Seabee M38A1 Build

Plopped the drivetrain back in the chassis to fit the front pipes...



Everything is tucked up nice and tight...


Should be plenty of clearance for the driveshaft...



Managed to build a little hanger as well... I'm not really crazy about it though. We'll see...
I need to weld the bung in for the oxygen sensor and finish weld everything together...

 

I got everything all welded up and squirted on a coat of some high temp BBQ paint...



I think it turned out pretty good. There's one spot that is kinda kinky, but it doesn't bother me enough to get excited enough to fix it. Basically I would need two 45 degree bends with a tighter radius bend. Tomorrow I need to drop the oil pan and timing cover to put fresh gaskets in, then put the heat barrier on the bottom of the tub...

 

So back in 2013 when I brought this motor home from the wrecking yard, an intake manifold bolt broke off in the cylinder head. I tried to weld a nut onto the bolt but it just twisted off and fell into lifter valley... Captain Fat fingers pushed the nut through the oil galley and behind the timing cover... Oh well. I put off tearing everything apart until later... Now later has arrived. I pulled the pan and timing cover the other day and hauled them into work and used the heated parts washer to clean everything up...



While I was laying on the creeper scraping old gaskets off I decided I might as well out a new timing set on there...



While I waited for parts to arrive I made up the patterns for the heat barrier I had for underneath the tub.



Today I cut out all the pieces and stuck them on... The material has an adhesive on the backside, so all you have to do is peel off a clear plastic, then stick it on. I used a small dead blow hammer to tap the heat barrier down and make it conform to the curves. It worked pretty good. One hot tip if anyone reading this is considering the same thing... Mark your template with which side is up, I flipped a couple around and wasted some material... Hopefully tomorrow I can get the motor buttoned up and get ready to put the tub back on... Laters

 

I love the idea of a heat shield. Is there any chance that stuff will trap water cause rust.

 

I imagine it could... But I've made sure to keep it between the frame rails, and just in the hottest locations... Hopefully it won't be a problem...

 

I ordered some rubber from McMaster Carr and made some body mounts today...





And with a little help from my father, the tub is back on the chassis for the first time in almost 6 months...

Now the real work starts... Plenty of things that need to be done... Starting with wiring...

 

I ran my exhaust basically the same. I did notice that the slave cylinder will get hot. I wrapped it in header heat tape along with the exhaust pipe.

 

I was thinking about doing that or a heat shield... How does the header wrap like mud and water?

 

I've decided to put my fuse box in the glove box...




My glove box got chopped up to fit the swinging pedals so I had a funky shape left over...

I'm using the same fuse box we used in my dad's jeep, it's small and simple...

 

I’ll never wrap an exhaust pipe again unless absolutely necessary. I wrapped the pipe on the hippo when I built it. The pipe itself is stainless, but the welds aren’t. There’s a weld every few inches, and when I removed the wrap a year later, the welds were horribly crusty and pitted. If the pipe wasn’t stainless, it would’ve been wasted.

 

So a heat shield it is...

 

I like that fuse box. Where did you get it and what terminals does it use?

 

The wire harness came from Southwest Performance Parts online... It was only 65 bucks with free shipping... It's super basic though...



It uses the regular full-size blade fuses...
Plan on no instructions and a basic diagram.

For my Jeep it's fine though, I'm only planning to run the lights, a heater, and the KC lights, I don't need to spend a ton of money on a wire harness...

 

I did the same. I also put my OBDII Port in there too.

 

I'm gonna steal the idea of hiding the OBD plug in there as well...

 

Since the fuel injection system I'm using is based on OEM parts, I sourced a ecm mount from eBay and mounted it between the battery box and the dash board. I had to make a fair sized hole in the firewall to pass all the plugs and wires through. I order to locate the hole, I decided to hook up the throttle pedal and cable.



The pedal mounted up easy enough, but the throttle cable needed a flat surface right where a curve was...



From the firewall side...

I'm not really sure about it after all that. The cable makes two tight turns pretty close together and it doesn't feel smooth when you press down on the gas pedal and work it... The last couple evenings I've sat in the driver seat and drank a beer making motor sounds trying to get used to it... We'll see. I'll probably change it though. If the cable isn't working smoothly it's just going to wear something out.

 

The throttle cable had a ball connector on the end that wouldn't work with the stud on the throttle body.



So I found a fine thread but that fit the fitting on the end of the cable and welded it to a washer. The washer fit the stud, and a master link off a go-kart chain holds it all together...



Some scrap holds the other end of the cable steady...



An offset air cleaner stud...



And the air cleaner can be mounted up... Clears the throttle linkage, distributor and stuff just fine...



Plugged some wires in...



And plugged some stuff in on the other side... I found a big ol split grommet on Summit Racing for the firewall. There's still a ton that needs to be done, but it feels like I'm starting to make some good headway... Thanks for checking it out, Laters

 

Wow!!! It is awesome

 

Bleeding the hydraulic clutch has been interesting... I think it's going to take a while to get all the bubbles out...

I needed a place to mount the coil and MAP sensor to the firewall so I poked a few holes in some 1 inch box tubing...



Which I thought was pretty clever until I was reading stuff and found out the port for the vacuum hose needs to be facing down...



That's better... I used some scrap and added some lightness... I also ran out of primer so that'll have to wait a bit...