The weather has finally warmed up and yesterday I was able to get back out in the shop and do some work on the mock-up Valiant. Since I last posted I did find and buy the correct oil Pan (actually ended up with 2 of them). I also found a new oil pickup that should work. Over the winter I made a few decisions on how I was going to proceed with the project.

The first is the K member, for the non-Mopar types the K member is basically the cradle the engine sits on and the front steering and suspension bolt to. After studying the K member in the green car It looks like the original 6 cyl K member was replaced with a Direct Connection Big Block K member, (as far as I can tell the BB K members are no longer produced by Chrysler). As I’m planning building my motor mounts off the original slant 6 frame mounts, (which the K member in the Green car does not have) I’ll swap out the K members between the 2 cars hen I get to that point.

At this point I’ve got the engine pretty well positioned and the next step is to go underneath and massage the trans tunnel a bit for the OD unit on the 46RH.

It’s been about 5 months since I ran the engine for this project so while I was out in the shop I decided I’d go ahead and get it fired up and bring it up to operating temperature. That turned into pulling the carburetor apart to replace the accelerator pump……I’ve never seen one of the neoprene accelerator pumps shrink before but I guess its what I get for using one of amazon’s cheap kits. Fortunately I had a couple of new leather and brass ones on the shelf. Yeah I know they shrink too if they are left to dry out but at least they swell back to normal when they sit in gas.

That engine sure sounds good. It will be nice to get it in something and actually have it move under its own power.



CVC by M Patterson, on Flickr


I’m not sure if I ever posted this video here before but it’s the build and run video on the engine I’m using on this project. It should make just a nice reliable street motor. I still have to pull the intake to have the plenum divider milled for the Holley sniper FI I hope to eventually run and change the oil pan and pick-up out but that’s bit down the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzFdDWr1XcY



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