My Yellow 77 Astre Formula Saga.

[cammerjeff]

Been awile sense I have updated the cars status, these pic's are from the 1st week in Jan, I am told that the front end is now reatached, and sprayed, as is the hood and hatch, along with the doors. But at least the car is starting to go back together. You can almost make out the the interior tan color is done, and they test sprayed the incorrect shade of semi gloss black onto the upper door frames, they will respray with the correct charcoal color when the spray the tail light panel and lower body accents.

The 215 Block is getting cleaned and honed, the heads are done, I finally have the adaptor plate I need to mount the 94 firebird T-5 to the 215 Bellhousing, and the Dana 44 Axle is getting the 4.88 gears swapped for 4.10's so there is finally some progress being made!!!!!

[cammerjeff]

A Little more Progress to report, The body shope has now remounted the front Fenders, and the header panel. When they adjusted the drivers door to align with the front fender, the door hinge area cracked, so they had to removed the door and repair it. Supposedly all the body work should now be done, just some sanding a paint. We will see.

I have almost finished the 215 Buick Long Block, Had the stock rods reconditioned, the rotating assembly Balanced, Fly Wheel resurfaced, Block Cleaned and Decked (removed .002 to true up the head deck), Clinders honed and was able to reuse the stock pistons with new rings, and finally enlarged the dipstick hole to accept the Larger diameter Rover 4.0 Dipstick that matches the Rover pan. All new bearings, including Cam Bearings. I have installed the rotating assembly, and the ported heads, cam, and installed the High Volume Oil pump kit, and installed the front cover and Heads. Finished assembling the valve train and installed the D & D rocker shaft stabilization kit, Kinda cheesy now that I see how it installs, but as I understand it, prevents the ends of the rocker shafts from snapping off at higher RPM's. Aparently all Buick engines have a tendency to do that. I still have to finish Modifing the Rover oil pan alittle in 2 areas, the 1st is to make some rear corner braces that will enable me to not have to drill and tap 2 rear corner bolt holes (I forgot to do this before I assembled the lower end, Oops!!!) I will make up some L brackets to distribute the load on the rear corners. Pontiac did something simalure on thier V-8 engines. I hope it works out. And secondly I have to notch the sump about 2" farther back to fit over the engine crossmember, very simalure to what you have to do with a standard SBC pan to fit an H-Body. I also still have to see if the Buick 350 HEI will fit on the 215. I am told by several people it will work, but I do not know for sure yet.

Maybee this car will be ready to run by the Tri-power Nationals in early August.

[cammerjeff]

I finally remembered to take some bad Cell phone pic's of the Buick 215. We finished the Oil pan modification, so here it is mounted to the Engine, I still do not have the Rover Valve covers on it, and just discovered today that the Edlebrock intake needs to come back off and have the mounting boss for the front drivers side bolt hole milled down so I can use the Buick 350 HEI. Other than that I still have to mount the Buick V-6 Oil filter Adaptor to angle the Oil filter forward to clear the K member. But progress is being made!!!!

[cammerjeff]

Well I had a couple of small set backs on the engine, nothing serious just time and money, to fit the Buick 350 HEI to the engine with the Edlebrock intake I had to remove the intake, and mill down the forward drivers side bolt hole pad, I just didn't think about clearance on this intake. I was told the 350 HEI was a "Straight Bolt in" and it may be with a stock 4bbl intake, but not with the Edlebrock! I also had to get the proper length cap head bolt to give the Distributor room to turn.

Then I tried to mount up the 10.5 inch clutch kit I had and found out the stock flywheel takes a 9.5 inch clutch!!!! So after a call to D&D I now am $350.00 (plus shipping) lighter in the wallet but have a Brand new steel flywheel on the way that won't need a special clutch disk every time I need to replace it. And a new flywheel is probably alot safer than a used resurfaced 50 year old one!

Sorry no pic's this time.

[cjbiagi]

The steel flywheels are safer than the factory ones. That's almost what I spent on my Hays flywheel about 20 years ago so don't feel too bad. What clutch setup are you using? I am getting ready to replace my existing Hays setup with a new one. Just going to have the flywheel resurfaced and install new Hays components. I am learning a lot about setting this cable clutch up with the proper clutch fork angle so I will post any additional tips on my old clutch cable adjusting document that I have shared in the past. Not paying attention to that and getting the correct throwout bearing can throw off the geometry and make for a stiffer pedal.

