haul and was shocked how noisy and bouncy it was. Granted the trailer was...

I'm starting to assemble my 412 SBC and would like to check the clearances. I'll probably use plastigage as I don't have a good inside mic. I need a target clearance to order the bearings but would like to know the tolerances as well. Based on this article among others...

Ive been preparing for assembling my block by watching some YouTube videos. That and some are very entertaining and the pass the time while I'm on the road. In any case, I've been watching a series by a guy named Johnny K from Wisconsin and he introduced an idea and tool for essentially...

I changed the oil on my DD today. I pretty much always use Mobil 1 and today was no different. On the 5 quart jugs, there is a thin, plastic seal which I normally push my finger through and pull out. Today, it tore in half and folded inward so I couldn't easily get at it. About half way...

This may seem like a small thing, but it pisses me off without fail. The lower screw on my driver's side door pull won't hold. I have to pull the door shut with my window open. The screw seems to grab ok but it just doesn't hold well enough to close the door. What is a good fix for this? I...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/10/its-cold-in-europe-so-cold-a-swiss-guy-put-a-wood-stove-in-his-volvo/ I'd do it myself but we end up having all kinds of winter spare the air days where I'd get fined for running it. I wonder how long until someone puts in an artificial one for ambiance.

During aj long drive a couple of weeks ago, I was kind of annoyed at how squeaky the front end was. I knew that it might just be the control arms but thought that it could be the sway bars too. I had an old, rusty site of stock bars on the front and the rubber end links I think were from the...

Well bend me over and... Haven't I always always always said always do the easieast and cheapest thing first? Yesterday I jacked up the rear end and gave the U-joints a really good going over. They look like they have been on there a while but I couldn't find any slack in any of them. This...

Thanks Gary, Was planning on giving you a call. I'm going to check to see if the U-joints are bad but I've known for a while that the diff needed work. I can't really imagine that all it needs is a couple of hardened yokes and clips. Just not looking forward to the down time. I would think...

The snubber is less than six months old. I'll verify that it's tight but I don't think that's the issue. The drive shaft u-joints are less than two months old so they had better not be bad. The half shaft joints are of an earlier vintage so they are more suspect. I definitely have worn...

More looking for edgumucation than anything else. Had a nice, long drive yesterday with a couple of the local vette guys. Had a great run. We met up at a friend's place and I parked on his driveway to celebrate the fact that my car currently isn't leaking anything. I had to back out of his...