Engine In! Lets Ride!

So check it out,
engine rebuilt ..check. Paint...check. Sunday afternoon with my pops in Grandpa Sam's shop with Italian cigars, good music and a beautiful day...check. sounds like an absolutely PERFECT day to put Jess's motor back in and see if all our hardwork pays off. 

I was SO anxious to turn that key for the first time and her Jess purrrrrr. 

Gettin her motor back in was pretty tough. Lowering her down in there with the hoist wasn't as easy as coming out. The way that the I6 200 was set up, it cant be in on an angel, it has to go straight in. This made it very tricky to connect the engine and flex plate back to the transmission. We had very little room to work with and it was extremely tough to get it lined up with the motor mounts. It took us about an hour and a half to get it lined up and attached to the tranny and bell housing. 

Once we got her in and bolted up, it was time to re-attach everything and get her started.

Attaching everything wasn't to hard, just needed to make sure it was all connected to the right places. Took us about an hour and a half to get everything back in place and connected right. Once we had it all done, just added the oil, added the coolant, and a lil' transmission fluid and now it was time for the most anticipated part of the entire rebuild....the FIRST start up. We turned the key, and jess started like a dream!! It was amazing. the entire motor was torn apart, put back together, and it started like it was brand spankin new..which it pretty much was. We got the timing set up and the small adjustments made and she was ready for the road! I couldn't be more excited to start my spring and summer off behind the wheel of Jess.

There definitely are still a few bugs to get out with all the adjustments, I also need to put a new transmission filter and gasket in. Then the last thing i need to do before 60-70 degree temperatures are here is spend about 3-4 hours waxing and buffing to get that amazing shine back!! The rebuild is complete..for now! I'm looking forward for Jess's photo shoot and will have pictures up of that for sure as soon as she's shined up and ready for the shoot. I cant wait for this summer with Jess. I will be updating her all summer long with new updates of photo shoots, new sound system, and new dual exhaust system with split header as soon as I can scrape up the cash! Thanks for hanging in there with me all winter long as Jess became a new woman! 

Let the cruises begin!!! :)

Primer, Paint, Ready to Rock

So check it out,

Now that the new rings, bearings, and all new gaskets were in place, it was time for painting. 

First came the primer. First coat of primer that I applied was the Self-Etching primer. For those of you who do not know what that does, it etches (eats) itself into the block, head, and entire area that it is applied to get deep in the material to prevent rust. After the self etching primer dried, then the normal primer was applied before the paint went on. After primer dried, then the "Ford Blue" paint was applied. Pretty excited how far it has come and how great it is starting to look! Now its time to put that puppy in!

Reassembly and ready for paint!

Ok so check it out...

So before I put the motor back in, of course I need to put it back together, and then paint it the original Ford Blue. First step in putting it back together was putting the rings in the pistons and dropping them back into their cylinders. after that was done, the brand new head was placed on, all the bolts were torqued to the right settings, oil pan was placed back on and valve cover was put back on. The engine was completely rebuilt and ready for paint.

With the pistons back in and everything put back together, here is the finished, rebuilt engine before it is going to be painted back to the original Ford Blue.

Rings and bearings

So Check it out,

First things first, time to drop the pistons and clean them. The picture on the right is one of the cleaned pistons and one of the ones I just took out of the engine and hasn't been touched. It took about 30 minutes per piston to clean the head, clean the slots for the rings to go into, and run through the solvent tank and pressure washer. The finished product came out pretty freakin clean though!

The side view shows the three ring slots cleaned out and the rest of the oil cleaned off the rest of the piston. All 6 pistons were cleaned and ready for new rings and bearings. Then its back in the cylinders they go!

 

 Now with the pistons clean it was time to strip paing and clean the oil pan and engine block. We started first with the oil pan. Once the paint was stripped, my buddy Ho (josue) went to work on it for a couple hours sanding the surface rust off of it. While he did that, I was doing the same with the engine block. When they were both cleaned up and ready to go, we loaded everything back into the truck and took it back up to my grandpa's shop to be reassembled and painted. 

Paint removed but surface rust still needed to come off!

Paint and rust both removed and was ready for assembly and paint!

Engine Pull and Rebuild

So check it out...

Now that we figured out the problem with the head, it was time to pull the engine, replace the piston rings, piston bearings, and make sure the cylinders were nice and smooth. With the new rings, I would be running full compression in my lil' 6 cylinder and get the full 120 horses runnin' right!! Pullin the motor out was by far my favorite part of this process so far. Me and chuckles dove right in to the motor disconnecting everything and gettin ready to lift her right on out. Once everything was disconnected and ready, we hooked up the chains, and lifted her right out.

Finally Got er' out!!

