Scrape, Degrease, Repeat, Repeat and Repeat Some More

Hello Gray Ghost Fans!

I had a day off from work today, so it was off to the garage.  Even though it rained off and on throughout the day, I took the opportunity to paint the door trim that my son gave me for Christmas.  This is the metal that surrounds the door card.  The door card covers the open areas in the door that are needed to install the window regulator and door latch.  No pics of that, since it was new metal, it only needed a quick wipe down with some mineral spirits to remove the protective oil coating and then primer and paint.  Right now, it's in the basement so the paint can fully cure.  Then I'll put it in the truck.

After painting the trim, I decided to go under the truck and try to remove to access panels from the old bellhousing.  They'll be needed on the replacement, so I needed to get them off, cleaned and ultimately painted.  It took a little finagling to get the larger of the two covers out from under the bellhousing.  The second one required a ratchet with a flathead bit in it.  Otherwise, I couldn't get enough torque on the screws to get them out.  Once I did that, out it came...and what a sight they were.  Here is what they looked like right after removal:

Outside of the covers

Inside of covers

To really understand how much baked on, caked on grease, oil and dirt there is, you need to enlarge the pics.  The layers of crud were so firmly attached, I had to scrape every part of each surface with a flat blade screwdriver.  The scraping required a fair amount of force, too.

After scraping the majority of the crud off, I washed each piece in brake cleaner.  Scrubbing and scrubbing each part, then a wipedown with a rag and more brake cleaner.

The parts aren't completely clean, yet, so they can't receive paint yet.  Another round of cleaning will get them there.  After that, they'll need a quick media blast to get off the small amount of rust that is present.  So yes, the oil is a double edged sword.  It protected the metal all those years that the truck was sitting out in a field, but it is a pita now that I have to get every bit of it off.  So here's where we are after the first cleaning:

Outside of covers

Inside of covers

Pretty darned amazing!  They hardly look like the same pieces!  It's very rewarding to be able to bring these old parts back to life.  Each of them is structurally as sound as they were 60 years ago.

In other news, I'm currently gathering all of the parts to do the engine swap!  That is coming as soon as the weather warms up!!  Hopefully, it won't be much longer and the Gray Ghost will be moving under its own power!!!

Here's an example of the bits and pieces that I need to get together:

side facing the transmission

side facing the crankshaft

Of course, it's the clutch pilot bearing (or bushing, to some)!

Here's a short quiz:  how hard is it to find 7/16-14 x 1 3/8 bolts that have a 7/16 unthreaded shoulder?  Answer:  impossible!  Too bad for me, because that is exactly what I needed to mount the rear motor mounts to the bellhousing.  So...after searching and searching, I decided to make my own.  Well, not actually make bolts, but rather to modify store bought ones to match the specs that I need.  So, I got 4 bolts that were 2" long and had an unthreaded shoulder that was about 3/4".  Before cutting the bolts to the correct size, I threaded a nut onto the bolt.  After cutting the bolt down, removing the nut is like chasing the threads.  The nut corrects most of the thread that may have been damaged during the cutting.  After that, it was just a matter of using my tap and die set to cut more threads into the shoulder.  It took a little trial and error for each of the 4 bolts, since not all 4 holes in the bellhousing were cut to the same depth.  Here are the 4 bolts and the factory required lock washers:

I know it doesn't look like much and maybe like I'm too obsessed with having things just right, but there is a reason that GM wanted that last portion of the bolt to be full diameter and not reduced diameter due to the threads.  That part of the bolt bears the entire weight of the rear of the engine, two on each side.  They aren't the prettiest bolts around, but I think that they'll work, which is all I need.

Thanks for reading.  Clicking one of the "like" or other buttons at the bottom would be helpful to me and I promise that I won't know who you are!