'52 m38a1 v6 sm465

Thats exactly how I did my manifold glad to see it worked out well for you...sorry to hear about the engine though

 

I couldn't remember who told me about that manifold, but thank you you napaguy!! You really fixed a major setback. Your right 72cj. I'm not driving it. Could be a costly mistake. I guess i'm gonna go ahead with the restoration and hope the mechanics all work correctly.

 

I have never built an engine but I have worked on them enough. I dont know if your wanting to completely rebuild the engine from the ground up, but if you dont, then a new set of connecting rods, push rods and lifters, rod and main bearings and new gaskets all around should be enough to keep her running nice and smooth for a long long time. Thats to say that your cylinder with the knock (or any of the other 5) are still nice and smooth. You could do all that without even pulling the motor. Oh, and that exhaust looks gooooooooood! Nice work on the manifold.

 

I was just wondering how long of a rear drive shaft you ended up with? I have a 46cj2a that I'm installing a 225 with sm465 but using a dana 20 with full size scout dana 44's. Did you position the engine further forward to gain rear driveshaft length?

 

I have a sm465 in my 71 CJ5, so different vehicle, but my rear driveshaft is 17" long. Engine is in stock location.

 

tonys, i do't know the exact length of the rear drive shaft, but i believe it is around 17". I will measure it tomorrow and get back to you. I'm not sure if the V6 is in the stock location because this jeep started with a 4 cyl. I know i placed the motor as far forward as i could even eliminating the mechanical fan and going with an electric pusher fan to gain more room. I think if you take out the crossmember in front of the motor and cut down the shroud that is part of the grill that the radiator mounts to, then you could even pick up another 4" or more.

So well i deal with the motor in the jeep, another project is rolling in it's place. A '66 Bronco that needs a 200 ci 6 cyl rebuilt and he wants a 4 speed, i'm guessing a NP435 adapted to the dana 20. Hopefully i can get it in and out pretty quick and focus on the jeep again as most of my time will be going towards the Bronco. I'll update anything i do get done, but it will be slow.

 

Thanks for the info. maybe the bronco will provide funds for the 225 rebuild! I had to rebuild mine also. Did the transfer case adapter you bought have provisions for a trans. mount? I've been looking at Novaks adapter but now I see that Advance adapters has one that is shorter and allows indexing of the transfer case. That is my next project!

 

Sorry tonys, i forgot to measure the drive line. I'll get it tomorrow. I used novaks adapter and it does have tranny mount built into it. There are 2 threaded 3/8 holes in the bottom edge of the adapter that are spaced for a universal poly mount. the one thing i did not know about the adapter before i got it was you have to replace the mainshaft in the 465 for it to have the right splines on the output of the trans. Just something to think about before you start. I believe the novak adapter is right around 1". It seems to be of good quality and on this bronco we are using advance adapter which i am also impressed with the quality. so either one, i don't think you can go wrong. the bronco seems to be going faster than i thought, should have the whole drive train in by this weekend. Hopefully i'll be back at the jeep sooner than i thought.

 

Updates?? I just read through your whole thread. Nice work. I'm planning on doing the same mods, except 4.3, to my 53 M38a1. That sucks about the motor. Good luck

 

Not too much to report. The bronco was done a couple weeks ago and turned out good. I do have a question about it maybe one of you guys could answer. We rebuilt the NP 435 and when it was all done i realized i did not use the input shaft shims. Will there be any negative results from this? Everything is working good now with no noise, but if it will be bad in the long run, i'd rather fix it now.

With the jeep, i moved the clutch master cylinder down lower on the firewall to try and pick up some more travel at the slave cylinder, but when i did that, i changed the mechanical advantage at the pedal. It is gets almost a half inch more travel now, but the pedal is too stiff to use on a regular basis. So i called wilwood with the idea of using a 7/8" bore master cylinder with the 3/4" bore slave. They advised the extra fluid will make the slave move further but will increase pedal pressure by about 15%. At this point i think i will try the larger master and see how it feels. i don't think i need much more travel, as i'm at .750" and i think if i can get to .850 or .900 it should work fine.

As for the motor, i think it's gonna come out this week and head to the machine shop. I decided to rebuilt the entire motor so i know it is right and i don't have to deal with this again. That's it for now, Thanks for watching!

