'52 m38a1 v6 sm465

Dana 27 shafts with their spicer joints is a good upgrade for the Dana 25. I'm planning on doing a drum brake 30 swap into my A1 for the better turning radius, better braking, stronger shafts, and the ability to run a TrueTrac.

 

Thanks for the info on the axle shafts guys. I'll keep my eyes open for some 27 axle shafts. As far as the intake goes, i believe it is for an odd fire, but i am not sure of that. It was on the motor when i bought it. The spacer was on there as well, and it is the style with 4 separate hole machined in it. I think i read that they help with low end torque, but everything i know about spacers is that they are for high rpm horsepower, so i will not be using it. Unless someone can educate me otherwise. It is a pass through manifold. There is an air gap from front to back. I tried searching the internet for this manifold but i could not find one anywhere. I'm not sure if they quit making it or what.

 

warloch i wasn't really looking to get rid rid of this manifold, unless there is a reason to. I also have an offy 360 intake i decided not to use, but maybe i should re-think this?? Also, i'm not sure what PM is?

One more question, if i am running a PCV, do i need to have a filtered breather in the valve cover on the opposite side? Or is there no relation between the two? Thanks guys.

 

PM is private message, left click on his user name, follow the menu.

A PVC draws fumes from the crankcase, so a fresh air source is needed to work right.
Originally it came from a pipe in the inside of the air cleaner, but a seperate filtered source is fine.

 

buick v6 intakes dont go by odd or even fire they go by tall or low port heads all 225s were low port the high port heads will fit on a 225 find them on a 231 or 252 but they do require special push rods the high port heads raise the compresson up 1/4 of a point and flow better

 

1977 231 / 3.8 and later heads will "Not" fit on a 225. I'll rephrase that they will drop on...........but the water holes in the 231 heads will not line up with the 225 block unless you weld up and resurface the heads to create a smaller hole to line up with the block..........also oil galley routing to the rockers on a 225 comes through the block and through the 225 head to the rocker stand, while the 231's are pressurized from the cam through the hollow push rods..............can all this be modified ............probably but not as easy as you think.

 

Thats funny cause i ran the high port heads for years on a an odd fire engine and just bolted them on.
Yes you are right about the oiling but when you use the 231 valve train it oils threw the push rods the only custom parts you need are longer than stock push rods the stock 231 push rods will work but the valve train will raddle at idle

 

Well after a long break, it's time for some updates. I have been working on the jeep, but it has been at a slow pace so i didn't see the need to update. I had a couple of items to address with the motor before i set it back in the frame. First off, my rocker arm assembly's were pretty worn out, so i ended up getting a set of re-manufactured rockers through the machine shop. They are done very well and came from a shop up in northern California. When i bolted the rockers on, there was an oil splash shield that mounts under the valve cover and i couldn't remember which side it went on, so i guessed and put it under the PCV. I hope that's right. The next issue was a bummer. In my gasket kit i found an "extra" gasket that looked like it should fit somewhere. Well, it turned out it was the gasket that goes between the oil pick-up and the block. So i pulled the pan off and put he gasket in. With that all done, it was time to put the motor back in the jeep. I wanted to check the bellhousing to block alignment because this was a new block and had not been bolted up to the transmission before. With the old block i needed offset alignment pins, but when i checked this new block it was within .004, so everything went together very smooth.

 

Now with the motor sitting on it's mounts, i kinda took my time and cleaned up and painted all the accessories before bolting them on.


So i had a little coaching in this department, thanks Terry, but the intake that i had on the motor was not the best to run on the motor that i built. I was designed for higher rpm engines and may actually hurt this stock motor of mine. One of the other odd-fires i had came with an offenhauser equa-flow 360. We decide this would be a better choice for me. So i blasted it, painted it, got a new set of gaskets for it, bolted it on and topped it off with a new holley 390 cfm carb with an electric choke. Happy with this set-up, i finished hooking up hoses, wires, gauges and all that fun stuff. Ran into a little problem when i tried to drop the HEI in. It hit the new manifold. So i carefully went to work with the sander and finished it off by replacing the hex head intake bolt with a button head allen bolt which gave me enough clearance to get the distributor in. I had to remove one of the four distributor cap hold downs, as it would restrict the amount of timing adjustment i would have.




With all the work done, it was time to prime the motor and fire it up. Once we set the initial timing, we hooked up the fuel line and she fired right up. broke it in for 20 min then made some timing and carb adjustments and she was purring. Makes all the time put into it rewarding.

 

Hey welcome back................looks great!

 

With the motor wrapped up for now, i wanted to get back to my goal of driving the jeep for a while to work out the bugs in the mods i have done so far before i tear it all apart for paint and a resto. So i was not happy with the way the brake pedal was feeling. I should have done more research on the internet before i jumped into this, it would have saved me some money. I found what was called,"the brake bible". What a great tool. It showed me that my 1" YJ master cylinder would not move enough volume of brake fluid to properly work the 1/2 ton chevy front calipers, which require a 1 1/8" master. Turns out i could not find a 1 1/8" master that would fit up to the YJ booster, so i got tired of spinning my wheels and bought a universal 7" single diapharam booster with a 1 1/8" master from speedway motors. Hooked the booster to the YJ pedals with a short pushrod and a 3/8 hiem and had to change the attachment point at the pedal and that problem was fixed. I also decided with shorter pedals i would get some more travel so i cut 2" off both the clutch and the brake pedal.



The shorter pedals allowed me to go back to the 3/4" master for the hydraulic clutch due to the additional travel. The next item was an idea i had a while back but then it was confirmed when i saw terry had done it to his jeep. Instead of putting a huge plate on the firewall, i thought, why not hang hang the back of pedal assembly off of the cowl to keep it ridged and eliminate the flexing. So here are the pics of how i did it, and it is so rigid now it does not move at all, so i picked up a little more pedal travel from that.




Finally, we bled the air out of the brakes and now i have a great pedal way up away from the floor. The clutch is now at 1.1" of travel at the fork and seems to be enough. It's just about ready for the driving test and that should tell me if i do have enough clutch travel.

 

Thanks terry, it's good to be back, check out the pedal bracket i borrowed from you, it works great! Thank you! The last update is mostly cosmetic, but i did not like the high back seats, so i went back to the original military with the canvas covers. They are actually pretty comfortable and look good in there.


And check out the tool box, i scored on this one. Not a bit of rust in it at all!

That's it for now! Thanks for checking in, i should have some time this week to make some progress and we'll see how far i can get. And it sounds like a set of dana 27 axle shafts are coming my way tomorrow or the next day.

 

Glad that mod worked for you..............

 

Updates?

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

 

Yes. I know I've been gone for a while. I have been making some progress. Slowly. I'll download the pictures and get us up to speed this week. Thanks for checking!!

 

Well, i got all my computer and technology problems fixed, for now. So here is where i am at now. Started working on the front bumper set-up. The first piece i put in was a cross member i bent up out of .187 mild steel. I'm hoping by connecting the two frame together out front will provide enough support to handle the stress the new steering box will put on it. I may end up building another support from the box to the pass. side rail if it looks like it will need it.


This jeep is gonna be flat towed on most trips, so i really wanted a good secure way to attach the tow bar o the front bumper. I didn't want to just weld eyelets to the front of the bumper and just trust that. So i decided to attach them to this cross member that is welded directly to the frame rails. The eyelets have a lip on them to transfer most of the force directly to the cross member. I'll let the pictures tell the rest.






That is it for the front support. I'm at the point now where i need to weld it in place, so can anyone see anything i am missing or should do before i make it a permanent piece of this jeep. I hate to do things twice. Thanks for the input.