1970 Wagoneer Restoration

[gleamingthecube]

I'm on the SE side of town near Valencia and I-10. We are going to hose it down today and try to get rid of the crap that has collected inside. I'm going to spray the engine compartment down with degreaser and take my baby pressure washer to it to try and knock loose some of the grime. The old spark plugs are still there so nothing should get inside the engine. This thing sat for 30 years out at my Dad's place simply because he nor I had the time or money to fix it. It ran when it was parked but there was an issue with the linkage. Not 100% sure the specific problem.

[Tad]

After your first engine bath dry it off, pull the plugs and put some MMO into each cylinder, let it soak for a few days before trying to turn it over with the plugs out and using a breaker bar on the crank bolt.
If it turns over two full revolutions stop.
Drain any oil that might be in there, change the filter, refill then pull the dizzy and prime the oil pump (I have the tool if you need to borrow one, fits in a 1/2" drill).

You may be surprised, those are pretty tough engines.
If it does fire you are still going inside, these came with a nylon encased cam gear that is probably trash at this point.

[gleamingthecube]

I actually did put some Marvel's Mystery oil in there years ago, probably '94. I suppose it can't hurt to do so again. I wouldn't be surprised if it were able to be manually turned over by hand as it is now. Better to be safe, though.

[Jjkage84]

Keep the pics coming! Cool stuff man!

Keep Calm and Jeep On

[gleamingthecube]

Slowly making progress. The engine pics are after I sprayed it down with degreaser. I will hit it with the baby pressure washer and post more pics after it dries tomorrow. The wife cleaned about 3 garbage bags full of rat poo and nest materials out of the front and back seats. So I guess no matter what I need to pull the engine out of here, eh? Is that the consensus?

[jsinajeep]

Nice start. 3 speed on the column with a quick pin in the shifter matching ash tray[don't lose]
I can not believe the badge on the air cleaner is still there.

[rstep]

Wow that cleaned up nice. Maybe the pack rats protected it some for you.

[jsinajeep]

That would be nice Bob, if that what they done. But they were never that nice to me.

[gleamingthecube]

So I have a plan. I am going to continue cleaning up the Wagoneer and making sure that it is in condition where I can safely and more conveniently work on it. We removed the front seat and cleaned out the rat stuff from the front part of the interior. Back seat area is next. I have a replacement rear left window that will go in and I have a line on a replacement tailgate window that my brother shot out with a BB gun when we were kids. It looks like I will need to replace both front wheel wells as they are rusted through. So far the rest of the body looks like it is structurally sound, just a few superficial rust spots, dents etc.

I also plan to swap the Buick Dauntless 350 for a modern GM LQ4 Vortec. If I will have to pull the engine anyway, it makes sense to me to put a modern engine with more power and better fuel economy back in there. IMO there's no point in spending money to rebuild the old engine when the cost/difficulty to put the LQ4 in there is about the same. I will probably end up selling my Harley to buy the engine when I am ready. I know there are lots of parts that go into rebuilding and swapping an engine like this, so I will probably buy that stuff a bit at a time. I have been doing a ton of reading about these engines and this kind of swap. Anyone done a swap like this that can offer some advice?

[HowardT64]

Sure cleaned up nice Keep up the good work

[will e]

Do a search on 'vortec' on this site. There are a couple of writeups with a lot of details.

[gleamingthecube]

I'm not sure if it is seized up. I did put MMO in the cylinders back in the mid 90s but obviously that was quite a few years ago. I will probably do it again just to be safe. Also, I hear there is a nylon encased cam gear in this engine so I will need to pull it to replace that no matter what. I am left to decide whether I want to mess with the Buick or just wait til I have everything ready and put the LQ4 in there. If it is as cheap as it seems to do a full on rebuild ($500 or so), I may have to just get the buick running so I can have the body and interior work done THEN do the engine swap. I am pretty new to all of this so I am not sure if rebuilding the Buick engine is plausible, would be the first engine I have worked on to that extent. Is it reasonable to expect that a rookie like me can do an engine rebuild (not even sure if that is the right term, I mean rings, pistons, cam, valves, springs etc) without issues? If I can manage it myself, I would prefer to do a full rebuild just to ensure that this thing doesn't burst on me going down the freeway. I fully recognize that I am new to all of this so I welcome any advice or assistance that would help me avoid wasting time or money on this.

