Engine out

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1. Is it easiest to take engine and gearbox out together? What do they weigh? Anything special to be aware off?

Take them both out together. Here's a link to how to do it:
http://www.geocities.com/pantera_tech/EngineRnR_1

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2. What does an original Cleveland like this need? If it was a Chevy SB which I've restored many, maybe just a timing chain, oil pump and gaskets? I guess a Cleveland needs a harmonic balancer after reading these forums? What else? Please don't say total restoration if not needed Wink I don't drive on tracks, only the occasional blast around town or through Europe on unlimited highways but rarely above 130 mph. Engine has new intake (Edelbrock Performer), carb (Holley 600 vac), water pump and fuel pump.

It's hard to say without knowing the internal condition of the engine. How many miles does it have on it? At a minimum, assuming there is no internal damage or excessive wear, replace the following...

* Rod and main bearings
* Rings and hone the cylinder bores
* Valves and valve springs
* Timing chain and gears with a quality tru-roller timing set
* Cam (may be able to regrind current cam but a new mild cam should net better performance and economy)
* Lifters and pushrods
* All gaskets and seals
* Harmonic balancer (dampener) with a new SFI-approved unit
* Also, double-up the distributor shear pin that holds the gear on the shaft.
* Replace the stock oil pan with a properly baffled 10-quart pan from Aviad or Armando to protect your new engine

Here are some additional suggestions/upgrades if budget permits. You can do any or all of them:
* Upgrade to forged pistons, roller rockers, roller lifters
* Heads - Aussie 2V heads or aluminum heads for improved performance
* Stroker kit - There are a lot of popular options: 377, 383, 393, 408, etc.

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3. What about the gearbox. That works perfectly as well. Any gaskets/seals that can be changed? If so, where can they be bought?

All the Pantera vendors sell gasket kits for the ZF. Or, you can call RBT transmission for them.
* Safety wire the ring gear (if it's not been done already) while the transaxle is out of the car.
* Replace the ring gear bolts. Again, all the vendors sell kits, or you can buy ARP bolts and drill them yourself (search this forum for more info).
* Replace gaskets to avoid leaks.

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4. Any further advice?

While the engine is out...
* Remove the gas tank and have it boiled out and sealed.
* Address any corrosion on the inside of the quarter panel between the gas tank and the quarter panel. At a minimum, clean, prime and paint this area to protect it from corrosion.

It's also an excellent time to clean and detail your engine compartment. Now would be a good time to scrape off all the factory undercoating, smooth the spot welds, and paint or re-coat the engine compartment with a more durable (and easier to clean) bed-liner material. You can have this done or do it yourself with a kit (available from Eastwood and other sources).

Keep us posted on your progress!
Cheers!
Garth

All good advice, but you just got yourself a 6 month to a year restoration. Fine if that is where you want to go...and you know it doesn't end there as you will always find more to do while you have it apart. How do I know...well I had a main bearing go at the track 18 months ago

Personally it sounds like you feel the engine is still strong, so I'd pull just the ZF and clutch and fix what is most likely a rear main seal. You should be able to do it engine in the car. If it's not the rear main seal then it could be the ZF input shaft seal, if so then the ZF is out anyway.

keep in mind a rear main seal in a clevo is internally so the sump must be pulled and the crank lowered slightly.
If it was a windsor with a 1 piece seal you could just do it from the back.
but yes i agree it does sond like a rear main,best to do it soon before it contaminates the clutch.

I was just talking to a mechanic that recommends that when the rear engine seal leaks that of course you need to replace the seal but he says the main bearings also. I find it hard to believe that any kind or worn main bearings would permit the crankshaft to move enough to cause a seal failure but I suppose that it is possible?
He had more gray hair then me so he out ranked me.

I never heard this before but I thought I would pass it along.

Thanks.
Garth, I like your plan, but as Julian says, at the moment it's too ambitious for me (I want to do that kind of thing 1½-2 years from now, when my Longchamp is 100% ready, yes I work slowly :-)). Doug, maybe it's leaking because of vibration, but my first guess would be that it becomes hard or whatever from years of not being used?

Frankly I would prefer to fix this with the engine in the car, by removing the oil pan. But I'm told it's not possible because it's an early model where crossmember is welded.

