06-26-2012, 04:36 AM
If you've followed any of my posts, you know I've been asking alot of questions about rebuilding 351cj's. The story is finally drawing to a close. It's been nearly a year since I purchased my virtually rust free 72 Mach 1. At the time I was very excited about the car, it just fell into my hands by happenstance, and at very, very good price. It ran rough but I figured it most likely just needed a carb. rebuild. So I had the car towed home. I tired repeatedly to tune the eldelbrock carb., but couldn't get it to idle below 2500 R.P.M.'s. It had an old MSD cast aluminium H.E.I. So, early this spring I ordered a billet H.E.I. dist., but I still couldn't get the car to run right. Finally I had the local shop check it out. First they found that the reason I couldn't get the new H.E.I. to seat, the billet body of the dist. was hitting the high rise intake. They ground the dist. so it would fit. It looked bad, A huge Red G.M. H.E.I. cap with an intergral coil on top. What was worse, it still wouldn't idle or run right. They ended up tearing down the engine only to discover a cracked cylinder and worn cam shaft lobes, as well as typical crankshaft wear. So, after checking out the cost of a replacement block, I decided to have the original engine sleeved and completely rebuilt including 0.0020 over bore, new flat top pistons, crank kit, new (hotter) cam, & balancing, among other new things. All total nearly $2000 in labor & parts to the machine shop. But the local shop said it also could use a new clutch, so I added that to the list. I bought another, smaller H.E.I. the total bill to both shops combined is over $4000 & it should be ready to go in 2 more days. It's been a long year, but I can hardly wait.
Keith
Keith
