Woke up around 10:30 to pee for the 4th time. No I don’t have a bladder or prostate problem. I have a drinking problem. Ever since I stopped drinking alcohol last year (Dec 30th), I have been drinking a lot of water. No I don’t stop after noon in fact I drink more. While zoning out on science, history, car shows, football or ancient aliens, I will consume about 4 20 oz glasses and crunch on the ice too. Yes, I’m sure it’s not good for me but compared to two bottles of wine and a six pack of beer every night, this is positively life changing. After taking care of that issue I notice that I have lost another 4lbs since I weighed myself a week ago. While this is welcome news, it is also slightly disheartening for my bride since she has only been able to drop 5lbs since we started this lightening journey. Including the latest 4lbs this makes 22lbs. that I have managed to shed. I remind her that me starting a 308! means I really really needed to lose it and it will slow as time goes on.
We head out to go pick up a clothes rack for Ruth, My brides best friend. She is awesome since her hoarding of clothes makes my minor collections look good. After delivering and reassembling the rack we head home and she takes off for her sisters house to go notarize something. I happily head down to the shop because 21 has already been watching over the fur baby.
Into the shop on with the game streamed over the laptop to the bluetooth speaker and I am working. Time to do some stuff to Betty. I had done a very few preparatory items already. Last week aI removed the battery and I have been charging it on and off every time I come down. Today it finally hit 100%. There must be a pretty bad vampire circuit i will need to track down. I have also removed the top of the fan shroud and would have removed the fan but it is not playing nice. I can not loosen it. The belt slips and the pulley turns each time I try. I really need the tool to hold the pulley in place but it seems like a very limited speciality tool and I end up using a pry bar an adjustable wrench and a hammer to break it loose. Note to self, put some anti-seize on EVERYTHING when I put this back together. I am taking turns removing things from the truck and trying to figure out why it is all just so inefficient.
Oh, is it because I only have one tool in my hand and every time I need another one I have to walk to the other end of the shop to get it. Not only that, but I don’t actually have a full set of sockets in my huge tool box. I have previously been using a boxed set on my mechanics table that is meant for this. right now that table is holding the various pieces that need to go back into the spare 350 heads. Time to clean up.
The little white table that I built with my daughters back when they were interested in the shop (2009) I have been using as I do all flat surfaces in the shop. I just throw whatever I have to put down there. I take 30 minutes to sort trash, move and condense all the stuff to other locations and put both heads on it on some pig mat and take the new head parts tray and transfer it there from the mechanics table. I now find my socket set and put it where it goes on the table that is now by the truck. This is so much better. I even have a crate to put the parts that come off the truck in, so nothing gets lost. If you look really closely you can see zip lock bags in there with bolts and sharpie labels for what they go to. Sickeningly organized.
Things start moving quicker now. I remove the serpentine belt with the help of a 3/8 drive ratchet and the square hole in the idler pulley. I unbolt the alternator, remove the electrical connections and remove the passenger side accessory bracket. Next, off come the hoses from the water pump, the 4 water pump bolts and I give the pump a good wack with the dead blow hammer. Nothing, it doesn’t budge at all. OK so maybe I missed a bolt, I head off to go find the mechanics light, the sun has already gone down. This would be easier inside the shop but. I have only myself to blame for that situation. So I find the light and of corse the battery is dead. I find the spare charged battery and remind myself to look for the charger. I check the pump, no other bolts? This time I give it a real wack like it was a spider that got too close for comfort. Ding! it dislodges itself and i give myself kudos for using just the right amount of RTV, that would never have leaked! The pump, now in my hand is rusty and that is my bad. I replaced this one last year due to a leaking bearing on the old one. I remembered this because I just saw the old one on the BMW shelves and thought, “I wonder if I can rebuild that?”. I will hit this new pump with a wire wheel, and the under coat and a nice coat of gloss black before it goes back on.
Time to move on. I remove the un-used brand new AC compressor (from another unfinished project) and store it on top of the washer fluid container (which may be leaking now) behind the drivers headlights. I start on the drivers side accessory bracket and immediately come to a halt. The power steering pulley is in the way. This is another engineering genius idea. there are no less than 7 different pulleys on the front of this engine. If an engineer came up with a good way to mount a pulley you would think they would all use that mount, but NOOOOOO. The idler pulleys both have a very simple single bolt through the pully bearings into the mount. The alternator has a friction fit pulley (jam it on till it doesn’t move) with a large nut to hold it in place, it can be removed by prying it off the shaft after removing the bolt with an air gun. The crankshaft and the water pump both have a 4 bolts attaching the face of the pulley, removing the 4 bolts will allow the pulley to be removed. I can somewhat understand the ac compressor needing a separate type of attachment since the clutch protrudes through it, and yes it has a special tool to remove both the clutch and the pulley. But the power steering pump has no damn business having this BS friction fit pulley that requires a hub attaching puller. If you attempt to remove it with a 2 or 3 jaw remover you will bend the pulley, you can guess how I know this. So I had to purchase this lovely tool.
While this tool is lovely in its blow molded box and it has a set of instructions and even labels for each piece. The instructions don’t tell you what pieces to use for what vehicles! After some fiddling around I did manage to remove the pulley, but I slightly damaged the end of the puller pin GM 3.1 which is why it is not in the box, I need to file down the part is squashed.
With the pulley removed and the accessory bracket take off, and bracket and bolt that fell on the floor retrieved. I called it a night. Off to go watch the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of Hubble and what the James Webb Telescope has found. Which brings to mind the brilliant words of Monty Python.
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space, ‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
Monty Python
List of parts for Betty so far.
- Timing Belt
- water pump hoses
- water pump gaskets / All engine gaskets
- possibly a radiator, if so maybe aluminum shroud and two electric fans.