Has anybody tried it though? If rear of gearbox and exhaust is released and gearbox/engine is tilted forward/upward, might there be enough room to remove oil pan? If yes, can I just remove rear bearing cap and replace seal? Just to avoid more oil spill until the big restoration later. Again, since the engine and gearbox is otherwise perfect, I'm only doing this to protect my clutch (fyi, earlier my clutch was shuddering when moving from stand still. I then took a screwdriver and bent open the lower shield so the excess oil could drip out freely. That seems to have at least lowered the oil contamination, because the shuddering is gone, clutch is perfect now)

One more thing Garth, are Aussie 2V heads that much better than orig 4V heads I have?

Aussie 2v heads have a much smaller intake and exhaust port, what this gives is better low down torque.
I can send you a set if you like !

Mikael.

You can cut the crossmember out with a sawzall and the vendors sell a replacement one that bolts in and is removable. I did mine with the engine in the car.

What sort of oil pan do you currently have? For any type of spirited driving where there is cornering I recommend and upgrade to the fully baffled Aviaid or Armando pans to ensure the oil pick up cannot run dry.

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are Aussie 2V heads that much better than orig 4V heads I have?

As Paul said they are better for low end torque than 4V closed chamber heads, in turn the 4V CC's are significantly better than open chamber 4V heads. Which 4V style do you have at a present?
What to go for depends what you can obtain locally, shipping cast heads gets expensive.

There are now many good 351C Aluminum head choices, that offer the best of all the performance attributes, plus weight saving (on the car & shipping!). For some shipping is thrown in e.g. CHI heads price includes shipping from Australia, so its pays to do the comparison including cost of getting them to you.

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are Aussie 2V heads that much better than orig 4V heads I have?

The Aussie 2V heads are a closed chamber head with smaller ports. Therefore, you get the benefits of smaller ports - better low end torque and throttle response - and the closed chamber design - increased compression and horsepower as well as less detonation/pinging due to the superior chamber design.

The 4V heads are really too big for a standard 351C. They're designed to feed an engine at 7,000 RPM all day long. On the street and around town, your engine will most likely live between 1500-3500 RPM, with occasional blasts to 5000 RPM as you're getting on the autobahn. This is where the 2V head really shines. Also, the stock valves in your 4V heads are two-piece valves that are friction welded; they have a nasty habit of developing stress cracks at the joint and coming apart - this basically turns the entire engine into junk. I met 3 people last summer who had this happen to their original engines with 60,000-100,000 miles, and it's why I recommend a ring and valve job at a minimum if you're pulling the engine out (and main bearings at the same time too).

The 2V heads are also inexpensive. You may be able to purchase a good set of Aussie 2V heads for less than the cost of freshening up your old heads. I found a set of brand new Edelbrock 2V aluminum heads for a price equal to the cost of freshening up my old heads - guess which way I went.

As far as my recommendations above, I'm not suggesting that you need to do all of them. I was just trying to answer your questions and give you all the info. The first section I outlined in my original post is just a basic engine refresh that could be done quite quickly and inexpensively. But as others have pointed out (and I have found), don't take your car off the road if you don't have to. Because you will always find more to do and it will take much longer than originally planned. Ask me about my 66 Mustang that's been on jackstands for the last 6 or 7 years, all because I rebuilt the transmission - and since it was out decided to redo the suspension, replace all hard lines with stainless, upgrade the rear end, add disc brakes to the rear, repair some rust in the floorpans, and strip and repaint the underside of the car, and the list goes on...

So, all that to say, don't disassemble your Pantera until your Longchamp is done. And no, you cannot remove the oil pan with the stock chassis brace in place (forgot to add this to the to-do list for when the engine is out). You must cut the brace out and replace it with a removeable brace - either a chassis stiffening kit from one of the vendors, or just a simple bolt-in brace to replace only the removed brace.


Anyway, why bother with the leaking seal now. Is the rear seal leaking enough to contaminate the clutch? Is your clutch slipping? If not, wait until the Longchamp is finished and do a more thorough overhaul of the Pantera in a year or so like you're planning. Just a thought.

I'd go with cutting the cross brace out and replace with a bolt on version...Dennis Quello sells a really heavy duty one that I have or most of the vendors also sell them. The later Pantera's had the removable cross member so it's not a horrible thing to do. That can be done with the motor & trans in the car. I'm in the process of cutting mine out but the motors out and am doing many of the things Garth mentioned to the engine bay.

