97 (early) Sundancer 290DA 454ci L29 Bravo 3

Engine is almost done. I painted her on Saturday. The timing cover in the pics isn't the one I'm using. I took all my measurements and ordered all my parts for the build. Rings, rotator eliminators, viton valve seals, bearings etc. I'm not going to install it until the FWC kit comes in. I'd like to put a complete motor back in instead of working in the bilge.
She's come a long way.

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Subscribing so I can read later! halfway through the first page and this thread feels eerily similar :D
 
Stray Current said:
Subscribing so I can read later! halfway through the first page and this thread feels eerily similar :D
Click to expand...
It's killing me looking at the motor still disassembled. The cooler weather moved in and I don't want to put it back together in cold temps.
I have all the parts ready to go, so it shouldn't take more than a day or two to finish up once it's consistently back in the 50s and 60s. I'm building a small 24x24 barn in the mean time.
I've been watching your thread too. Keep up the good work!

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I found a great deal on some 279 heads this week and grabbed them. For anyone not familiar, these are 99cc L29 Vortec heads versus the factory 118cc heads I pulled off. The ones I pulled off would be fine, but the new ones are a much better head and will bump up the compression a point or so. This equates to more power. ~30hp by itself if I'm not mistaken.
I'll disassemble them this weekend, cut guides for posilock seals, lap and install the valves I had recut and put them back together. Nice few hour project anyway.

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While I'm waiting for some consistent warmer weather to finish building and installing my motor, I've been working on updating and cleaning up wiring. I traced all the wiring for the gauges and the dash switches. I'm replacing all the rocker switches and push to reset breakers. Quite a few had some pretty good corrosion on them. I'll clean them up after I replace them and keep them as spares if they're good enough. The panel is aluminum so I'll either polish it or paint it. I'm leaning towards paint. I'm also replacing the Electroluminescent strips.
This is a little small, but anyone who needs it should be able to blow it up. This shows the position of each switch and breaker looking at the dash. Underneath shows the switch style number and below that the pin out and wire colors looking at the back of the switch.

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Another small victory... The po removed the wiper motors and cut the wires off in the windshield. I was looking around since I bought it for some replacements, but all the manufacturers were extremely proud of their products. I finally found some TMC FO-746 from Five Oceans in stock and ordered them with adjustable wiper arms. These are some really nice units for the money. Very robust and have nice rubber seals. I still need to finish wiring them in, but the initial mock up looks pretty good. They aren't "too" obtrusive.
The original equipment must have been single speed, but these are two speed with auto park. I ordered two new wiper switches and will need to run two additional wires to each motor. That should be a good trick...

https://www.five-oceans.com/products/heavy-duty-boat-and-rvs-marine-wiper-motor-12v-fo-746

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Nice. My motors also were removed. Why do people do shit like that? I havent gotten around to looking for my remaining wiring yet
 
Dave - M said:
Nice. My motors also were removed. Why do people do shit like that? I havent gotten around to looking for my remaining wiring yet
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My guess is they seize up and people don't want to bother replacing them, or paying to have them replaced, because they think they aren't needed. I can imagine how much this project would cost if I said to a marina, "fix 'em."
Luckily they seemed to have cut my wiring off at the motor locations and tucked it under the trim seal. Hopefully there's enough room to easily run a couple more wires to each.
 
I spent Saturday night refacing the valves on my new heads. Nice and relaxing time. It doesn't actually take too long to do. Looking forward to getting my engine back together.
Before they go back on the short block the heads will get a valve job, I'll cut the guides to accept Posi lock seals, I'll install rotator eliminators and finally set the spring heights.
No, that's not my hat lol

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Sitting here looking at snow falling. Lame. Came south to get away from it. I was outside in a t-shirt working yesterday.
I finished painting my switch panel. Now all I need to do is polish the plastic inserts, touch up the blackout, and install the new electroluminescent tape strips. The inserts are just placed in for this pic.
I also ran the wiring for my new wiper motors. That was fun... Across the top of the windshield, down and back to the spoiler, inside and back up to the dash until it finally terminates at the new switches. Each switch needed four wires. Park, low, high and ground. I found two navigation light wires cut off in the windshield chanel. Must have been a light up there at one time.

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HawkX66 said:
Sitting here looking at snow falling. Lame. Came south to get away from it. I was outside in a t-shirt working yesterday.
I finished painting my switch panel. Now all I need to do is polish the plastic inserts, touch up the blackout, and install the new electroluminescent tape strips. The inserts are just placed in for this pic.
I also ran the wiring for my new wiper motors. That was fun... Across the top of the windshield, down and back to the spoiler, inside and back up to the dash until it finally terminates at the new switches. Each switch needed four wires. Park, low, high and ground. I found two navigation light wires cut off in the windshield chanel. Must have been a light up there at one time.

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Now, if I could only get you to come up north to icy NY and duplicate that for my boat!

Nice work.
 
Garintheair said:
Now, if I could only get you to come up north to icy NY and duplicate that for my boat!

Nice work.
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Thank ya kindly, but I left Massachusetts because of those two four letter words. Cold and snow! I'd be happy to give you a hand otherwise though.
 
HawkX66 said:
Thank ya kindly, but I left Massachusetts because of those two four letter words. Cold and snow! I'd be happy to give you a hand otherwise though.
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I might take you up on your offer...although our window of opportunity for summer MIGHT be 03 July-04 July...as long as it's not snowing at that time...!

:O
 
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