[will e]

Technically you could rebuild it yourself. It wouldn't be 'the best' rebuild but you could hone out the cyl's and hand lap the valve seats. A better bet would be to disassemble it yourself and drop the block, heads, rods, pistons and crank at a machine shop. They can check for cracks, shot peen the rods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_peening) and verify if certain parts are withing acceptable specifications. They would more likely bore the cyls unless they are just in really good shape. The cyl heads you have may not have hardened seats. The seat area of the valve is what the valve is held against by the spring and this seals it. Earlier engines did not have hardened seats. There is a belief that with unleaded fuel you need them. This is debatable but you cannot install them yourself.

You have some time to think about it. Get the body cleaned up. Have a body guy come look at it before you go too much further. The body doesn't look too bad but you mentioned some rust areas.

If it was me I would try to turn the engine by hand without the spark plugs two full revs. If it turns then I would go ahead and pull the heads and see what I could see. Most likely there isn't anything wrong with the engine that can't be fixed. Even a cyl wall rusted can be sleeved. Keep track of each push rod an rocker so you can put them back in their original spot.

[rstep]

I have both front wheel wells for you if you want. Have a lot of engine parts also . Things to look at with an engine swap is what has to be fabbed up to make it work Engine mounts , tranny mount radiator support . Linkage for tranny maybe drive shafts and a host of other things . Money wise it may be cheaper to rebuild and drive and enjoy it.

[Tad]

...Things to look at with an engine swap is what has to be fabbed up to make it work Engine mounts , tranny mount radiator support . Linkage for tranny maybe drive shafts and a host of other things . Money wise it may be cheaper to rebuild and drive and enjoy it.

I have to totally agree.
Even though the price of a new-used drivetrain initially seems reasonable (I bought the entire Caddy for $750 and made some back in scrap) I had well over 150 hours over 18 months putting it on the road.
There were times when I didn't touch it for a few months, but there were also many things that had to be done 2-3 times to get things right.
I would have been miles and months ahead to rebuild/repair my Buick 350.

[gleamingthecube]

Ok, I am coming around to the idea of repairing my Buick engine. I still want to do the Vortec swap but this Jeep is in pretty rough shape and it would be much easier and cheaper to have the body and interior work that it needs done if I could actually drive it to a shop or a friend's house or whatever. Not only that, the learning experience of pulling and refurbishing the engine will be good for me. Also, if I pay thousands of dollars for a vortec then ruin it I would be pretty upset.

[Tad]

Like I mentioned earlier, two of us have abandoned Buick 350 engines, not because they are bad, we just walked into different opportunities.
They are great engines with great torque even in stock form.
I was totally impressed with my first one.

[gleamingthecube]

We finished cleaning out the rat poo from the inside of the Wagoneer and removed the back seat. Looks almost like a vehicle inside again. The back seat is in relatively good shape other than the hole the rats ate into the middle of it. Front seat is structurally sound but the padding and most of the fabric on the front part of the seat are trashed. The last pic is the top of the transmission, a T-15 I believe. Between Novak and IFSJA there seems to be a discrepancy over what year these were first introduced but the bolt pattern matches up. Anyone tell me for sure which one that is? Next step is to save up for an engine stand and cherry picker so I can pull this bastard engine out of there and start to work on it for real.

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[rstep]

That's cleaning up nice Jesse.

[gleamingthecube]

The last pic is the top of the transmission, a T-15 I believe. Between Novak and IFSJA there seems to be a discrepancy over what year these were first introduced but the bolt pattern matches up. Anyone tell me for sure which one that is?

So I looked at the transmission the other day and it is for sure a Borg Warner T-15. It's cast in iron right on the side of the tranny, T-15A1. Novak and other sources say it didn't come until 71 or 72 but there it is in my stock '70 Wagoneer. I cannot seem to find any pics of it with the linkage for the column shifted version, however.