Two nights of little progress

Monday night I didn’t get crap done on the project! I started to work on the oil filter/block attachment only to realize after driving around for 2 hours that I wasn’t going to find any easy way to block off the oil cooler attachments for the 83 L28ET motor. By the time I got home from that, it was well after 9, and I needed to spend some time with my wife.

Tuesday I ordered AN fittings to go from the metric 18mm x 1.5 oil cooler fittings to AN -10 fittings so that I can run steel braided lines to the new oil cooler I ordered. All of that should be here tomorrow.

Tuesday after work I began putting things back together on the Intake Manifold. I spent far too long digging around the garage trying to find parts I haven’t seen in a few weeks. Yes, I need FAR BETTER organization in the garage. I’ll probably have to spend some time Thursday or Friday night cleaning up if I’m going to have anyone over to help out this weekend. After that, I headed off to Speed Sports up in Bridgeton (Speed Sports, store hours from 7-10pm M-F) to pick up some AN-4 steel braided line for my turbo oil feed. I got a 1/8” NPT to AN-4 fitting, a 90-degree hose fitting, and the fittings I needed on the turbo side, as well as 5 feet (about 1 ft too much) of AN -4 hose. I figured out when I got home that the port on the block for the oil fitting is NOT 1/8” NPT, it’s actually 1/8” BSPT, which is very similar, but different enough to make my fitting not work.

With this info, I think I’ve now figured out why the pipe thread plugs I had purchased a few months ago wouldn’t work, I probably need BSPT for those as well. I’ve found a few parts online that I can order to convert from BSPT to NPT, I’ll see if anyone locally has those tomorrow, otherwise, I’ll get those ordered tomorrow.

After leaving Speed Sports, I headed down the street to Autozone. At AZ I picked up a lot of hoses, clamps, and other random bits of things I needed to reassemble the motor. I also picked up a GM open element Air Temperature sensor to thread into the Intake manifold to be able to tell what the air temp is going into the motor, I had to get the Wells part, I think SU107 was the # but I could be wrong. AZ didn’t have a pigtail so I’ll try Carquest tomorrow to see if they have the pigtail so I can wire this up to the Megasquirt.

When I got home I threaded the temperature sensor into the Intake manifold. I also managed to get the thermostat gasket installed into the housing, the GM Water Temperature Sensor installed into the Thermo housing, and cleaned up the snail for the turbo. It was a bit dirty from sitting in a barn for who knows how many years. I’ll take pics of everything later this week.

After running around this evening I got to thinking about how much this project has cost me lately. Without going into specifics (because my mother will read this) I’ve spent more this month than I spent to purchase the car. June was the same, and possibly double what I’ve spent so far this month.

I know I’ve got a few more things I’ll have to purchase, but hopefully, I’ve got all the big items out of the way, at least for this phase of the project.

More coming this week, and I promise to start doing video again!