[cammerjeff]

Clyde it is a Hays Dual Friction Clutch disk I had bought several years ago for anouther project that got sold off. The pressure plate I had to get made up from D&D to fit the Flywheel they sold me. Mark at D&D tried to explain how to check what throw out bearing you need, and included a couple of par numbers for bearings that I can purchase locally when I get that far.

I have never set up an H-body Clutch before, the parts car that I took most of the parts for the 215 swap had a new cable installed along with a new Pulley (it was a 75 Vega) so hopefully I am set there. I look forward to seeing your post about setting up your Clutch.

[cjbiagi]

One thing to remember when talking to most people about clutch fork angle is they are generally referring to a mechanical type linkage. This requires the exact opposite angle that a cable type requires. Because a mechanical linkage pushes the fork while a cable linkage pulls the fork you need the correct angle for the application to have the correct geometry. Once you picture it and understand what you are trying to achieve it's all pretty simple. Then you can chose the proper throwout bearing to achieve your goal. Most parts stores will lead you to believe there are only 2 GM throwout bearings, "long or short". In reality there are different options for each and while the differences may seem slight they are amplified once installed. I never gave clutch fork angle much (none) thought until recently. I believe it is the main reason why my pedal has got stiffer over the years as I adjusted the ball stud to compensate for disc wear. Of course this also puts more strain on the cable, firewall etc so having it correctly adjusted could help alleviate those problems too.
One area you may need to check is the pressure plate clearance to the fork. I know you can't use a Ceneterforce type pressure plate with a stock fork because the weights will interfere with the fork. Most GM forks are very short while a cable type fork is very long and pivot way on the other side of the bellhousing. Most places are not familiar with cable clutches so just check your clearances before buttoning it all up.

[cosworth0135]

Clyde you may be right to why your pedal was stiff but don't forget even push type clutch linkage gets stiff when the disc and pressure plate get old and used. Timmy

[cammerjeff]

Well I actually caught them Working on the car Again Friday 3-16-2012. They had it outside in front of the spray booth prepping it for the final coat of Primer. Supposedly they are going to spray at least the Yellow Base coat this wek. We will See. It is starting to look like a car again with all the sheetmetal back on. And I did successfully get the good windshield out of the parts car yesturday!!!!! Whoo Who!!!!

[cammerjeff]

And I noticed that I never Posted the Corvette Front Spindle Mode I bought from Dick some time ago. They consist of H-body deep pocket control arms Modified to Fit Corvette C-3 Spindles and Ball Joints. These are off his Old CV SCCA Car, that he is returning back to stock configuration. I am not going to use the delron Bushings though, alittle rough for a street car.

[megavega]

Cars lookin good. I love the smell in the garage after you bring it home for about a week, the smell of fresh paint. The fun is putting all the trim and stuff back on and seeing your empty shell turn into a cool car. They are doing a nice job so far by the pics, youll have a nice one when done!

[cammerjeff]

Well I am Shocked!!!! I stoped by the Paint shop just hoping that they had in fact finished Priming the car like they promised this week, and found that not only had they primed it! but they had finish sanded it, and sprayed the Base?Clear coat of yellow!!!!!! After only 18 Months!!!!! It sure does look good in the booth, now they say they are going to let it cure over the weekend, and spray the Charcoal next Week!!!!

[mastiff]

Done in time for woodward ? lookin good Jeff

[cammerjeff]

I hope to have it ready for the Tri-Power Nationals at Norwalk the week before. I usually end up having to work on Woodward Morning unfortunatly.

[cammerjeff]

Well not much progress on the Body after they sprayed yellow, but I did pick up the axle with the 4.10 gears installed, but noticed there is no parking brake on the S-10 disc's. Something I will have to address as it will be a manual trans car.
And I did just about finish assemblying the engine. I have included pic's. It has the short water pump from D&D, a Buick 231 90 degree oil filter adapter, so the oil filter will clear the K-member, Edlebrock performer intake, port matched, and modifird by milling the drivers side front bolt pad to clear the Buick HEI Distributor. It also has Rover 4.0 cast Aluminum valve covers, and 6 qt oil pan (modified to fit the chassis) matching dip stick. We had to open up the dipstick hole in the block by 2mm to fit the rover tube, but I think all the parts make the engine "appear stock" and that is the look I was going for.

Opinions?