'60 Chevrolet Impala HT

Don Jacks

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 3
What are you planning for head gaskets?I'd recommend either the steel shim or the Fel-Pro .016 thickness if the pistons are at or greater than .020 down at TDC.
 

Impala60

Well Known Member
Thanks guys for the kind comments ;)!

I thought about taking the pistons out, and to be honest it might have been a good idea. Well, next time then, I think I'll rebuild this engine completely at some point, but let's drive a few years now with the current setup. It'll probably be alright as the engine runs and drives so good.

Actually, I tried to get those Fel-Pro .016 head gaskets, but couldn't find them anywhere at this point. So I had to go with a bit thicker head gaskets, these are .039 thick Fel-Pros, they are exactly similar to the ones that were installed with the old heads.


Next up was more red paint...
20200520_145310.jpg


New timing gear set was found cheap at local speed shop.
20200521_141242.jpg

20200521_145054.jpg


Now that the engine parts were painted gloss red, I didn't want to install them with ugly rusty bolts. Of course the best way would have been a proper cleanup and a "zinc-coating" (or whatever it is in English), but because I wanted to save some time and money, I just cleaned up the bolts carefully and painted them with silver. The paint is pretty strong, there's no need to paint any touch-ups after they have been installed.
20200528_164342.jpg


Next was water pump and the harmonic balancer...I also took my camera to the garage as the previous pics are taken with my phone... Here you can see the true color of the engine much better, which is bright red instead of the factory orange.
P5312679.JPG

P5312681.JPG

I painted the timing marks to make it a bit easier to set the timing properly when engine is running...
P5312682.JPG


And then it was time to install the Power Pack heads and the intake... I also installed pushrods and rockers and set the valve lash correct.
P6012686.JPG

P6022690.JPG
 

Impala60

Well Known Member
I have forgotten to update this thread in here, so let's continue... The Impala is pretty close of being driveable now, I've had bunch of stuff to do in life so progress has been kinda slow but steady...

I had bought a set of Hedman headers for this. Now that I was going to bolt them on, I had a local company put a ceramic coating on them.
20200624_224611.jpg


One part that I couldn't find anywhere was the oil filler tube for intake manifold. All speed shops here in Finland were out of stock and they were not easy to order from USA either. Several companies there were out of stock as well, or if not, they offered a decent priced part, but a ridicullous postage for it... Luckily, I found one used from a friend. Just had to give it a bit of sanding and a new paint.
P6304422.JPG


As far as the carburetor, I decided to go with a Quadrajet. Simply because I had one laying around (old carb from our race car) and I'm quite familiar with it.
P7094449.JPG


I wanted to make a proper fuel line instead of fuel hose, so I had to find the right fitting for the carb. That turned out to be super hard too. No-one had one in stock. But then I found a newer electric Quadrajet that was pretty much junk but had the fitting I needed from a swap meet.
P7094450.JPG


Here are the rest of the supplies for the fuel line project... The glass filter has been waiting in a box for 30 years to be installed in this car. My father never got it installed before, so now I did.
P7104454.JPG


Fuel pump needed a good cleanup.
P7104455.JPG

P7104456.JPG


The engine bay was really dirty. After a lot of cleanup and sanding I was able to get it ready for paint. Firewall was painted red and rest of the engine bay and frame rails are black.
Before:
20200511_194352.jpg

After:
P4120207.JPG

P4120211.JPG

P4120213.JPG


Air cleaner needed some modifications. I wanted to use the stock air cleaner with the Quadrajet, but of course it didn't fit. The center hole was too small. Friend gave me an aftermarket air cleaner base by Edelbrock. It fit the carburetor, but not the air cleaner. So after a bit of cutting and welding, I grafted the aftermarket base center hole to stock 2bbl air cleaner base. Now it fits both, the carb and air cleaner.
P4210403.JPG

P4210407.JPG

P4210405.JPG


...To be continued...
 

Impala60

Well Known Member
Thanks guys!
Next I sanded the air cleaner parts and painted them. First primer and then gloss black. They still need a clear coat to protect the gloss black paint coats.
P4290274.JPG

P5040405.JPG


I also sanded the valve covers and straightened them out a little to make the gaskets seal better. Here they are after primer, paint and clear coat.
P4290273.JPG


I used copper hard line for fuel lines. The one from carburetor to the fuel filter was easy to do, but the other one from fuel filter to fuel pump was a bit tricky. But, I got it done. When I got the lines bent properly and made the flares to the ends, I gave them a light polishing.
P5040401.JPG

P5040402.JPG


Oil dipstick didn't quite seal to the hole in the engine block. So I made a "spacer" from brass sheet that I bent around the end of dipstick tube. Then I was able to hammer the tube on place and it fits really tight on its correct place.
P5040407.JPG

P5040408.JPG


... To Be Continued...
 

sshamu

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 1
With everything looking so clean an squared away I couldn't help but notice the blemish in the passenger side valve cover. That blemish is very easy to remove. Within 15 minutes you could have it perfect again using nothing more than a hammer, punch, fine file and sandpaper (80 grit, 180, 220). Keep the progress pics coming!
 

Impala60

Well Known Member
Thanks guys!
You're right on the passenger side valve cover, I should have done that. Well, gotta leave something for next time too.:D

Next I installed oil pump driveshaft and primed the oil pump to make sure oil goes everywhere it needs to be. Then distributor and some other small things and the engine was ready to drop in.
P5060413.JPG

P5060414.JPG

P5060415.JPG

P5060417.JPG


After the engine was on place, with the help from the "old man" I put the torq converter and transmission on place as well. After that I replaced the fuel hose between car frame and fuel pump, and installed valve covers.
P5060418.JPG

P5060419.JPG

P5060420.JPG


To install the headers I had to lift the front end up pretty high. Then I made the spark plug wires from MSD "cut to length" type wires. Then I installed bunch of parts like starter, road draft tube etc and replaced bunch of old wires from the engine bay. Many of them were really worn out, or just routed so that I wasn't happy about them... Vacuum hoses and heater hoses were done and installed. I also painted the old generator and installed that on place as well and polished tranny cooler lines.
P5271451.JPG

P6040116.JPG

P6040113.JPG

P6040117.JPG

P6040115.JPG


Mr.Gasket's transmission dipstick didn't fit on place at all and the old one I had previously was in need of replacement. So I had to buy a Lokar dipstick and mount that on the firewall.
P7280985.JPG


Then I made a proper set of battery cables with thick cable and all the cable ends soldered to the cable. Here is a picture of the almost finished engine bay:
P7280983.JPG


To Be Continued...
 
Top