Electra63

Final setting of engine back in position - Put jack/wood back under the oil pan & lifted engine slightly off the wood chocks in the mounts - Removed wood chocks - Let engine down onto new mounts - Unfortunately of the 4 final bolts that hold the mounts together, one hole was just BARELY off and the bolt wouldn’t start. It took me some time to finagle it but eventually it went in. - That was it, so replaced all the items removed/disconnected (listed earlier) - Fill with oil (first oil change for me so I purchased the Valvoline 10W-30 VR1 Racing Oil as recommended by the Nailhead Buick guys on their website). - Started engine. It took 3-4 anxious seconds for the oil light to go out even though I’d pre-filled the filter with oil. - Its now a few hours later and I have no oil leaks under the pan (hooray). Only a very slight leak remaining from the transmission but I’ll live with that. - The key finding and benefit was the replacement of the oil pump. Worth it for that alone Final thoughts - FIRST: Before you do this job get the underneath of the car as clean as possible (jet wash..) There was SO MUCH road grime and dry dirt and it was the ‘gift that keeps on giving’ from start to finish. Ugh. EVERYWHRE there was grit, dust or oily grime waiting to fall in our faces 😐😒 ...and invest in some goggles or oversized glasses or visor - This job was worth the aggravation for me as I now know there is no obvious major damage to the engine (I'd read stories of others finding piston parts etc as mentioned earlier). Peace of mind and the motivation to go further in restoring the car. - Oil pump replaced is also peace of mind and glad I found it. - Commercially available replacement mounts will fit the bill for under $10 each. Motor mounts are direct fit, transmission mounts can be had but need minor mods Finally a big THANK YOU to all those on this forum who offered their advice and experience, especially Aaron65 & RivNut. Let's keep these vehicles running. Mark

Replacing Transmission mount The next day while the RTV was doing its 24 hour cure I went to work on the transmission mount replacement. - I had already removed the 2x bolts holding the mount to the bottom support cross-member. - Placed jack under transmission pan with the 2x8 wood to support the transmission - After removing the support cross-member (some of the bolts are difficult to access) I removed the two bolts holding the mount to the transmission. - Upon inspecting the mount I had a ‘review moment’ on whether the new one (see earlier discussions) was close enough to the original. - I went with the Westar EM5000 which is similar to the Anchor 2360 used by Aaron65 but has 3x threaded holes instead of the stud. I believe the important specs on the mount are the overall height (1.85” apparently) and the mounting holes to the transmission which are 4” centers - I re-used the original bolts and drilled the support to accept bolts in the outer two of the three holes in the mount. I drilled them slightly oversize to allow wiggle room. I posted pics of the two mounts plus pics of the old one v the new. Looks like the old/original one had collapsed/sunk by about 1/2” to 5/8”. Anchor (with stud) v Westar (with holes): - The shop manual says to secure the transmission before finally tightening the motor mounts so I drilled the support cross member for the two holes in the new mount. - It all went back in nicely (pic) and, as mentioned earlier, the transmission hadn’t moved (I previously confirmed this by checking the hole alignment between the original mount and cross member holes before removing the cross member). - By this time the RTV had cured so it was time to set the engine back onto its mounts.

Replacing Motor Mounts We then realized that we couldn’t replace the motor mounts with the oil pan off, as we needed to jack the engine up again off its wooden chocks. My son was on limited time so it needed to be done that day….. So we put the cleaned pan back on with 2/3 of the bolts to hold it in place and jacked the engine off its wooden chocks again with the 2x8 wood between jack and oil pan. Then came a lot of contorting to get the (2x4=8) bolts out of the motor mounts and back in with the new ones. Thankfully my son was there to help otherwise I don’t know that I’d have been able to remove and replace the passenger side mount due to all the stuff making the access very difficult. After quite some time we got them both changed and then put some thinner wood under both new mounts to continue to hold the engine up high enough to remove the pan again to prep for final fitment. Final Fitment of the Oil Pan Assembled suction tube onto pump and fitted the new oil pump in position Re-cleaned the pan surface with brake cleaner and a rag. My son applied the Permatex RTV Ultra Black into the grooves on the pan surface (pic). I relied on his previous experience ! There are also circular grooves around each bolt hole which are important to apply sealer so oil doesn’t leak down the threads. We didn’t want to over apply, so after a discussion we only put sealant on the pan surface under the gasket and not between the gasket and the engine. Two reasons: 1. Sealant on both sides can cause the gasket to slide around and also squish too much sealant out when tightening the pan. 2. If you have to take the pan off again, scraping sealant from under the engine is a huge pain. We placed the (Victor Reinz) gasket on the sealant on the pan mating surface and pressed it lightly down all the way around (pic). Then we lifted the pan into place and bolted it hand tight. The RTV instructions say to leave it an hour. It was tempting to cut this short as it was already 9:30pm but we waited the full hour and then torqued it to spec (we went to about 8-10 ftlb) I then didn’t touch the pan or fill with oil for 24 hours per the instructions. That was it for that day.