 

Hey tonys, Finally measured to rear drive shaft and it sits at exactly 17". Sorry it took so long.

 

Well, after a looong break i'm back at the jeep. Moving a little slow right now, but hopefully picking up some steam. First i tackled the hydraulic clutch. I picked up a 7/8" bore master cylinder to run with the 3/4" bore slave cylinder. I had to space it away from the firewall 1/2" as the resivoir cap was hitting. That is the piece of aluminum you see in the picture. It looks like it will work. I have about .900" travel at the slave now which i think will be enough and the pedal pressure is not much more than before.

Now that i am happy with the clutch, it was time to pull the motor and figure out what i will be dealing with inside.


Turns out it was what i thought. Spun a rod bearing and it chewed up the crankshaft so bad it is totally useless now. The block was already .040 over so i was a little concerned with going to .060 over. I took a ton of pictures while i was taking it apart so i can remember where everything goes. Here's a few to show you what i was dealing with.




After talking with the machine shop, the only parts i will be using out of this motor are the heads. Turns out they were pretty fresh. They had just been surfaced, new valve guides were installed and they had hardened exhaust seats. All we are doing with the heads is cleaning them up, doing a valve job and reassembling them.

So i had 2 more odd fire V6 and i decided to try and find a better block to start with. The second is just a short block and would have been a good candidate, but the bore was already at .030 so it really wasn't a better choice.


It is now on to the third motor. This was a complete motor i got for free from the guy i got the np435 from for the bronco. I'm glad it worked out! It looks like an untouched motor with stock bore and a good crankshaft.

So that is where i am at. We the block is getting line bored, decked, bored .030 over. The machine shop is providing all the parts with cast pistons, stock grind camshaft, master kit etc... I'm gonna run the edelbrock carb, but i got two intakes to choose from. One is a weiand and the other is an offenhauser. Do you guys have any advise for as to pros and cons, or which one would fit my application best based on some of your own experiances? Thanks for your help!

 

Red,

Those blocks will go to .060 over and pistons are available............

On your Hydraulic clutch.............Re: Clutch MC = smaller bore equals more pressure but less volume and larger bore equals less pressure and more volume both traveling the same distance..............On most pressure plates it takes between .400-.600 thousands to get full release of the clutch disc. Add to that at least .060-.100 of minimum free play and that number is really around .700 -.800.................The missing link is this. At the clutch fork to the ball fulcrum to the throwout bearing that ratio is 2.0:1.........so effectively your .900 of travel at the slave just became .450 or cut in half at the throwout bearing..................hince it may not fully disengage when all is added up. Thats why Novaks slave has 2 inches of travel.............the only way to get there is to increase travel at the push point at the pedal to slave or go to a larger bore that increases volume to the slave. In either case both of those options kills mechanical advantage and makes the pedal harder..............If you can add length to the pedal do so..........Jeep normally used a 13/16 " Clutch MC to a 7/8" bore slave but they also had a 16.5 inch long pedal. These early Jeeps with the slanted floors are a pain for pedal ratio's...........I like to mount my pedals as high up in the cowl firewall area as possible so that you have that space available when ratios are taken into account.

 

Thank you tarry. The numbers i came up with when adding all the distances together was about 1 5/16". That was why i was asking guys on here what some actual numbers were of clutch set ups that they were using. Just with my own experience, at .800" of travel at the fork, the jeep shifted well when it was cold, but as it warmed up a bit you could notice a little drag when shifting between gears. Then i switched to the 7/8" master cylinder with a 3/4" slave which moves a larger volume of fluid into the same 3/4" slave that causes it to move further. The expense of that it a pedal that is slightly harder to push but it is manageable. Now that i'getting this motor back together, i'll be able to do some more testing to see if around .950" is gonna be enough travel, or if i'm gonna have to do some mods to the pedal itself.

And don't worry, i didn't get rid of those other blocks, i know they are still good, so i will be putting them up if anyone could use them. More to follow...

 

Alright, now on to the fun stuff. I got all my motor parts back from LJ's speed and machine in napa and i am very pleased with their work. To the block, we ended up line bring the mains, taking the cylinders to .040 over, and decking it. We went with new .040 over cast pistons, resized the rods, installed new rod bolts and ground the crank 010 and .010. The heads were pretty fresh with good valves, springs, guides and already had hard exhaust seats installed. So we just surfaced them and did a valve job. Now everything should be strait, true and reliable.

