Thread: 283 Build

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You could consider this Cam & lifters Elgin, Hydraulic Flat Tappet Complete Cam Kit, Chev SB - Competition Products This is the Chevy L-79 Grind close to a 30-30 in lift but Hydraulic lifters.

I haven’t updated this in a bit, it’s been kind of slow going only having a little bit of time on Sundays to work on it with Cade.


I figured I post the pictures of the hub I took off the crank. As far as I can tell the hub is just the way it was built. When I cleaned it up there was no sign that there was ever any rubber or inertia ring as part of it. I will be using the balancer (left) when it goes back together.






The broken head bolt turned out to be a bit more problematic that I thought it was going to be. I started out by showing Cade my favorite trick of welding a nut onto the nub that was sticking up above the block.






Most times the broken bolt will come out pretty easily that way….this wasn’t one of those times. The first time all it did was break off a little more of the bolt. It did the same with the second nut I welded on. Then Cade got to see me drill a hole thru the broken bolt and try an easy-out. When it didn’t come out after a couple of tugs on the wrench (I didn’t want to show Cade how to break an easy-out off in the bolt) it was on to plan “C”. I used my smallest tip in the torch and heated the bolt from the inside putting the flame thru the hole I drilled. After the heat, what was left of the bolt came out using the easy-out. In the end Cade got to see a couple of different techniques so it was worth the aggravation……I even managed to refrain from teaching him any new words.





We’ve managed to get all the freeze and soft plugs out along with the pistons and crankshaft. Along the way he learned about numbering the rods and caps, and de-ridging the cylinders. Last Sunday he got to play with the press for the first time …pushing out the piston pins. Sometime this week the block will head to the machine shop and the crank should be off to the grinders.

Cade seems to think the greasy/oily part is over for some reason…… I think he will be for a bit of a surprise when we start reassembly, but at least it will be clean lube and oil.

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This is very cool. I wish I would have had a mentor when I was a teenager.

Right on - great lessons and time with the grandson is beyond precious. I find I'm more patient with my grand kids than I was with their parents - I think that's a good thing for all parties concerned!

Keep the updates coming!

"..... I find I'm more patient with my grand kids than I was with their parents....."

Yeah, I'm guilty on that too. I suspect a small part of it is mellowing a bit with age. Then there is the not being under the same pressure you have when your holding a full time job, trying to make ends meet, raise the kids and generally just get thru life like we had to in our 20s-40s.

Of course I think the biggest thing is that we usually only see the grandkids once a week so the time is usually special (for those times that it's not, it's hard to beat the "return policy" Grandkids come with )


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Cade and I got a little time on the 283 again the last couple of weekends. The block and crank are over at the machine shop so we got the water pump rebuilt and out of the way.

Yeah, I know nobody rebuilds water pumps anymore (and I haven’t done one in probably 40 years), but this is about Cade learning how things work. This is also a correct casting for a 57-60 SB and they seem to go in the $100-150 range so I figured what the heck.






Cade gets a kick out of using the press and I’ve got to admit it’s kind of nice for me to have that extra pair of hands to run the jack down while I hold parts in place. Of course it will be even nicer for both of us when he gets a little more height LOL.




Anyway we got the pump back together and ready to go on the engine.







We also got the carburetors stripped off the intake so I can get it cleaned up and painted this coming week.




I let Cade take one of the carburetors apart (I’ll clean it up and we can reassemble it next week). He managed to shoot one of the little hair pin clips across the shop somewhere……I had to work a little bit at keeping a straight face, but ended up telling him that’s why I keep a bunch of spares of those around.



All in all a good day.


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Neat stuff there Mike!!!
So, did you explain to Cade why it is that those little clips are called Jesus clips????

Thanks for sharing this Mike. It's great to watch along.... He looks like he's having a blast...

Great stuff, Mike. I hope at least one of my grand kids is interested in hot rods. Looks like a lot of fun.

Cade and I finished up the carburetors on Sunday. It’s nice to have someone around who can read the numbers on the jets without using the strongest reading glasses you can buy.

This will be the 4th engine I’ve run this intake on. Back when it was on the 383 I modified it for a large base center carb (which really improved the drivability). I had thought about going back to another small base center carb for this 283 so the end carburetors would have stronger vacuum when they opened. Unfortunately I had pretty much used my stash of small base 2Gs up over the last few years and the days are finding good builders at swap meets for $3-5 are about gone.

A few years back I came across an odd ball large base 2G that had the smaller throttle plates like a small base. I did a base plate change on the center carb and we’ll see how it works out.



I redid the fuel lines to eliminate the rubber hoses and fuel block and even though the manifold cleaned up nicely with bead blasting I decided to go ahead and paint it engine color this iteration. Other than going thru the Dual point and converting it to electronic we’re about done with the small stuff now and just waiting on the block to come back from the machine shop.





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Way cool! Love this post and all the pictures. Great times, eh grandpa?

Nice! I have always had a soft spot for multiple carburetors.

Great work and way cool taching your grandson some good practices.

It's been a while on this as I took my annual trip back to Illinois and have been waiting on the parts from the machine shop. I picked up the block, pistons and rods from the machine shop yesterday (I’ve had the crank back a couple of months now). I told my friend I wasn’t in a big rush for it which was a good thing as just after I dropped it off he got slammed with a bunch of work.

The block was cleaned, line honed, square decked, bored .030 over and new cam bearings installed. The crank was turned .010 and the rods were resized and new ARP rod bolts installed.

Cade has moved a bit farther away so instead of coming over every Sunday, we’re now doing an every other Sunday thing and with the drive time his visits here are a little shorter. As this is mostly just to show Cade how an engine goes together, I’ll probably start doing some stuff during the weeks when he’s not here…..like checking ring gap, bearing clearance, and installing say 6 of the pistons/rods and leaving 2 for him to do.

Anyway, I got the block painted and ran a tap down most of the bolt holes….left a few for Cade to do.



On a side note I came across a deal I couldn’t pass up a couple of weeks ago. I got a line on a real nice Borg Warner Super T10 out of an 80s F Body. It came with bellhousing, shifter, flywheel, and new clutch, pressure plate and throwout bearing. It’s a wide ratio with a 3.42 low gear which would be ideal for this little 283 in something light with say a 3.0 rear gear. The wide ratio’s aren’t the strongest transmissions out there but it should be more than enough for the 283.

[URL=http://s450.photobucket.com/user/fecustom/media/ST10_zps96cff7e2.jpg.html][/URL


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Very nice work on the engine. Nice score on the trans too!