Dirty Day

I went last night to get the engine gasket set I ordered from Advance Auto. It came in as promised .... wrong one. It came as a set for a small block Chevy. So I returned it and went back home empty handed. Spent a little time scraping on the engine.

A guy came and was going to attempt to remove the broken manifold studs, but once he looked at it he decided he did not want to take the chance of messing something up and decided not to do it. I am seriously thinking of pulling the heads and taking them to a machine shop.


This morning I called Hot Heads out of North Carolina an ordered the correct gasket set, it should be here in a couple of weeks.

I removed the passenger side manifold. It came off just fine. To sum it up I have an old sheared manifold bolt in the passenger side head and 2 that I broke loading in the drivers side head.

I then removed the oil pan and spent the rest of the evening cleaning that up. I found a brass patch under all of that caked on oil and a few dents. I filled the pan with water and checked for leaks ... remember the pan was cut and made shallow at some point in it's life ...  no leaks that I could find. I suspect an old pan gasket and rear seal were the cause of the oil leak I was seeing. The pan gasket was pretty brittle.

Here are a few pictures from today:

Oil pan after clean up. Note the brass patch.

The bolts I sheared off loading the truck.

The sheared bolt already there.

Normal for Hemi

Engine ID

Trans ID Can anyone identify the transmission, it's a 3 speed.

I wont have much time for the project tomorrow. I will post any new information as soon as I can. I am still trying to locate an engine stand in case I decide to remove the heads. I have a line on two, just waiting for a call back on one and if that falls through I have someone offer one that currently has an engine on it, but he said I could use it.