Its been awhile since I've posted. starting to spend some time on Pearl now.
Esme has had a new set of drums. and a few odds and ends, I'll post some on her later . Most of the time is spent looking for parts for her. That's the fun part, searching the net looking for that elusive part. I won't be doing any of the major work on her till Pearl is done so I have a lot of time to look.
PEARL
PEARL
the last installment had the chassis on one side and the body on the other.I have done a bit since then after the body came off the chassis was looked over, its in excellent condition. Only light surface rust here and there one slightly bent rear cross beam , minor.The body has been put to one side for the duration, till the chassis and engine are done. Before I cleaned down the lot I was going to get Pearl to tell me some more of here secrets. So... lets get jiggy with that engine
40 Year old Tonawanda Glory !!!!
By the time the inlet manifold was off , it was obvious, BB run forever no mater what, have a look into the inlet ports and the valve stems, The valley looked clean with some gum build up in the corners
A bit further into the front and I got to the timing chain very, very tired as expected
Hmm..something interesting on the cam sprocket
note the eccentric bush to adjust the cam timing. That's not standard! A bit of a further look showed Pearl had been hanging out with a rough crowd and had her cam changed to a torquey isky 262 hyd. The cam turned out to be past its use by date as the rear lobes were worn 1mm (0.040")
Next I was going to pop off the heads to check on the bores and pistons . Now an LS5 has flat tops ,
Pearl had been hiding something..it was worth the wait
Yoweeeee you sneaky thing, the magic number L2349 30 over pop ups
Pearl was a LS6 wanna be at 460 cubes, that's MY girl!!
After some checking and measuring , Pearl's bore are fine within 0.05 (.001") lip, marginal taper .Running 0.1mm (0.004") piston clearance correct for LS6 , with a 12.5 static compression ratio working back to 10.5 dynamic with the cam and its overlaps
I was intrigued and needed to look some more!
Pearl doesn't have her original transmission, its a very early B&M !! I think she moonlighted as a Drag Queen, hence all the stone chips on the rear quarter panels. Green is for GOOOooooo!
OK Engine out
OK.. Pearl let me lift this up.....and have a look see....hmmmm
2bolt, standard 3/8th bolt rods, but the rotating assembly has been balanced, very nice indeed!!
Also found melzer 77hi Volume oil pump, that explains the stonking oil pressure at idle
All in all, it was a great surprise , I now understand why the air cleaner had a 450 HP sticker on it!!
One day at the dyno in the future will tell us .
This is what makes buying old cars a lot of fun, you never quite know what you'll get, to think it was the original owner who did all these mods he only had the car till 77 , go figure ?