I see a problem I think...if the main seal is two piece and you have to lower the crank...that can't be done unless the trans is unbolted and removed. Also, since the flywheel essentially protects the clutch from oil, the oil will run down the flywheel and get slung from rotation onto the bell housing...that might drip onto the clutch and contaminate it...but you would have to be losing a lot of oil for that to happen. If you don't have long before the Longchamp is done maybe get some additive that you add to the oil that will swell the main seal like power steering and transmission leak stop does (if the rear main is rubber). That might stop or slow down the leak until you can do the job with the motor and trans out of the car and you can take your time.

I am looking for a set of quench heads as I have the open chamber 4V's now. Garth where did you get the Edelbrock aluminum heads? I have not given much thought to those because the prices I've seen was higher than you mentioned. Are you pretty happy with the Edelbrock heads?

Also as Julian mentioned you might also think about changing the oil pan to one with more capacity and better baffling since the pan will be off. Armando makes a nice Pantera oil pan for under $350 and it holds 10qts with a nice baffle system. I have one and it's made well.

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But as others have pointed out (and I have found), don't take your car off the road if you don't have to. Because you will always find more to do and it will take much longer than originally planned.

Ah yes.. know that scenario well, my '74 spun a rod bearing at the track a year ago August. It is now a bare shell, all because I took the engine out and it escalated from there with the "while I've got the engine out I might as well" attitude.

Garth has a good point on actually leaving it if it's not too bad and Tom's suggestion of a stop leak is another good one. After all when you do get to do it properly you'll want to replace the clutch anyway.

Tom, I have a pair of 4V quench (closed chamber) heads from my '74 motor, stock valves etc. but I'd let them go to a board member for $200 plus shipping (probably $75 range to ship as they are 65lbs each)

Good advice, I might wait until the Longchamp is finished. Over here in Denmark there's another issue some of you guys may not have: winter. The driving period is April-Sept at the most, so the car has to driveable in that period and all maintenance has to be in the winter.

If the seal can't be replaced w/o lowering the crank, then I can't see it can be done in car. At the front there's a timing chain, at the back there's a gearbox. So the question is now, can the seal be changed w/o lowering crank. I've done it on the 2-piece on a chevy SB, though it was while the engine was out and upside down, so a little easier. Removed the bearing cap which includes the lower half of the seal. Then pushed the upper half out around the crank with som hard but flexible plastic. I haven't opened a Cleveland before, so I don't know if this is possible.

Perhaps I should tell the symptoms that make me consider this. The leak: No leak when stationary. No leak when just started. When driving, coming home, idling 1 minute in front of the garage, driving into the garage, then there's a puddle in front of the garage. Seems to be part oil, part water, but that's just a guess. Gearbox does not appear to lose oil, engine uses ½-1 liter per 500 km.

Mikael,

I had the same symptoms of oil leaking you describe.

I thought I had a seal problem as well.

BUT, when I had the car on a hoist at a dealer to recharge the air conditioner, I was surprised to find out that oil was dripping from a few of the oil pan bolts. The car had the original oil pan gasket for 20 years (at the time).

For a quick repair (it lasted 12 years) I put the car up on my jackstands; got under the car; undid a suspect bolt; cleaned each bolt; sprayed brake parts cleaner in the oil pan bolt bore; Put gasket silicone on the bolt threads and reinstalled the bolt; Moved on to the next suspect bolt. I waited a day to let the silicone set up and ... Did not have a problem after that. All done without taking off the oil pan or engine/transaxle removal.

While it may be something else, it may be the oil pan gasket. Check the Oil Pan bolts.

About engine and transaxle removal. I have had just the transaxle removed (clutch job) and the engine transaxle combo removed. In my opinion the engine/transaxle removed together is the way to go.

HTH

B.G.

P.S. In Canada our driving season is much like yours.

Mikael,

The rear main seal looks like you think. And if it was installed correctly, part of it will be exposed and you should be able to grab it with a pliers and rotate it out.
I attempted to replace the seal with the engine in the car, but abandon the idea and pulled the engine out. I just don't think the job can be done properly with the engine in the car. Pulling the engine and transaxle as one unit really isn't that bad of a job.

Tom, I have a pair of 4V quench (closed chamber) heads from my '74 motor, stock valves etc. but I'd let them go to a board member for $200 plus shipping (probably $75 range to ship as they are 65lbs each)[/QUOTE]

Julian I probably will go with your heads, I sent you a private message...Thanks Tom