Project Garage: Yukon Engine Swap (Part 3) — Fabricating Engine Brackets
By Chuck CageThe Wiring Loom Bracket
This one was soooo close. It fit almost perfectly except that one end of the original bracket bent to fit a sloped piece of the manifold, and our new manifold was flat there. We decided that rather than making the dozen or so bends to fab up a new bracket, we’d just modify the original.
It was easy. We just cut the offending end off with the band saw, made a small paper template of the bolt hole and facing, cut it out out of a piece of scrap steel on the band saw, drilled the hole, and welded it onto the original bracket at the correct 90-degree angle.Â
(Remember when you’re welding to an existing part like this that you’ll need to grind off any paint — or worse, powdercoating — beforehand. Also, beware of welding on galvanized or cadmium-plated materials; The fumes’ll kill you. Doh!)
Painting and Finishing
Everything looks better with paint. Seriously! We decided to paint the one bracket that fit, too.
Most steel you buy has black crap all over it to prevent rust and other decay. It’ll also keep paint form sticking. You’ll want to start the paint part of any fabrication job by wiping the steel down well with a bit of paint thinner. Be sure and work in a well-ventilated area away from open flames.
 
 
Also, if you’re painting something that’s going under the hood of a vehicle, remember that it’s going to get hot in there. We grabbed a few cans of Duplicolor’s 500-degree-capable engine epoxy in Chevrolet Red — which is ”orange” to the bowtie-challenged.
 
 
 
 
We wanted to paint these in a hurry, so we made a little mini-paint-booth out of the box the Yukon’s Edelbrock headers came in. We started with a couple coats of matching Duplicolor gray primer, followed by three coats of the colored epoxy.Done!
And there you have it — a new set of Chevrolet Orange Red top end brackets. Check back soon for part 4 where we shovel this shiny powerhouse of an engine back into the Yukon.
August 25th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
[…] The blog for toolaholics. All tools. All the time. Fri Aug 25 2006 « Project Garage: Yukon Engine Swap (Part 3) — Fabricating Engine Brackets […]
January 17th, 2007 at 10:33 am
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Ein Automobil (oder Automobil) ist ein fahrbarer Personenkraftwagen, der seinen eigenen Motor transportiert. Die meisten Definitionen der Bezeichnung spezifizieren, daß Automobile entworfen sind, um hauptsächlich auf Straßen zu laufen, um Sitzplätze fü…
April 6th, 2007 at 10:36 am
[…] We’ve though about building one of these for our next engine swap — we’ve got a bunch of 14 and 16 gauge 1″ square tube in the steel bin — but at $40 we’ll probably just buy one instead. […]
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