OneStopRestoration's Special Orange 69 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Coupe

[Tuna Joe]

I’ve had my Muncie out of my Corvette for months now.
I’ve watched the Muncie files on YT, read Paul’s book but I still can’t bring myself to tear it apart.
I’ve never rebuilt a transmission so I’m apprehensive.
How do you get the case to look so good?

[OneStopRestoration]

Originally Posted by Tuna Joe

I’ve had my Muncie out of my Corvette for months now.
I’ve watched the Muncie files on YT, read Paul’s book but I still can’t bring myself to tear it apart.
I’ve never rebuilt a transmission so I’m apprehensive.
How do you get the case to look so good?

I can understand being apprehensive. Most of the assembly isnt too bad. That said you need a press and patience for a few of the learn by doing not by watching tasks. Loading up the cluster shaft with the bearings via some assembly grease and having a undersized pin is a must. When you braing the main shaft and center bearing plate into the main transmission with the gasket can be tedious but not impossible. The best advice is dont force anything and be willing to take something back apart when its not going on right.

In light of all of that as you can see in the pictures I wear gloves to keep my case work clean. Im gonna send you a PM about case prep

[OneStopRestoration]

I enjoy doing some of the tuning work the most. Distributor fully taken apart, cleaned and reconditioned the main casting. I select the right vac advanced based on the vacum start and max vacum value, along with the number of degrees i want to see at the crank. This can get tedius as i also include a stop bushings on the vac advance to limit the number of degrees. On this build it was only 13deg of vac advance. I put together a 454 one time with like 25 and it pinged and knocked terrible so i tend to be on the conservative side for Vac advance.

On the mechanical side I have to cut new stop bushings to fit up on the main shaft advance boss. This is never the same for each unit as i mix and match the advance and main shaft parts. To be honest i see no reason to get in a big hurry to rebuild one back to factory specs. To recurve you have to modify so many things it just not worth it. I have alos come to learn that looking at the manuals, a 396, 427 or 454 running a single digit advance just gives you a lazy motor that may want to overheat more at idle. On this build im gonna be rougyly at 18deg of initial advance and around 37deg max limited.

Many years back i bought a sun distributor machine to do all this messing around. It can be done in the car but that means putting it in and out for changes. Its bad enough with the machine. To quicken the curve i do play with the fly weights by grinding the contact area to speed up the advance curve along with lighter springs. Springs can only do so much for a guy and grinding the weights for me is usually the knob that works best to me.

I get pretty nerdy and track with a spreadsheet my advance curve. a quick curve with a larger initial can really improve throttle response.