So finally we got the engine completely pulled and were ready to rip it apart even more. Now we had to load it in the truck and take it down to our spanish fork store where I had everything I needed to take the oil pan off, drop the cylinders out, and clean all the old burned carbon off so we could get them shined up and looking like new! We also needed to strip all the old paint off the block and the oil pan and get them ready for a fresh coat of brand spanking new Ford Blue paint.

Let The Fun BEGIN!!

So check it out,

The leaves changed, and then fell. So did the snow. It was time to park Jess in my garage and begin the rebuild. This was a very special time to me because not only was I going to spend time with my dad, John Mayer playing in the background, and cigars in hand....but we were spending this time together with Jess, in the only place in the world I'd want to rebuild my car....my grandpa Sam's shop.

A little background on the shop...
The house that my grandparent's lived in has been around for a pretty long time. This was the home my dad and his brothers were raised in. The home they were taught to be the men that they are today.  The home was my grandpa's pride and joy. When times were hard, and when times were great, the shop his haven...his escape...his home away from home...and his paradise.  He spent many years building the shop into what it is today. From its own little bathroom, to the lockers on the wall filled with tools and supplies, to the car lift and full air-compressor built into the floor. This shop was capable of rebuilding and fixing just about anything that my grandpa could get his hands on. If only the memories in this shop could be relived over and over again.....I guess i'll just have to be making my own in it from now on! If only he was here with us now every step of the way. But I know he's looking down on us from up there getting mad at us not because we clean the floors everytime we are finished working for the day...but because you can't get down on your hands and knees and lick the floors when we're done. Thats how he would've had it, but we're doing our best Grandpa Sam!! I promise!!

I am planning on purchasing my grandma and grandpas house as soon as I can get enough money...but for now, working in the shop is the closest I can get to being with my grandpa. Working on the car with my own dad makes it that much more fun and special for the both of us!

First thing's first. Finding out what is wrong with the motor was our first project. To do that, we decided to take off the valve cover to get to the motor head. After spending an hour or so removing the carburetor, all the spark plugs, and hoses, we got the head off. First look at the cylanders we could instantly tell that the guy we bought the car from was an idiot. Reasoning for this was beacuse from all the extra carbon burned in the cylinders, and a couple burned valves in the head, we knew that he was burning unleaded gas in the motor. For those people who don't know, back in the old days we didn't use the unleaded gas we all put in our gars now. Gas was leaded and motors were built to run with leaded gas. The burnt valves caused low compression in just about ever single cylinder. For those of you who don't know the car lingo, my car was only using about 1/4th of its power.

These pictures show what the cylinder heads were lookin like after all that unleaded gas and carbon was built up. After a couple weeks, you wont even recognize this engine!

We took the head down to C&T Automotive Machine who is run by a good friend of the Barber Family, Rod Thurber. He did an AMAZING job in helping me find a new head. Rod found there was a crack where my carburetor mounts onto the head which means a new head was needed. We ordered the new head and rod replaced the valves in it so I  would be able to run unleaded gas now so I would be able to stop at any ol' chevron and filler up! So with the new head (pictured to the right) it was time to take the rest of the motor block completely out of the car and rebuilt the cylinders. Now comes the fun part!!

Summertime...and the livin's easy

Ok so check it out...

Ever since I've had Jess, I've been chippin' away gettin' that 43-year-old feelin like she's 21 again.

When we first got her home within the first week or so, all I worked on was getting her shine back. She went from being Jessica Lange.....to Jessica Alba. For those of you in the younger generation reading this, Jessica Lange is an actress who was once "smokin' hot" and very beautiful, but has been a victim of the aging process. Don't worry I had to google her too.
And for those of you reading this in the older generation....Jessica Alba is....well I'm sure you still know who Jessica Alba is.......

Sorry my mind lost its train of thought....

Anywaaay....

I spent about 15 hours the first weekend waxing with 3 different kinds of compound wax, and then buffing. Came out pretty good eh?

Next, me and chuckles (my dad) gave Jess a short tune up by replacing the spark plugs, harnesses, and an oil change.

After the oil change and the tune up. The Car was left alone for the entire summer. We knew that more needed to be done but at least the car was drive-able and would get me through the summer how it was. I figured I would drive it a little bit, enjoy it during the summer months and save up a little money to rebuild the engine. Heading into the fall I loved taking it up the canyon to check out some leaves and snap a couple shots of her along the way. I was just excited to spend the rest of our lives together...making beautiful memories with the love of my life.



All the beautiful changing leaves up Provo Canyon and Squaw Peak Road

One of the coolest little spots that I found on the way up South Fork Canyon. Amazing scenery and an even more amazing car!