Lifting the engine: Aided by my son we placed a piece of 2x8 wood under the oil pan. Chose a large piece of wood so it pretty much covered the whole underneath of the pan to spread the load as much as possible. Jacked the engine up slowly, watching all around for any issues. The driver side motor mount fell apart and the rubber could be pulled out at this point. The passenger side didn't. Placed a piece of 2x4 wood cut to the size of the rubber mount and put it between the mount plates on the driver side (pic). Note: if you are planning to replace the mounts, be sure that the wood is not cut too big so you have clearance to get a socket/wrench onto the 4x motor mount bolts that attach the mount to the engine On the passenger side because there was still the rubber attached inside the mount we cut up 2 pieces of thinner wood fit/jam into the gap. We then removed the jack so we could go to work on removing the oil pan. Removed the multiple bolts from the pan. They were barely hand tight (max 5-6 ft lbs I would guess) and could probably have done with cinching up in order to reduce the oil leaks had we not been removing the pan The pan didn’t drop off at first and I gave it a couple of (careful) sideways blows with a rubber mallet. It didn’t move at first and we were considering prying it but after a couple more blows on the back corners it broke away and my son held it while I helped guide it back over the frame cross member avoiding the bottom of the crankshaft and the oil pickup tube from the oil pump. At this point I was keen to see if I had any issue with the oil pump. I had heard that the idler shaft can slide up and touch the crank. I immediately saw two rub marks on the balance weight at the back of the crank (pic) so I put my finger on top of the oil pump where the idler shaft sits and sure enough I could feel it was sticking up proud of the top surface of the pump. Thankfully I had purchased a pump to be ready for this scenario so I removed the two mounting bolts and took the pump out. See pics of the old v new pump with the idler shaft sticking out of the top of the old/original one. We then inspected the silt in the bottom of the pan. There were no significantly big pieces (i.e pieces of piston/piston rings etc) except one very thin metallic flake about 1/8” square. I dragged a magnet through the sludge and it came out ‘hairy’, covered with fine steel particles which had possibly been in there for the life of the engine. I plan to send an oil sample to a lab that my son recently used just to see what comes back. Overall I was happy to see the engine had no cracked or broken piston skirts and everything looked OK (at least to our amateur eyes). I was thankful to have found the oil pump issue as I had a ticking/clinking noise from the lower rear of the engine which I now think was related to the balance weight touching the oil pump idler shaft. I may re-check the oil pressure now the new pump is in IF I’m really bored one day and feel like struggling behind the back end of the engine to fit a pressure gauge again. Then came the ‘extremely not fun’ part of cleaning the underside surface of the engine and the mating surface of the pan. This took a long time with plenty of elbow grease, scraping, spraying brake cleaner and rubbing with Scotchbrite. While I cleaned up the underside of the engine my son scraped about 45lb of oily road grime off the outside of the pan (pic of a SMALL pile of it). I then started work on cleaning the mating surface of the pan. When I felt like giving up and saying ‘that’s good enough’ my son reminded me that because he didn’t get it meticulously clean the first time on his 1999 Lexus GS400 he had the miserable job of re-doing it a second time. That was enough motivation for me to keep going and make sure all previous sealant was off and the surface 100% degreased. ....

So here comes the summary of the process I just completed (with assistance of my son). It’s a bit of a long write-up so I’ve split it into a few posts. Hope it helps others who are planning/considering this job, especially 62LeSabre who I know is watching this thread. Adam (SMartin) at Antique Automotive Service has an excellent video on this job on a 59 Invicta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Br7P5wWOY Preparation: - engine mounts: two connecting bolts removed from each side to allow engine to be lifted. - distributor cap removed to give additional room between cap and firewall/AC box. I left the ignition cables connected and just moved it over a couple of inches once it was off (pic) - retaining bolt removed from top of fan shroud (the bottom sits on 2x rubber mounts and just pulls up) - also removed top radiator hose as it was preventing the fan shroud from moving upwards (pic). No need to drain any coolant as it sits a bit higher than the coolant level in my car - considered disconnecting exhaust at manifolds on both sides (I have dual exhaust) as the pipe was only about 3/4" below the frame - not much room to move, but this turned out to be unnecessary (we only lifted the engine about 2-3" and made the exhaust the limiting factor in the lift height. Due to the geometry the exhaust lifts less than the front of the engine) - drained the engine oil - removed the two bolts holding the transmission mount onto the bottom support rail. Note: The transmission didn't move at all during the work, but if I did the work again I'd probably just loosen them at this stage and perhaps leave them in the holes, in order to be sure nothing moves out of position. - dropped centerlink by unbolting idler arm from frame and pulling pitman arm off.

