I forgot to answer this one. It is a "Beach Bicycle". We used to live on the jersey shore and it is my wife's. They are very popular for just cruising around town etc. Easy to get on and off of with the super low step through and a very comfortable casual riding position and seat. Great knock around bike for easy day rides to and from stores, the beach, the house, restaraunts etc.

 

I'm very disappointed. No video of you pushing your engine down the street? Dang!
Sounds like you have a good plan now.

 

Maybe on the way back!

here are a few pictures of the engine prior to the tear down…



Some of the sludge around the crank.

Sloppy timing chain and all the oil sludge around it.

Sloppy chain 2!

Sludge around the oil pump.

 

Seats went out to the upholstery shop today. Getting seats recovered with something other than a kit, is not cost effective!

hard to explain but some pics below on what he is doing for me. I am using The Aruba as a main seat color with seat panel inserts of a bronze mist houndstooth/checkerboard pattern with cream piping. The insert is a pattern fir vinyl boat upholstery and it is really nicely textured just the way it looks. I didn’t want cloth inserts as I was concerned they would get too dirty.

on the engine front the main bearings are worn about 2 thous but the crank is still in spec. There is also a lot of end play in the cranks as well. He is moving fast but we will see how long it takes to get parts.


This is close to what it will look like.

The seat insert vinyl pattern.Y

Color at the bottom.

 

Only had a couple of hours to work on the truck yesterday. Got a bunch of parts cleaned up with the wire wheel and ready to paint. Motor mounts, oil bath, flywheel cover, inspection cover, etc.

Too humid to paint today. Hopefully this week. Did a little dermabrasion treatment as well.

 

I see you cleaned up some skin too!

Glad you could keep the original decal on the oil bath air cleaner. How are you going to mask it before you you paint? Will tape pull it off?

 

I taped it off. I didn’t get a chance to pull the tape off before I had to go in for the night. Hopefully in the AM it will come off clean.

I also got the oil pan all cleaned up and ready to paint. I didn’t paint it because I ran out of primer.

Got some color on parts for the first time!

I painted the bell housing and the inside of the flywheel cover. I painted it all yellow inside and out so I could see any oil leaks through the inspection cover easier. The yellow does not cover that well, it takes a lot of coats to get it even and I still feel like it is not as uniform as I would like, but you really can’t see it so it is not a big deal. It will be more important on the engine when that is ready.

I also have to decide whether to keep the oil bath or cut out the internals and replace with a filter. I think I posted on this before but it kills me to cut up original parts since they can never be made original again but on the other hand the paper filters are more efficient and less messy. I painted the bottom half of the filter housing but am holding off on the top half until I decide whether I am going to cut them up.

 

A few updates:

I got a bunch more stuff painted. My oil pan and clutch cover are done. All nice and shiny yellow! Painted my dipstick handle, the inspection cover for the transmission and the part of the brake assembly cast metal color. I also painted the engine vent tube gloss black.

I am organizing all my parts now while I try and clean the garage up so I can work in there. We are doing a big renovation and there is a ton of stuff stored in there from the house plus 20 new windows. I rented a container to store a bunch of it so I can get my garage back for the summer.

I haven’t touched the actual truck since November of last year and am eager to finish the suspension and start working on the brakes but I need to get better organized. I am having a bit of a panic attack since i have parts everywhere and I am worried I won’t remember how stuff goes back together. In particular the right bolts in the right places. S

Mixed news on my engine. Dropped my head off to be rebuilt. $500 which seems reasonable. Unfortunately after pulling the pistons it looks like I have 2 cylinders that were scored and one piston has a damaged top. Need to get pictures tomorrow. My neighbor says we are going to have to bore it .10 over and get new pistons. I am going to look in person tomorrow and then figure out what to do. Will probably end up taking it down to the machine shop as well and get it over-bored and hot tanked. So much for a running replacement motor!

it is very difficult to find all the parts needed for the rebuild in one place. Rock Auto doesn’t have everything so I am on a bit of a treasure hunt online. Hopefully I can get all the parts to get it back together.

Some pics of my painted parts from this weekend.

 

So this is your replacement engine? If it needs rebuilt why not rebuild the original engine?

 

I always know when someone is from Central or western PA......Things need fixed!

The crank is still good and so is the cam. The other engine is totally locked up and I have no idea what the condition is. The head and valve train was trashed. Given I know what I have got in this replacement motor I think I have to run with it now. Everything I have read says the block is the same on the 223 motors regardless of year. I am swapping over the '55 oil pan but the '62 valve cover has to stay as it has perimeter bolts vs. through the top of the valve cover...

Hopefully its the right decision....

 

I see. That makes sense. Good luck, either way your truck will be cool.

 

You are always cool! Thanks for asking. A second perspective is always helpful.

 

8pack, those are all familiar parts for me. I was busy painting like you are back in 2017. Don't be afraid of your two bolt original valve cover. They work. If you've been following my threads at all, you'll notice I've been having some problems with valve cover leaks. That's only because I had forgotten an important piece of "valve cover" advice someone on the forum shared with me a long time ago. The advice was, "When putting on a valve cover, always "sneak" up on the torque spec".

If I go very gradually tightening the valve cover nuts--by gradually I mean over several hours or even over night--the valve cover doesn't leak. It's very surprising that stretching out the torquing process over several hours or even days makes such a big difference. Another key is, don't over torque. Tighter is not better. The spec for my engine is 10-14 ft/lbs.

Good luck! I'm looking forward to seeing your engine complete and installed in all of its yellow splendor.

Jim

 

Still grinding and painting….

Below is a picture of the drivers side inner fender which represents the “before” and the passenger one stripped with a wire wheel and painted with POR Chassis black spray paint.

Drivers side next. Then will start to get the firewall cleaned up.

Also, there are some pictures of my pistons. The beat up one is the number 1 cylinder. Looks like someone dropped something in there! The machine shop said he noticed my head was a little marked up as well but no damage.

The other is the number 4 piston where the compression ring broke. You can see how it mushroomed the groove that holds the ring.

My head is ready to be picked up but the block needs to go at least .20 over so I am bringing it down with the crank and Cam to make sure everything is all good.

 

Odd little day today….

My garage is train wreck from the winter and having had to move so much stuff around from my renovation going on. I rented a 2nd container and started putting some stuff in there I plan on selling as well as larger stuff I just need to get out of the way. So I spent a bit of the day on that.

I started gathering all the parts I have collected in one place so I can find things when I am ready to start reassembly when the engine comes back.

I painted the support rods that run from the firewall to the fender corners. They were a bit rusty so I put some POR 15 on them yesterday, sanded them smooth today and top-coated with Zero Rust.

I painted my water pump black with high temp engine paint and primer. It probably should be yellow but I kind of like the accessories a different color.

I did what I call a Stage 1 cleaning of my firewall. I wiped it down with mineral spirits to get the heavy dirt and grease off as well as the seam sealer everywhere. I cleaned the Speedo cable to get all the old oil and black tar off of it and it is pretty nice now.

Next time I have a full day I will get the drivers side inner fender done. It takes a long time to wire wheel all that. After that is cleaning up the firewall. I need to remove everything that is bolted to the firewall from the inside so I can get it nicely cleaned up.

pics