360 swap gone bad!

[Hedgehog]

Well I feel the need to defend myself at least a little bit. 90% of the time the work was accomplished in a methodical manner. Where it went wrong was one late night and a bad decision on the pinched gasket. As it turned out my original spark plug timing was fairly close, so that didn't play into the problem. As it turned out I was only down 3/4 of a gallon in coolant. That was until it started leaking out on the ground. Which over heated the engine making steam where it shouldn't be. I do admit that it really was all my fault, but not all the decisions were bad.

The outcome was a serious relief though.

 

[cj7inthetwigs]

In my book,its total success! You came across a few problems and overcome them resulting in victory.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[TroyaCantrell]

Good to hear, I was holding my breath, can't imagine the stress you were going through.

Congrats.


Troy Cantrell
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Build thread - '66 CJ6 :
http://www.jeep-cj.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15075

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

good job hunting that down hedge. I am about to get knee deep in a Cj/360 project myself. I may be blowing up your PM box in the next month or so when I get the CJ up to my property.

 

[Petescj]

Well I feel the need to defend myself at least a little bit. 90% of the time the work was accomplished in a methodical manner. Where it went wrong was one late night and a bad decision on the pinched gasket. As it turned out my original spark plug timing was fairly close, so that didn't play into the problem. As it turned out I was only down 3/4 of a gallon in coolant. That was until it started leaking out on the ground. Which over heated the engine making steam where it shouldn't be. I do admit that it really was all my fault, but not all the decisions were bad.

The outcome was a serious relief though.

Damn those learning experiences. Been there plenty of times.

 

[Hedgehog]

ThisguyUknow -
Actually if your mostly just doing a swap it's fairly easy especially if your dropping an engine of similar year. Since I'm putting an '82 engine in a '75 there are some issues to deal with. The 360 distributer is a motorcraft and needs a controller not on the '75. Getting a D.U.I. distributor took care of that problem. The vacuum system is quite a bit more complicated on the '82. It has been interesting figuring out how to marry the old with the new. Wiring isn't terribly different, but not exactly the same either. One item that keeps things interesting are the original '75 connectors. Even with good looking connectors the wire attaching to them has been rattling away for 38 years and the fatigue is showing right at the junction between wire and the connector. It's fiddle fiddle fiddle .... cut wire, find acceptable replacement connectors, expose wire, solder connection, heat shrink tubing. Just fiddly stuff like that, but it takes a lot longer to perform than expected. Then there are the random nuts, bolts and stripped threads that accumulate over the years which need to be dealt with. I'm not a purist, I don't insist on the very same style replacements. But if there are 10 bolts holding a part I like them all to be the same, so when this pops up it's off to the parts store for 10 matching bolts. Fiddly time consuming but important to the finished produce stuff. After all nobody wants whoever gets the Jeep to be on a Jeepers forum complaining about the stupid things the P.O. did.

My project is a little more complicated in that, the Jeep was a mess from front to rear. Thank goodness it's not a rusty mess like many need to deal with.

My jeep in many ways was just plain warn out and the P.O. did some strange things. For instance he removed the baffle between the driver side rear tire and the back where the lights are. It's bad to have tire goop flying into the rear wiring so I need to fabricate a panel. No big deal really, but it all takes planning and time.

Peterscj -
Being almost 55 my learning experiences are stacking up. The secret is to pay atention to them. On this project an amazing number of them have been useful in avoiding portential trouble.

 

[74G8R2]

Good work Hedgehog.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Hedge just a lesson learned with hei style distributors from when I had a grand wagoneer. 360s like to have a matched gear set on the cam and the dizzy. I dropped an hei into my 88 and the gear on the distributor chewed up the gear on the cam within a few hundred miles. You may want to consider popping the drive gear off the motor craft diZz and swapping it onto the new distributor

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

ThisguyUknow -
Actually if your mostly just doing a swap it's fairly easy especially if your dropping an engine of similar year. Since I'm putting an '82 engine in a '75 there are some issues to deal with. The 360 distributer is a motorcraft and needs a controller not on the '75. Getting a D.U.I. distributor took care of that problem. The vacuum system is quite a bit more complicated on the '82. It has been interesting figuring out how to marry the old with the new. Wiring isn't terribly different, but not exactly the same either. One item that keeps things interesting are the original '75 connectors. Even with good looking connectors the wire attaching to them has been rattling away for 38 years and the fatigue is showing right at the junction between wire and the connector. It's fiddle fiddle fiddle .... cut wire, find acceptable replacement connectors, expose wire, solder connection, heat shrink tubing. Just fiddly stuff like that, but it takes a lot longer to perform than expected. Then there are the random nuts, bolts and stripped threads that accumulate over the years which need to be dealt with. I'm not a purist, I don't insist on the very same style replacements. But if there are 10 bolts holding a part I like them all to be the same, so when this pops up it's off to the parts store for 10 matching bolts. Fiddly time consuming but important to the finished produce stuff. After all nobody wants whoever gets the Jeep to be on a Jeepers forum complaining about the stupid things the P.O. did.

My project is a little more complicated in that, the Jeep was a mess from front to rear. Thank goodness it's not a rusty mess like many need to deal with.

My jeep in many ways was just plain warn out and the P.O. did some strange things. For instance he removed the baffle between the driver side rear tire and the back where the lights are. It's bad to have tire goop flying into the rear wiring so I need to fabricate a panel. No big deal really, but it all takes planning and time.

