After an absence from rebuilding and writing, here is where the project currently stands and what new hell has arrived, forcing me to become a C6 transmission specialist. Plus, an FE Block camshaft plug oddity you need to be aware of.
My apologies for the gap between posts and updating the website. Travel and illness have kept me away from the garage, and I experienced a deep funk after installing the rebuilt engine.
I Made a Few Mistakes During the Rebuild
Currently, the engine is in the truck, and the truck is in the garage and not out on the road as I thought it would be this past Spring. After installing the engine following a successful dyno test, the big day finally arrived. I thought I would be terrorizing the neighborhood with the trumpeting sounds of success straight from the headers (I had not installed the exhaust system yet), only to discover yet another setback that would delay this project even further: The truck would go forward…but not in reverse.
Mistake #1: Doing both the engine and the transmission at the same time even though the original transmission still worked.
Before the rebuild began, I had big plans for it: A rebuild/restoration of the engine; a rebuild of the engine bay as a showcase for the new engine once it was finished to show off the work I had done; and, deciding that since the engine rebuild would take time and leave the truck motionless, that now would also be a good time to have the C6 transmission rebuilt with an upgrade so that I could install the new engine with a new transmission together rather than separately.
Tackling both builds was a mistake because problems with one affected the other and prevented or delayed the truck project's return to the road.
Mistake #2: Hiring (and depending on) someone else with transmission experience to rebuild the transmission.
Because I felt transmissions were too esoteric and beyond my skill set to attempt or learn about, I hired someone with reputedly many years of experience working on cars who was currently working on the same transmission type for another customer, a late 60s Ford GT Cobra with a C6 transmission.
The agreed-upon price was $2,000, which included an upgrade kit and the promise of the smoothest shifting experience I would ever find in an old truck with a just-as-old automatic transmission.
I was sold on the deal because:
· Finding someone who can work on older transmissions today is difficult, to say the least.
· It allowed me to focus on the engine and leave the transmission to someone more qualified.
· The mechanic was currently working on a C6 transmission.
· The said mechanic was a friend I had known for years.
Mistake #3: Hiring a friend.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be" is one of the best bits of wisdom anyone can adhere to when it comes to friends. There is nothing so quick to ruin a friendship than there is whenever money is involved. As an extension of this, I would like to add anything involving a friend whenever it comes to buying, selling, or fixing a car applies as well.
Here's what happened:
When I first started this project, I had the idea of hiring a semi-retired friend who had a long career of repairing cars to guide me from time to time during the engine rebuild and point out those "devil in the details" aspects of an engine rebuild.
While I felt educated enough to tackle an engine rebuild, I knew enough to understand that every engine is different, and each has its own idiosyncrasies that can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful rebuild.
A good example of such an idiosyncrasy is the camshaft plug that goes into the rear of the block.
Nearly identical to the FE block's freeze plugs, aka "core plugs," the metal camshaft plug has a reverse taper profile that goes in backward compared to a normal freeze plug, with its flat surface facing out.
Unbeknownst to my friend and me, when the block was returned after machining, a new camshaft plug had been inserted backward as if it were a freeze plug.
When my friend was helping me feed the new camshaft into the block, we found that it was not going in as far as it should have by a few millimeters. My "experienced mechanic" friend took a wood block and a hammer and began hammering the camshaft into the block. I watched in horror, imagining the bearing surfaces and cam ruined beyond repair.
I stopped him. Words were exchanged. And he left me hanging with what I feared was a new problem on top of why the new camshaft did not fit.
After some inspecting, measuring, re-inspecting, and re-measuring, I determined that the camshaft was the correct size ordered but was riding against the camshaft plug. Searching online and thumbing through a few old manuals, I finally found a note that stated, "Be sure not to insert the camshaft plug in the wrong orientation" ―D'OH!
The good news is that the hammering did not damage the camshaft and bearings, and I was able to get a new camshaft plug. The camshaft fit was perfect after installing the plug with the correct orientation and without my friend this time.
Reflecting on My Mistakes
If I've ever said this once when it comes to working on cars, I am sure I will say it repeatedly "You Have to Own Your Shit." In other words, while others may or may not be the cause of your problem(s), it is up to you to take control of the uncontrollable and own up to that what happened is at the very least linked to your decisions or actions in the past.
When I think back to my friend and what happened, it was my decision to hire him based primarily on that he was someone I knew and thought well of and who I knew was an experienced mechanic. But I never actually researched his capabilities. Yes, he worked on cars as a business for many years, but I did not know whether or not he had recently…if ever…worked on an engine rebuild.
Furthermore, we have talked since then, and I recognize now that he is old and his health has been failing him, which is why he sold his business and worked part-time out of his home garage. However, I will never accept that using a hammer on a camshaft is a recommended technique in any situation. Still, I now see one forgivable reason why he did what he did. And that I should have recognized signs of this earlier.
Back to Today
As I stated at the beginning of this post, the day I finished installing the engine and working out all of the requisite wiring for an electronic ignition system modification, it was finally time to see if it would start and take it out for a test drive.
After some fuel pumping and combustion chamber explosions, the engine started loud and strong. I could feel the suppressed toque with each press on the gas pedal as I let it warm up in park and triple-checked my oil pressure and transmission fluid levels. Alas and alack and all that rubbish, I could feel the truck lurch strongly against my wheel blocks when shifting into drive, but not so much as a weak shudder when I shifted in reverse to back out of the garage. $2,000 down the drain was all I could feel.
That was last Spring, just before my summer trips and a misdiagnosed illness that set me back until recently.
I tried contacting my mechanic friend for some advice on what to look for in a C6 transmission that will not shift into reverse, but as before, when he found out I had a problem of which he should share some responsibility; once again, he ghosted me.
It's okay, though. I bear him no hard feelings. I chose instead to live up to my own advice and am currently working on learning how to master rebuilding a C6 transmission―something I should have done in the beginning, anyway.
Post Coming Soon: How to Learn C6 Transmission Operation, Diagnostics, and Repair
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