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From beginning to end, the engine was a challenge. The camshaft I received from Kanter came packed in cosmoline and wrapped with waxed paper. When the cosmoline was removed (no small chore), every place where the waxed paper had touched the camshaft was rusted beyond repair. Kanter then proceeded to make what should have been a simple exchange into a 3 week ordeal. They wouldn't even pay my extra shipping charges. Meanwhile, my mechanic had moved on to other work, thus costing another month. I guess you could say that I'm not a big fan of Kanter Motors.
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The engine, when we started, looked about what a 70k mileage engine should look like if it had been subject to non-detergent oil - a real mess!
Below is a collection of photos taken along the way to the day we fired it up. You can follow the progression from a newly assembled engine thru treatment with "Por-15 Metal Prep" to the final product after painting with POR-15 base coat/engine enamel.
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Here we go - all ready to hang!
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In the car at last, with the radiator mounted. Note the split manifold.
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Finally, the photo of Boop's engine that I'm proud of. It will probably never be this clean again.
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Another thing that I wanted to do was to replace the air cleaner with a paper type filter. I found a small filter that looked about right but it didn't fit the throat of the carb quite right. The top of the carb was beveled with a ring built in to accept the clamp of the old oil-bath filter. This meant that the plastic adapter ring of the new filter would not go down far enough to provide a solid base and, since it was plastic, I could not cinch it down enough to stay on. To solve this problem, I took an old carb down to the muffler shop to make a carb barrel extension by cutting a short piece of tubing that the adapter ring would fit. They then expanded one end to make it fit over the carb barrel. I then was able to cut some threads through the lower edge of the tubing and use some allen screws to attach it to the carb barrel. Since the filter tended to slide down over the plastic adapter ring, I added 3 more allen screws to keep it from setting lower than the ring. It sounds a little "Mickey Mouse" but it worked out just fine. The photos to the right and below will show you how it worked out.
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So ends the saga of Boop's engine - ALMOST. Unfortunately the guy who built the lower part of the engine changed jobs and another guy did the top end (head, valves etc.). After the engine had run a few minutes, we discovered that no bolt sealer had been used in the head bolts nor in the manifold bolts, resulting in big-time water leakage. Cost - a new head gasket and a number of hours by John Darr (THANKS JOHN), who came to the rescue. A new head gasket and some sealant made everything OK - but to have to do this after the engine was installed and the fenders were back in place was, to put it mildly, a real pain.
But, it finally got done and runs like a top. The split manifold seems to give it a bit more power than the engine in Betty Boop's sister car.
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