'67 122s, in way over my head

[wtarkington]

Here's one ...

One of our members at our 2020 Spring Meet.

Wow, that?s different! I?m digging the no trim look.

 

[spock345]

I thought I should probably post an update on the car. A good amount has gotten done.

I gave up on trying to soup up a B18D and just decided to get myself a B20. I ended up picking up a '73 B20F from Redwood Chair that originally came from Pat's 1800ES.

I decided to replace any gaskets that would be difficult to reach once the motor was in the car. Mostly that just meant replacing the oil pan gasket and making sure the transfer tube seals were OK. The engine apparently only had 15k miles on a rebuild and it definitely looked like it inside.

The engine as it was once I cleaned it off with a lot of simple green. The water pump was relatively gross so that had to go. As did the block off plate for the mechanical fuel pump. I ended up filling the injector holes with freeze plugs. I may also pick up some of the little plates SW EM sells and go full belt and suspenders.

Shined up the aluminum parts and whatever they plate the valve cover with.

New coat of red paint. Also tore down and lubed the distributor. As it was a D-jet car it has a pickup the distributor. It puts out less total advance than the B18D cast iron unit but given that the D cam has a longer duration I went with a higher base timing and lower mechanical advance. I left the vacuum retard disconnected.

The old motor came out. Puking coolant everywhere in my driveway. Although this car is probably the easiest engine removal I have ever done.

New engine ready to go in and cleaning up the transmission.

New motor in. For this I decided to put the engine in first and then install the transmission. Compared to the weird rotate and lift motion for an M47 in a 240, fitting an M40 in an Amazon is easy.

Everything cleaned up and installed. Since I didn't have a manifold for a car with a closed PCV system I just routed that to the little plug at the end of the balance tube.

I ran into some trouble with fuel pressure right off the bat. Turns out my mechanical pump was putting out far too much which caused the rear carburetor to run overly rich and squirt fuel out the float bowl vent. I made a small bracket and picked up a fuel pressure regulator.

Whoever at Volvo decided on blue air filters had obviously not thought about how much it makes the engine look like a tonka toy.

The car now feels more driveable in modern traffic. It is still not very fast but I can put my foot down at highway speeds and actually accelerate. Merging isn't anywhere near as dicey. The D cam pulls well from the start. It might also be that the old motor had issues I couldn't see at first glance.

Not pictured was the trial of changing the door hinges. It is a nice feeling when the doors close like they should and you don't have to lift them a centimeter.

Next up, finishing the interior side panels and dealing with the back seat.

 

[PaddyGarcia]

Nice work!

Door hinges require front fender removal, correct?

 

[spock345]

Nice work!

Door hinges require front fender removal, correct?

Yep, that wasn't exactly a fun time.

 

[spock345]

Recently got a big score for the car. An M410 with the rare B20 bell housing. I'll have to put some work in adapting it for a hydraulic clutch. My hope is that I can figure something out that doesn't involve cutting or drilling the bell housing. Maybe forced induction is a possibility in the future.

 

[Alex Mcknz]

The progress looks nice, I am excited to see how it will turn out.

 

[R32RennSport]

Recently got a big score for the car. An M410 with the rare B20 bell housing. I'll have to put some work in adapting it for a hydraulic clutch. My hope is that I can figure something out that doesn't involve cutting or drilling the bell housing. Maybe forced induction is a possibility in the future.

Nice

 

[spock345]

Waiting on some parts. So I decided to give the gearbox a new coat of paint with some of the red I had left over from the engine. I found bits of the original dull red and some black paint on it. After some thinking this gearbox is probably overkill for what I will actually end up doing with the car (as opposed to wishful thinking). I'll use it for the time being while keeping an eye out for an M41. Most of what I need to do carries over to the M41 anyway

I've got to clean up one or two spots of over-spray. Doesn't look too bad for a paint job done during a lunch break.

 

[carver]

You were not kidding about the crate...

 

[spock345]

You were not kidding about the crate...

I inadvertently got a good amount of scrap wood. I am pretty sure there is 40-ish lbs of wood and deck screws in that crate. Given what lumber is now going for the previous owner probably could have packaged it in gold. They even bolted the gearbox down inside in three spots.

I just have to swap the OD flange and top cover. Then it can go in the car. If I recall correctly I can test the four speed part of it without wiring up the OD solenoid. So I'll likely do that to do my own test for noisy bearings and synchro function before making a new harness for it.

 

[joel142]

I have the long handle shifter in the 142 (it's a '71) and while it's murky and slow it's got a great old school vibe. It's shifting like you mean it!

 

[spock345]

I have the long handle shifter in the 142 (it's a '71) and while it's murky and slow it's got a great old school vibe. It's shifting like you mean it!

I definitely want the long shifter but apparently there are some incompatibilities between the two setups. I am not sure if I will be able to make it work.

 

[spock345]

Also I am not sure how much play the input bearing on an M40 is supposed to have. I pulled mine today to grab the top cover and investigate a leak. Either way it may need some work.

https://i.imgur.com/8xcWcD8.mp4

 

[joel142]

I just gave the spare M41 in the garage a jiggle and I can't say it's much different. The rando off craigslist I bought it from assured me it was mint.

 

[spock345]

I just gave the spare M41 in the garage a jiggle and I can't say it's much different. The rando off craigslist I bought it from assured me it was mint.

I'll probably rebuild the M40 as a spare at a later date. Seems like a relatively easy gearbox to learn how to do it with.

The only reason I bought that M410 from craigslist is because paypal protections and the rather rare bell housing for a low price.

 

[spock345]

Update, drained the oil in the M40. It is glittery. That combined with a messed up input shaft bearing means it gets to come apart.

I started the disassembly process and all the gaskets were slathered in badly applied RTV. This bodes well.

 

[spock345]

Tore down the M40 for fun to see what the cause of the glittery oil was. I thought it would be harder, only took about 45 minutes to do. Turns out I have one bad synchro (teeth sheared off), chunks out of the reverse idler gear, a bad lay shaft, pitted bearing surfaces in the lay shaft gear cluster, and both input and output main bearings could use replacement. Oh boy.

 

[spock345]

Gearbox fully torn down

Had some difficulty getting the rather badly chipped reverse idler gear out. Also got the main shaft apart to replace the bad synchro. Painted the case because there wasn't much paint left under the grime.

 

[spock345]

Really should give an update on how the car is going. The biggest thing was installing an M41 I got from a local guy. Need to reseal the OD. I really should have done that when the transmission was out but oh well.

Headrests installed. Also the neat seatbelt latch from a 140 on retractable belts. Plastidipped the little red handles as they had degraded badly.

Mud flaps and 15x5.5" wheels from VP autoparts. I got them locally and they were from that production run where the hub caps don't fit quite right. Some gentle work with a file fixed that. Tires were free from a neighbor who for some reason had one year old tires with 95% tread left.

Hella 500 driving lights and a new auxiliary switch panel. Ignore the dangling wires.

Finally got the dual circuit brake master installed.

Resurfaced the intake manifold and finally fixed my vacuum leak. Just taped some sand paper to a pane of glass and did it the cheap way.

Now with a functional backseat, 4x6" rear speakers to fill the holes cut by a previous owner, and seatbelts.

And the reason my progress has been slow lately (sadly not a Penta).

 

[Toybox]

Finally got the dual circuit brake master installed.

Manual brakes, always my favorite. Was this upgrade as simple as using a MC from a 1968-69, thus no need for mental gymnastics on bore calculations?

Looking good!