360FISH '73 Cuda - wrenching

[360fish]

The Fish is long overdue for a number of "touch ups"... 😉

Plans include:
   •   Gen 3 5.7 Hemi (and all the required changes...)
   •   Borgeson Steering box
   •   Driver door reskin
   •   Paint
   •   The list seems to keep growing the more I look at the car...
None of the above I've ever done before but heck why not fill the beer fridge, turn on the rock n roll and get to it...



A couple close friends who are both Mopar guys came over and helped yank the 360...  One of them wants to put it in his '73 Satellite.



Getting the power steering box out...
Look Mom, no hands!!! 


Moments before the Harbor Freight pinion puller failed...


The McGuyver solution... it worked!!!



The heavy freaking b*st#rd



It's not fun pulling the fuel tank when the lower valence is welded in place... but it finally came free after bending my arms in ways they shouldn't.



Getting ready to remove the door for the reskin



door removed



More fun to come...

[Katfish]

Can't see any of the pics, coming up blank for me.
But you are going to LOVE the Gen3 swap.
Been driving my 5.7 for 2 months now, it's amazing!

[360fish]

Hopefully the pictures are linking correctly now...

The Google photo site doesn't share well... 

[360fish]

Lot's happening in the garage this past week!

I decided to go with a crate 5.7 and had it shipped in from Texas... Thank you Scoggin Dickey!

Took off the manual clutch, intake and exhaust manifolds...

Still need to pull the pilot bearing.   

Appropriate number of F-bombs, beers and bloodshed were experienced!   

[Katfish]

Looking good, I got my motor from them also.
Hard to believe the local dealer wanted $1k more than Scroggins with shipping included from TX to FL

[360fish]

Looking good, I got my motor from them also.
Hard to believe the local dealer wanted $1k more than Scroggins with shipping included from TX to FL

Yes, agreed... I was happy to find them 
They said they buy the motors by the truck load...  I noticed mine was built in Nov. 2021...
It's an "AB" vs an "AC" but I'm not complaining.  Still a great price.

Randy Bouchillon said they are going to stop making these motors this summer...

My garage is filling up with parts...

I need to start 

[Katfish]

What exhaust you going with?
I got the TTI shorties because they were a direct bolt in to my existing TTI system.
I was disappointed they still hit the Borgenson box. 
I know people rave about that steering box, but I really didn't feel much difference to the cop box it replaced.

[360fish]

What exhaust you going with?
I got the TTI shorties because they were a direct bolt in to my existing TTI system.
I was disappointed they still hit the Borgenson box. 
I know people rave about that steering box, but I really didn't feel much difference to the cop box it replaced.

The TTI long tube... "should" fit what I had behind the 360... fingers crossed on the Borgeson box.
Going  to try the toilet  paper method of removing the pilot bearing today...   

[Katfish]

Won't work, no lip to catch, I went through this

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/2996236/Searchpage/2/Main/244987/Words/BDW/Search/true/re-how-to-remove-crank-sleeve.html#Post2996236

[360fish]

LOL... thank you for the link...

It didn't work...   

Will try one of the other methods in that thread.   

[360fish]

Okay... so... those Youtube videos are not crazy... 

I tried the "stuff it with bread" trick and it worked...

I used a puller to take out the small inner bearing...

crammed a bunch of bread into the hole and found something close to the same diameter to hammer into the gap...

was easy... lots of laughs and jokes while setting it up...    

[YellowThumper]

Yep, bread rarely fails.
Nice build you have going here.

[360fish]

Lots of movement over the past couple months...

I need to replace the kinked tranny cooler lines... was no fun working these things free...  still need to decide what new lines I want to run...







The new OCP intake came in...  is purdy... I worry about hood clearance...





Getting the crate motor on the engine stand was an interesting puzzle with non-matching pieces.  I dismantled part of the pallet to help get the hoist closer to where it needed to be.
The 8mm bolts just don't look big enough to handle this but it is the stock lift point... turned out fine.







What I thought would be super easy... yes... I said it... remove the oil filter and install the 90* adapter...
Removing the oil filter devolved into... this...



Then this...  the oil filter base is enshrined on my wall now...





I realized the adapter didn't come with bolts AND I didn't have a 12mm hex wrench to remove the threaded fitting.  It seems the wrench sets you can find at stores stop at 10mm... uugghh... more parts to order.

Another "easy" task is swapping out the oil pan for the mid sump...  that's when I realized the pickup tube needs a special main cap bolt with a stud to support it.  Thankfully I watched a few videos (thank you DIYHemi) and learned these bolts are one use only and I need to replace both bolts on that cap.  So another set of bolts to get...  never gets old... lol

The last thing I need to do is modify the motor mount isolators per instructions from Randy Bouchillon.  This gives clearance for the header on the drivers side and clearance for the block on the "drinker's" side.  😉 VGG





At this point I have a lot of parts on order, some delayed because of a strike in Michigan but I want to test fit the motor to check clearance and see what else might wiggle itself onto the fix-it list. 
I still need to buy a throttle body and need to know how tall I can go.

I temporarily slapped on the oil pan (do not have the new flex plate in yet) and test fit the engine.  The engine and tranny lined up to within .25" and I was able to adjust the A518 forward so it lines up nicely.




I mocked up a throttle body and as feared, it looks like the custom air cleaner base is sitting too high and is not going to work...






I do have clearance for the old round base so I'm going to continue with this and build a custom base for the oval air cleaner in the future.



I'm currently waiting for the throttle body and have to start looking at throttle and kick-down linkage options.

It's a big puzzle but the pieces are starting to look like something.