Peterscj -
Being almost 55 my learning experiences are stacking up. The secret is to pay atention to them. On this project an amazing number of them have been useful in avoiding portential trouble.

I'm making my project even more complicated because I am going to be making the 360 run off a gm tuned port injection set up. I will basically be rewiring the entire engine and underdash harness myself.

 

[Hedgehog]

Now that's fun for all to see!

 

[Hedgehog]

Hedge just a lesson learned with hei style distributors from when I had a grand wagoneer. 360s like to have a matched gear set on the cam and the dizzy. I dropped an hei into my 88 and the gear on the distributor chewed up the gear on the cam within a few hundred miles. You may want to consider popping the drive gear off the motor craft diZz and swapping it onto the new distributor

Frankly I'm having such a brain buzz on this one. I chose the D.U.I. because it isn't supposed to have the same problem with distributor gears as many of the others have. ...... But I am worried about tearing this thing up and dropping in the distributor was easy enough.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

Frankly I'm having such a brain buzz on this one. I chose the D.U.I. because it isn't supposed to have the same problem with distributor gears as many of the others have. ...... But I am worried about tearing this thing up and dropping in the distributor was easy enough.

Well i do know that the DUI brand is the higher end in quality on the hei products. So if you have read positive reviews from people who have used them then maybe it isnt necessary.

I am speaking from personal experience when I got stranded on the highway and personally I would change the drive gear regardles of HEI brand because It wont hurt the HEI and I know that the original one is good to go. Just my two cents not trying to nay say on your project so please dont take it that way.

 

[Hedgehog]

I've got thicker skin than that. It's fairly easy to know well meaning advice from other kinds. Everybody seems to chime in on this. I'm more than likely going to pull the distributor and put on the one on the motorcraft dist. Actually I had planned on doing it to begin with but the guy helping me thought it was a bad idea. I'm a sheep so he won where I knew better.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I've got thicker skin than that. It's fairly easy to know well meaning advice from other kinds. Everybody seems to chime in on this. I'm more than likely going to pull the distributor and put on the one on the motorcraft dist. Actually I had planned on doing it to begin with but the guy helping me thought it was a bad idea. I'm a sheep so he won where I knew better.

Your buddy didn't get stranded on the side of i65 like I did haha

 

[Deerejeep]

Hey Hedge, did you replace your waterpump? what did you go with?

 

[Hedgehog]

Yeah way back when. The water pump that came with the Jeep was almost frozen, fooling with it seemed to loosen it up some, but I didn't want to use a pump that was about to quit so I got a replacement. Must be they are old because there wasn't a requirement for a core so I've still got the thing in the garage.

I don't know if you read the past few pages. I pinched or bent the new water pump gasket when putting on the new pump. Thinking it was "good enough" I tried using it anyways. When the engine got hot the thing leaked a solid stream. then the engine blew steam out places it shouldn't. So, I replaced the bad gasket with a new one and all is well again. No steam! Now what to do with the old pump?

ThisGuyUKnow - Last night I pulled the old gear, tonight the old gear will go on the new dist. This will make both of us feel better.

 

[Hedgehog]

This evening I buckled to common AMC sense and replaced the new gear on the D.U.I. distributor with the stock one on the original motorcraft distributor. I was surprised to see that the two gears weren't exactly the same and the distributor went in clocked differently from the other gear. Tomorrow I think the plug wires will be moved one position and the dist. will be turned back the same distance essentially reassigning where #1 plug gets its spark. Why oh Why am I doing this? The new dist. is much bigger than the stock unit causing interference issues with the fan belt, power steering pump in one direction and water hoses in the other. I need to find a clear middle ground. The original gear on the distributor was perfect, switching to the stock gear moved the things far enough to create problems. Not a big problem, just another fiddly thing to deal with to do the job right.

 

[Hedgehog]

Well that didn't work .... actually it did work. Moving the wires and turning the
distributor by one wire worked GREAT. Problem is the distributor bumped into the power steering pump just before timing was right. I needed to reset the plug wires, retime it with the vacuum advance hitting the 1" water pump hose. That bothered me, so I made a hold back bracket to pull the hose away from the vacuum port. Looks good and won't hurt the hose or the vacuum advance mechanism.

If you ask me this is a design problem with the D.U.I. distributor cap. The plug in cap location is a big ol' 1"x1" blob on the side of the cap. The plug works well, but gets seriously in the way, primarily it hits the power steering pump and it's mounting bracket making it impossible to time it in the conventional way. For instance in my situation the rotor doesn't point at cylinder #1 when at TDC, it points toward the front of the Jeep. I can imagine the confusion and the initial complaining about the PO until the next owner sees the problem and the only way to solve it on a jeep with stock power steering.

 

[ThisGuyUKnow]

I seem to recall this problem on my old wagoneer. Cant remember how we got around it. I am on the fence about which dizzy to use in my build. since I am going with fuel injection I have to lock out the dizzy mechanical advance and modify it for electronic spark control. I think I can accomplish it with either but I will go HEI if I can clear the PS pump.

 

[Hedgehog]

With a small amount of understanding of how a distributor works (and I'm sure you understand) the problem can be worked around. Hey, if I can figure it out most anybody can. You sir are jumping into the deep end of the pool. I wish you luck my friend.