Thanks guys for your support and timely replies. I agree that the original did have a void in the center when new which formed a dome, and that dome part seems to have collapsed in the middle/upper section. I now believe the original height was nearer or equal to the 1.85" of the new one referenced by Aaron and the equivalent I found. The rubber on my original was not solid/completely hard but I'm 99% sure it collapsed based on photos I found online I was happy to install the new/replacement one and drilling 2x holes to connect it to the support went well. I ran into an issue with a motor mount bolt today that decided to just.... barely... not line up with the hole and that cost me over an hour to fix. Grrr. It was one of those times where I had to take a break, eat something and think about an alternate course of action but it worked out in the end. I have a bit more tidying up to do tomorrow before re-filling with oil and running it 👍😎 I'll post an run-down, probably tomorrow, with photos etc thanks for following !

Update. I think I just answered my own question Searching online I found a photo of an original 63 motor mount.. how did society and especially vintage vehicle owners ever get anything done prior to the internet? - Anyway my original mount has clearly sunk and should be more of a a domed shape. So here we go with the new one. For the record the height difference (due to the sunk section) was over 1/2" .. perhaps 5/8"

Hey Aaron if you're online What was your experience having installed the new mount? Specifically 1. Did it improve any vibration that you had ? Assume it didn't make it worse? I have a vibration that sets in around 45mph which may be partly the mount and partly the driveline balance and angle which I'm going to address after this job. 2. Did you manage to get the drive line angle set correctly afterwards? The reason I'm asking is the old mount looks in ok shape but looks quite a lot shorter in height than the new one. However perhaps the old one was domed more originally and has collapsed? Since the old one doesn't look too bad I'm trying to decide whether to fit the new one or reinstall the old one ... though I'm favoring installing the new

Thanks I did the bulk of the work yesterday with my son. Thank goodness for the help as he managed to contort himself to get into areas I couldn't imagine in order to get the motor mounts removed and replaced - especially on the passenger side where the alternator and other equipment made the access much harder. Right now the pan is back on, leaving just the transmission mount to replace and drop the engine back onto it's new mounts. I'll post a summary of the main points, findings etc in a couple of days. I'm very happy with how it has gone so far

Thanks for the detailed description John. Appreciated I have a dual exhaust system and the heat riser flap is on the passenger side. I got some advice about that on another thread and in fact it has been removed and the holes plugged. At this point I don't think I've got a leak but I'm going to check closer. If the tube is meant to draw in some fresh air I won't worry about it too much then. You're correct that I don't have an electric choke so I have to think about either getting it functional again or installing an electric unit as you mentioned Looks like electric is the way to go for my situation Thanks again Mark

As far as I can tell I think that tube may go through a sleeve that is part of the manifold. As mentioned in my other reply I'm going to investigate closer and make sure there's no leak in the area. Fingers crossed..

Thanks for the detailed input Steve Much appreciated From what I can tell the pipe goes through a sleeve in the manifold. I don't think I have an exhaust gas leak from there but I'm going to check more closely

I have read through the forums and others have said that in warmer areas like Southern California where I live it's not a must. Since the heat tube was broken or disconnected when I got the vehicle, the choke seems inoperative and it starts ok when cold I figured it was not necessary to fix it. My son drives a 74 Datsun also with no choke. I'm open to being educated more on this as I've only owned the vehicle for 9 months🙂 At the very least I need to stop any vacuum leak sine the heat tube is disconnected at the bottom

That tube has been cut/disconnected/come apart on the bottom back side of the manifold where it exits. I don't have any need for the choke to be operational so maybe I disconnect it at the carb. See photo of where it attaches. Then put a cap on the fitting where it enters that unit that looks like a thermostat? Is that where the vacuum is coming from ? Thanks

