NCRS

Say what you will about the National Corvette Restorers Society and the insufferable minutiae that they pedal in, their judging manuals include information that is not contained anywhere else. Not even the factory assembly manual has information about assemblies like the engine, transmission or radio that arrived at the assembly plant ready to put on to the car.

Case in point is the ignition coil. The assembly manual is not at all helpful in figuring out what ignition coil came on this car originally, but the NCRS judging manual goes into all sorts of detail and it solved the riddle. This is a genuine Delco part that is now reproduced under license from GM. It was not cheap, but it's an identical part since it was made using the original molds.

Inside and out

The heat shield on the bottom of the intake manifold was hiding a lot of grime that needed to be cleaned out. Any of this could possibly have ruined a freshly rebuilt engine.

The heat shield was riveted on, so those rivets had to be ground off.

Once the heat shield was separated from the manifold, both were run through the media-blast cabinet.

The results look so much better.

Rather than drilling out the rivets and taking the risk of having the new rivets not hold well, the heat shield was welded to the remains of the old rivets, making this a simpler and more secure repair.

Everything was pickled to prevent surface rust and this will be set aside for reassembly after the engine is put back together.

Ordered both

This set of ARP flywheel bolts are listed for 1987 and up engine with a one-piece rear main bearing seal, which should not fit this car, but they are closer to the originals.

Both this and the set that are advertised to fit this car were ordered. It's a luxury to do that sort of thing, but it's the only way to be sure to have the best solution available.

NAPA

Our local NAPA store offers flywheel machining service through a local person with a flywheel grinder - who knew? Turned out really well.

Gallery plug

The rear cam bearing boss is just below three pipe plugs that close up the oil galleries that serve the cam bearings and lifters. In order to clean these galleries during the rebuilding process, these must be removed along with the corresponding three welsh plugs in the front of the block.

General Motors used some sort of sealant with wizards and pit bulls in it because these were really difficult to remove. 

They have to be heated to cherry red to break up this sealant, so a nut was welded onto each one of them to remove them.

The front welsh plugs were then driven out from behind with a piece of allthread.

This block is finally ready to go to the machine shop. Now we just have to find a machine shop to take it to.

Parts

A box of parts - intake manifold gasket set, oil pan bolts and a vacuum fitting for the intake manifold - came in today.

These are rather faithful reproductions of the original parts, including the intake manifold gaskets which feature a distinctive and mysterious tab that the original gaskets featured.

Lift

As we accumulate engine parts and contemplate engine build options, a set of lifting brackets for the engine arrived. These came on each engine, but most were quickly discarded by new owners.

There's also one that goes on the bell housing.