[Dan M2]

Well I've had the '68 for a couple weeks now and I also bought a BendPak scissor lift from Pelican Here is an update with pics.

I paid extra to have the lift delivered into my garage however they didn't bother to take it of the pallet! After struggling for 30 min, I finally got the lift off the pallet and proceeded to get it turned around and positioned properly. It's a heavy bugger (1k lbs) and not the easiest to maneuver. I then ran to Harbor Freight and picked up some fluid (1.5 gallons). I assembled the arms, bolted the motor onto the handle and in about an hour I was raising and lowering the lift! It was relatively easy.

The next trick was getting the car lined up and figuring out the ramp height to clear the lift. I didn't want to spend the weekend building ramps so I laid down some 2x6's and drove the car up. I had to remove the lifting pads (they slide right off) to gain a couple inches and then the car cleared it with no problems. Obviously the ride height is a bit high!

After monkeying with the arm positioning, I raised her and up she went! The lift is absolutely fantastic! It really makes working on the car so much easier than rolling around on the floor under jack stands.

My next trick was to degrease the engine, fire it up, and determine where all the leaks are. The car runs really rough and was spewing a lot of oil when I bought it. I grabbed the Gunk engine cleaner, laid out my handy snow mat that I used in VA, and cleaned up the underside of the engine. That Gunk cleaner works miracles!! The bottom cleaned up nicely.

I then fired up the car and didn't see any nasty, spewing oil! I noticed that most of the cylinders were leaking oil and there were a few leaks around the cam covers but nothing like a crack in the block. I'm guessing that the car had so much oil caked on it that it was blowing from the holes in the heat exchangers.

I also took off the upper valve covers and noticed that all of the head bolts were loose (did this when the engine was cold) and a few of the nuts holding on the cam towers were loose as well. My task this weekend is to drain the oil, pull all covers and re-torque the heads. I'm hoping that not too much damage has been done with these being loose.

I took the car for a quick spin to check the tranny and all seems okay. The clutch needs adjusting but it's not too bad.

I found a guy here who really knows the long hoods. He has a '71T coupe and a '67 912 as daily drivers! He is very knowledgeable and willing to help out. By using a grounded wire and inserting into each plug wire at the distributor, we determined that three of the cylinders were not running well. Then he choked out each carb stack showing that the bad running cylinders were affected by choking. We pulled the mains for each and they were clean. We switched the plugs and wires from the good cyl's with no change. Next weekend we will check the float levels as this could have an affect on cyl's 5,6 which are not running well. Will also torque the heads, adjust the valves, and put the proper plugs in. All of the wires are new and the distributor looks good. Lots of troubleshooting left but we're making some progress.

Enjoy the pics!

[Jazzbass]

Nice write up, Dan. Keep us updated.

[Trak Ratt]

Nice looking car!! Looking forward to hearing more about it!!!

[berettafan]

what would cause the head and cam tower bolts to be loose like that? is it typical?

[martin944]

Hey Dan, how much was the scissor lift?

[Dan M2]

Originally Posted by berettafan

what would cause the head and cam tower bolts to be loose like that? is it typical?

Good question! I would think that if the engine was rebuilt before, then maybe they never went back to re-torque after break-in. Otherwise if it's never been rebuilt, it could be loose after so many years.

The odd thing is that the engine doesn't blow any smoke out of the tail pipes...makes me think there was a rebuild at some point.

As for the cost of the lift it was $1,999 plus $150 for lift gate delivery. No tax from Pelican and they were all over the shipping mishap too. The truck arrived one Wed afternoon and said here it is, please unload yourself! Um, no liftgate, I paid $150, no thanks. Called Pelican and they were already on top of it. The lift had to go back to the shipper and brought back two days later with a liftgate and pallet jack.

[onboost]

Dan,

Sounds like you're having fun down there.. and it appears with warm weather to boot... I'm jealous! Nice purchase by the way!

While you're checking for leaks, of course check the oil thermostat "o" ring and the breather gasket and hose towards the rear of the motor on top. Ok , so you alreasdy knew that.

Check the front main seal and intermidiate shaft gasket. When they leak and the car is running, the fan has enough draw to pull the oil upward & through the fan.. and distributes it across the tops of the cylinders, heads etc.. It then leaks down and appears that cylinders or heads are leaking over time.

Have fun..

Paul

[Mr. D-987 S]

That's a great looking lift. Nice purchase! That would be perfect for my garage.

Good luck with the car.

[Dan M2]

Thanks for the tips Paul. Yes the weather here is really nice right now. Spring is great in Houston, it's the summers that will kill ya! I'm working on an AC unit for the garage!

[NoPaint]

It doesn't HAVE TO be a bad thing that they were loose and could certainly be the reason for the leak. The reason for the looseness is going to be the mystery. I would start by torquing EVERYTHING properly and checking for any broken studs in the process. Shouldn't have problems with broken studs unless it was run a ton like that. You might even get lucky and have all leaks stop when tightened down. The old aluminum 2.0 is a tough plant. I am guessing you have aluminum and not magnesium?