oh well, you can make it work. or you can step those up to 1/2" and do it right so its easier. your call.

 

Got the motor back in the truck today. Broke the last mother#&*%in motor mount bolt. Can't get the POS back out with a bolt-extractor. Started drilling it and can't get through it with anything bigger than 1/4". Worried I hit the back of the bolt boss and effed up the water jacket (although I'm pretty sure I didn't, but I'm so paranoid about doing something stupid like that). I'm so pissed right now

 

That wouldn't be the end of the world. The engine in my truck, a 351M, has an exhaust manifold hole drilled into the water jacket of the head. I just run PTFE pipe joint compound on that bolt and have no leaks. In fact, the Mopar B blocks were all made that way - every one of the exhaust manifold bolts goes into water.

 

Okay, I think I've come up with a plan for the broken bolt. Unfortunately it's below the surface of the boss so I don't think I can weld a nut to it without welding it to the boss also. So I soaked it with some penetrating oil last night; today when I get home I am going to tap a flat-head screwdriver in try to turn the bolt back out. If that doesn't work I am going to drill another hole in the bolt so I can grab it with some needle nose pliers. If that doesn't work I am going to drill some small holes around the perimeter to loosen it up. If that doesn't work I am going to epoxy a smaller stud in the hole that I drilled in the bolt and just nut the mount down on the new stud.

 

usually if you break a bolt while installing it, a bolt extractor (easy out) has a very real chance of getting it out. i figure its worth playing with anyway
or you said you have a hole of about 1/4" through it, try tapping threads in that hole you drilled, loctite a bolt into it, and use that to wrench it out

 

I tried a bolt extractor, it didn't work. I think it's in there wayyyy too tight for that to work. I also tripped tapping the hole I drilled and the tap wouldn't grab. Unless there's some trick to using a tap that I'm missing...

 

the tap must match the size of the hole you drilled, the 1/4" hole you drilled should allow a 5/16 tap to get a good bite. once that gets going, you'll have a chance with that game. and if that doesn't get it out, that'll at least free you up to drill it bigger until you do succeed

 

You can take a drill bit just smaller than the shank of the bolt, drill out the bolt, and then use a small cold chisel to collapse the bolt in on itself. (You might have to drill a smaller pilot hole first.) Once that has started to happen, you can work your way around the bolt, take a pair of pliers, and then turn the bolt out. That is the easiest way to remove a bolt that has been broken off flush. If I need to explain this better, please let me know.

 

Yaga thanks for the tip. That's what I ended up doing. FINALLY got the bolt out after $40 in drill bits and a lot of cussing. The threads are still in pretty decent shape. I am going to get a Grade 8 stud and threadlock it in there. Hopefully I can get back to actually doing something productive tomorrow... now it's time for a lot of beer and Skoal to celebrate successfully removing the bolt.

Edit: I used a cobalt drill bit to drill the bolt. Cobal as in the metal cobalt, not Lowes' brand of tools (Kobalt). Cobal drill bits are plenty hard and dissipate heat quickly so they don't dull as quickly as steel or titanium drill bits. They're more expensive but are worth it for drilling hardened steel (as in the case of a graded bolt).

 

Glad to hear you got the bolt out! Now you know what to do next time, that is for sure. I've drilled out way more broken exhaust manifold bolts using this method than I care to remember. But, I'm pretty quick at it now!

 

Haha yeah it's been such an awesome learning experience for "next time" but I think next time won't be for a longggg time lol.

Got the new motor mounts on, replaced the transmission mounts, and got the motor finally put in tonight. Tomorrow my goals are to put the starter and manifolds on.

Couple more dimensions for people who might be interested:
(a) motor mount bolts are 7/16-NC14 1" long
(b)fuel pump outlet is a 1/2"-NF20 inverted flare. I found an adaptor for the fuel pump to a -6AN line at a hydraulics store but you can also find it on any number of websites. That bit of information was a real PITA to track down. The guy at Advanced was positive it was 5/16 but there parts specs for the replacement fuel pump they sell said 1/2-20 inverted flare.

Hopefully will fire it up in about two weeks!

 

that would be 1/2" threads but 5/16 tube. so he wasn't technically wrong, just not applicable to your needs.

 

Ahhh yeah that's probably true

 

Alright, it's been a while since I've updated but I've made some progress. First of all, the motor is back in and bolted down. The major lesson I learned from the whole broken-bolt experience is to clean and thread-chase every single bolt hole. When in doubt, clean it out!