Hi. I'm pretty sure I have a leak at the point indicated in the photo. The tube is loose where it enters the exhaust manifold. I understand that this is part of the carb/choke heater that is disconnected in my vehicle (63 Electra) I assume I can cut it where it goes into the exhaust manifold and plug it. If so I'll probably use JB Weld exhaust sealant to plug/seal the small hole. Also is there any vacuum on this line? Do I need to make sure it's sealed where it goes into the carb so it doesn't create a leak ? Any issues with what I'm planning? Thanks

Thanks Emtee I'm certainly reluctant to touch the bearing caps and as you suggested I'll be checking the pump first and replacing it if necessary

Hi. I just saw your forum profile and realized that I've watched your Buick Invicta oil pan video on YouTube a couple of times to educate myself. Thanks for that video - it's very informative Mark

Ok thanks for the reassurance and the supporting thumbs up! I guess the owners experience with these vehicles doesn't quite match with the pros advice on this point. I'm eager to see the general condition of the bottom end & how much sludge etc once the pan is off. Planning to do the job this Friday

I couldn't find anything in the shop manual other than the 40psi at 1600 rpm mentioned by Aaron So I spoke to Russ today at Centerville and he said for a 63 engine at my mileage those pressures indicate a problem either with the oil pump or bearings. He recommended removing a couple of the bearing covers on the bottom end and doing a visual. I mentioned plastigage but he said first just look to see if any copper can be seen indicating worn bearings. I'll probably take that advice while I have the pan off unless there is an obvious problem with the oil pump.

Ok thanks guys. I'll probably use the Amazon one if it looks good but I'm going to keep the advance auto parts one in my back pocket until after the job is completed just in case I'll report back on how this all goes to pass the info to others down the road

@RivNut Aaron65 mentioned that he thought it was you who suggested using the alternate transmission mount for a '78 Riviera 403 Was that you? If so are you able to answer my question about an alternate trans mount? I have a 63 with the Dynaflow twin turbine transmission. It seems there are no exact replacements on the market - I could only find one sold by 'bestoffercounts' and that is not a direct fit. If the height from the one Aaron used (1.85") is the same as the original I'll probably go ahead and fit the one on the Amazon link I posted above thanks !

I ran into an issue with the mount I bought - the thread on the stud is messed up and the thread size given on the website - 10mm - is not correct. I'm pretty sure its 7/16-14 Anyway I found this mount (link) that is the same height (1.85") and the same format and has a bolt in place of the stud. Other than that the size is the same. I've ordered it for quick delivery, but if anyone has more info or advises against this new one please let me know I'm assuming that provided it bolts into place and the height is 1.85" it should be OK? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015RDL8A Here are the dims given in the Q&A by the manufacturer Overall Height = 1.85"Lower slots (C-C) - 4.00"Threaded Holes 1 & 3 (C-C = 1.50") (Thread = 7/16"-14G)Threaded Hole 2 (Center Hole) = Thread = 7/16"-14GOverall Length = 5.25"Overall Width = 2.25" Note added later: This Amazon mount reference is Westar EM5000. I believe a cross reference/equivalent is part reference Pioneer 623000 but please double check

@Aaron65 what I hope is the final question....! When you replaced your oil pump did it come without the gear, like in this photo? Its a Melling M20G I'm just wondering if a new gear could be needed (wear..). Want to have all parts on hand in case of need... Assuming you purchased something similar, I guess its easy to install the old gear on the new shaft? Anyone experienced a pump with a gear that needed replacing? thanks (again)

Thanks guys. My odometer reads 06xxx so I'm assuming it has done about 106k from new. I agree with Aaron's comment. i.e. I'm not about the tear into the engine unless it stops running. I plan to use it as a daily driver and to go to the office occasionally once I've got it running smoothly and am confident that I know what I'm dealing with. It's going to have a low stress life ! 🏖️ I did compare the gauge I used with the one on my air compressor and they read very close to each other (within about 2 psi) so I assume its about right. I was more concerned about the delta than the absolute value, as the pressure dropped quite a few psi when the oil warmed up. I guess if I'm opening it up, taking the extra time to replace the oil pump for $180 is a good investment. I think I'll call Matt at nailheadbuick/Centerville and order a pump thanks

I checked the oil pressure today as suggested by Matt at nailhead Buick and it's low. Matt said the engines need a full 40 psi. When cold it read about 32 at idle and 35-36 at about 1200-1500 rpm. When it warmed up it was lower. About 32 at 1200 rpm and only about 25 at idle. I did add a quart of Rislone about 2-3 weeks ago and driven it short distances since then. Could that have thinned the oil and cause lower oil pressure ? ... otherwise can anyone advise from their experience if this likely indicates a bad oil pump? If so I would prefer to have one available as a replacement just in case... Thanks