I started by wanting to run a tap through all the holes to make assembly go a little smoother, but the machine shop beat me too it. I tried my best to find a hole they did not clean out, but i failed. They also installed all the freeze plugs, oil passage plugs, cam bearings, and they deburred all the rough casting edges through out the galley. I'm very happy. So i did a quick cleaning with brake clean and air to get rid of any foreign objects they may be sticking around.


Next , i cleaned the crank and it's oil holes out just to be safe. Put all my bearings in and check all the main clearances and they're all right about .0015. The only thing i messed up here was, believe it was the number 4 bearing in the main cap is positioned with it's alignment notch in a different location, so i had to switch number 1 with number 4. With all the clearances ok, i installed the rear main seal and lubed up all the bearings with assembly lube, by they way, they make a two piece rubber seals for these motors now instead of the rope seal.

I then checked all the end gaps on the moly rings, right at .015, and installed the pistons checking the bearing clearances as i went.



The camshaft was next, so i covered it in moly lube and installed that along with the timing chain, making sure my marks were lined up.

The last thing i had time to do was install the heads. I oiled the head bolt threads and put a little moly lube under the heads to help get an even, accurate torque wile i followed the torque sequence in the manual.


Now that's as far i as got before coming back to work for the last week, and i can't wait to get back to finish it up. I did have a little free time to play around with the paint for the motor. I'm using the Gillespie Coatings Inc. olive drab green over the high temp primer. I thinned it out 4:1 with mineral spirits and added some tractor and implement hardener from Tractor Supply to help make it last longer. It turned out real nice, a little on the shiny side, but i'm gonna like it. I'll get some pictures of that in a little while.

 

Redrider,

You mentioned you had this line bored and then you mentioned you switched #1 with #4 which should be impossible since #4 is the rear main cap. And since #2 is the thrust bearing that only leaves 1 & 3 to be confused.............most caps are marked..........but here is the important part , what ever order they were in when line bored they should remain that way............and should have been remarked?

 

tarry, I'm sorry. How i wrote that was confusing. The main caps have cast numbers in them 1 through 4 with arrows pointing towards the front of the block. They are all in the same place as they were when it was line bored. i was referring to the bearings that are installed in the main caps. The notch the locates the bearing in the cap is in a different location on the number 4 cap. I had number 4 switched with number 1. So i switched the bearings into the right cap and it worked. I just wasn't aware that one of the bearings were different. I should have noticed earlier as the bearing stuck out past the sides of the cap and just looked wrong.

 

Getting back with it, i finished up the front of the motor with the timing chain tensioner, fuel pump drive and distributor gear. Then i rebuilt the oil pump and installed a new rubber harmonic balancer seal instead of the rope seal that came in the kit. I also put on the windage tray and oil pump pick up while it was still upside down. I had to straiten out the oil pan because it was making contact with the pick up when i test fit it.

Then it was time to install the timing cover and water pump followed by the oil pan.


Finally, i put in the lifters and bead blasted the intake manifold and bolted it down. Then we degreased the motor and scuffed all the primer and got ready to paint. I know this is not a motor the military used in '52, but my goal was to make it look like it could have. So we used the GCI 24087 with a hardner and the results after 3 coats was amazing! It sure is nice to see some results after so long, but it is really motivating. I can't wait to see the rest of the jeep in this color!






That's it for now. Got a pretty big trailer project come in the shop now, so i gotta spend a couple weeks on that and then back to the jeep!

 

Quick question for you guys. I got a pair of narrow track dana 30 axle shafts come available. Would these axles fit in my front axle? I think it's a dana 25? I can't remeber right now. And would there be a benefit to using these axle shafts. I was just hoping to put U-joints in to replace to messy greasy joints that are in my axle. Thanks for the education.

 

redrider, Now that is a drab green...........Question for you: Does that Weiand manifold have a hollow chamber or air gap between the valley and the manifold runners?.................Also the Dana 30 narrow track is 3 inchs wider than the Dana 25 or Dana 27 front ends so the axles will not work............but that Dana 30 makes a great swap in the Early CJ with exposed U-joints also the spring hangers are in the same place and you pickup the 3 inches in width..........Just a thought.