Getting the header on was a real pain. You have to have the starter off, drop the header in between the engine and the frame rail, put the starter in while fighting the header that keeps wanting to drop on your face, then wrestle the header back up while not getting caught on the start, and bolt it on. I scraped the hell out of my header doing all that - I'm going to have to get in there with some spraypaint and recoat it so it doesn't rust. I'm also a little concerned with how close the header sits to the starter. Hopefully I don't run into any issues with the header burning up the starter. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but the Hedmann header and the Offy intake had different flange thicknesses. The manifold gasket exacerbated the difference because the intake manifold sits on "two layers" and the header sits on "one layer" of the gasket. Originally I tried reusing the old thick washers from the original bolts, but I didn't like how they (a) sat crooked on the manifold flanges and (b) only made contact on very small portions of the intake manifold's ears. So I bought some 1/4" steel stock and made some step plates to hold the manifolds on. These were pretty simple to make - the first one took me about 30 minutes, the last one took me about 10 minutes. I made seven of the single plates for all of the bottom bolts and one of the top bolts. For the four manifold bolt-downs alongside the carb, I made a continuous step plate. My reasoning was that it will provide a convenient place to attach the throttle cable bracket (more on that later).







Over the past few days I've mounted my 2" carb spacer, the carb, and the alternator. I did have to grind the alternator bracket a little bit to clear the header. In retrospect I should have just cut the top of the bracket (where the AIR pump goes) off because I won't ever use it for anything. If I have a reason to take it off again I will probably remove that section.

I am running into a bit of an issue with the throttle cable for the carb. The first issue I've had is figuring out where to mount the ball-stud on the carb for the throttle cable. I know this sounds stupid, but the hole that looks (to me) to be the right place to mount the ball-stud will require the throttle cable to work as a "pusher" and not a "puller", which of course doesn't work with the existing components. I ended up mounting the ball-stud in a hole lower on the carb bracket so the throttle cable can still act as a "puller", but it just doesn't "seem right" to me. See the following picture for details. Also the original throttle cable seems to be too long for the new carb placement. The original cable is about six inches long between the end of the cable and the stop-nut on the bracket and I have about 5.5 inches of clearance between the carburetor ball-stud and the valve cover. It seems to me that I need to make sure that the throttle cable is straight between the bracket stop-nut and the ball-stud connection because there is a "pusher" spring to re-extend the cable to close the throttle. My thought is to make a plate will sit on top of the lower flange of the carb spacer that extends out past the throttle side of the carb. Then I will cut existing throttle cable bracket, position it at an angle (from vertical) on that plate so I can fit it into the space that I have while maintaining a straight line from the bracket to the carb ball-stud. I know this sounds confusing but I will put up some pictures soon to show what I'm talking about. I figure the worst that I can do is screw it up and have to get a universal throttle cable, so this is at least worth a shot.



I took the double pulley off of my original alternator and put it on the new one. One of the pulleys was used to drive the AIR pump, but I am thinking of trying to use two belts from the crank pulley to drive the alternator. I've read a few times that a single v-belt is only good for about 90 amps, and my alternator is considerably bigger. The only issue I can see is that the double-pulley on the alternator seems to be a bit smaller for the original AIR pump drive. I need to do a little more research on this. I also need to figure out the wiring from the original alternator harness. Most of it will go away, but there is a harness that goes from the alternator output into the cab. This cab harness has three wires: a large, thick, yellow wire, and two green wires. One of the green wires has an orange stripe I believe. My thought is that I will just connect them to the new alternator output, but I've been warned by a couple of people that I need to bypass the ammeter shunt or risk burning it up and/or potentially starting a fire.

Tonight I am going to clean/paint the power steering pump bracket and put the pulley on my new pump. I am also going to try to get the original water pump pulley off - man that thing is a PITA. I still need to figure out the alternator wiring, run a relay for the DUI distributor, install the power steering pump, put on the water pump pulley, put in the radiator/electric fan, figure out the throttle cable bracket, weld up the exhaust, reconnect the clutch slave cylinder to the clutch fork, install the dipstick, put a couple more plugs in, connect a new three-gauge cluster, plumb the Offy heat plate, and fill it with fluids. And anything else I've forgotten lol. But it's getting close! I'm more or less down to the detail stuff. Hopefully I will be able to fire it this weekend. I need to hurry up and get it done because hunting season starts this weekend and the time change on Saturday will pretty much eliminate any daylight I have after I get off work. And I need daylight to see what I'm doing.

Oh and a couple more bolt sizes for those who are interested:

(1)Alternator bracket: (2) 3/8" NC16 by 1.25" and (1) 3/8" NC16 by 2.5"
(2)Alternator: (1) 7/16" NC14 by 4" and (1) 3/8" NC16 by 1.5"
(3)Power steering bracket on side of motor: (2) 7/16" NC14 by 1"

 

Thanks again for the detail write-up on your progress and the pics along the way. The throttle cable is one item I'm still working on in my head as to how to route and keep my cruise control. I'm not entirely sure how that will work yet.

Regarding your carb, how did you plan on having it oriented? That will definitely play a factor in how your throttle linkage will work. (For some reason, your throttle linkage and stud location just doesn't look right, but that's coming from someone who hasn't mounted their Edelbrock yet.)