Since I haven't updated in almost a month:

-- Torque converter is paid for and shipped today from FTI in DeLand, Florida. Also had a powerglide driveshaft yoke thrown in the box for the new driveshaft.

-- Transmission Crossmember will be paid for on Monday at HiPoTek. Richard is building me a partial 727 unit from his jig for me to finish out here. He has awesome customer service.

-- Dash is back in the truck so the interior looks stock again.


Hoping to have the converter back next Thursday. Stab it in the trans, bolt up the starter, and hope everything lines up right. stab the assembly on the block, and still hope everything comes up right.

If so, surgery on the truck will begin not long after.

 

If you can't tell from the lack of recent updates, things didn't go as planned. Well, they went as I had predicted (things being done wrong) but not to the master plan. Converter was 1" too short, so sent it back, they fixed it, and now it's on it's way back to me again. Hopefully now it will be correct.

Trans temp gauge also came in, thanks to my friend Michael Pliska in their engineering department. PN 17354 .

The trans crossmember came in from Richard at HiPoTek. I will let the chain of email explain JUST HOW DEDICATED this man is to making things right with the customer.

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This should pretty well describe the issues with the converter. I received it at noon and had it back at the UPS store by 5:00.

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Converter came yesterday. Stabbed it in overnight (because what else am I going to do, lay in bed unable to sleep?) then came home after work and worked on it some more.

SUCCESS! I have .060 clearance and I already have a plan to expand it out to .100 . Going to get a piece of sheet metal, and stab it in behind the 1/4” mid-spacer-plate.

Starter lines up great (after I had to fix a few issues with the bell housing because it’s for an LA starter and not Magnum), plenty of teeth engagement. Actually could have left the ring gear in it’s original position on the front cover, so add that to the build notes to save some time & labor in the future.

Overall, considering we all (Myself and 3 others at FTI) went into this rather blind, I’d say we did pretty damn good.

I had to cut .200" or so off of the nose of the starter. This allowed it to mount flush to the bell.

Once this was done, I realized the raised alignment groove on the starter was hitting the bell, so I had to do a little notching for that.

With the starter taken care of, I moved to the flexplate. I had previously drilled out the converter bolt holes from 3/8 to 7/16 with a uni-bit, however I must have not been very centered. I had to re-drill with a 15/32 drill bit then use the dremel to open up one of the holes still. I also had to cut off 1/8" of one of the balancing plates to clear the converter pads.

After all that, everything could finally mate up without binding. I have 0.060" of clearance between the converter and flexplate, ideal is 0.100-0.125". So i'm going to get a sheet of .040 sheet metal and trace over the midplate to it. That will push the trans back and should make me be good on converter clearance.

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I also installed the Isspro trans temp gauge and sender.

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Reading up some more on the electric water pump.

https://www.turnermotorsport.com/p-3...ProductDetails

This is the Pierburg CWA 400 "granddaddy", rated 36 amps at 14 volts (500 watts) and moving a crapton of water.

Pierburg CWA400

Name: "Pierburg CWA400"
Supply voltage: 8-16 Volt
Current consumption: max. 36A in operation and 0,2mA in standby mode
Differential pressure: 0.85 bar (12.3 PSI across the pump)
Flow rate: 150l/min @ 0.85bar / 220l/min @ 0.55bar ( 39 GPM @ 12.3 PSI / 58 GPM @ 8 PSI across the pump)

There is a standalone pump controller made: http://www.tecomotive.com/en/products/tinycwa.html

This is the manual for the pump controller: http://www.tecomotive.com/download/m...tinyCWA_V2.pdf

 

working on the final details to make everything right.

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It was awful nice of photobucket to shred apart the internet. I have relocated the photos to a Google Album.

2015-2016: https://goo.gl/photos/AvdM6DBFnZ9nFaaB9

2017 part 1: https://goo.gl/photos/FRnJnnHHfBxTfFbK8

In other news, I made a 60-thou midplate spacer out of 16 gauge sheet metal (which is more like plate). I now have 150 thou of converter clearance.

 

That sucks yea I DUMPED photobucket 2 years ago.

 

Got the bellhousing dowel pins installed, had to do some extracurricular machining, but everything fits properly and it's a complete PITA (although it wouldn't be a custom project without some PITA moments).