Glen-L Hot Rod

1. A fiberglass tube was inserted into the shaft hole. Click here to see how the tube was made.

2. This is a view from inside the boat. An 8' long shaft was fed through the strut and shaft hole. A 1" hole was drlled in frame #4 to position the shaft at 12 degrees.

3. A 1" ID x 1-5/8" OD rudder shaft collar inserted into each end of the tube will center the shaft in the tube until the epoxy cures.. When the boat is righted, the tube will be ground flush with the keel. Two laminations of fiberglass cloth will be applied to the keel before installing the shaft log.

1. After the engine was run for several hours, we removed it from the mockup and dropped the oil pan to check the bearings. Even though we had the block hot tanked both before and after cylinder boring, there was clearly some scale in the pan.

2. The engine was disassembled and sent out to the machine shop for inspection. While we were at it, we added a Moroso windage tray and an ARP stud kit. Since switching from main cap bolts to studs affects the bearing clearances, the main caps were installed and align-bored to restore the clearances.

1–2. Glenwood header manifolds, 15 degree elbows, aluminum front cover, cam-driven water pump and a custom stainless steel alternator bracket complete the engine.

3–4. Click the 'Play' button (>) to see the video.

5. Closeup view of the alternator bracket. It extends back to the engine mount for added support.

1. The shaft tube was epoxied and trimmed. Click here to review how the strut and tube were fitted when the keel was installed.

2. View from inside the hull. The plan is to fiberglass the keel before installing the shaft log.

3–4. Strut and shaft installed.

5. Viewed from the top.

1. Photo quality should improve drastically from this point on. We bought a new Canon PowerShot SD600 digital camera. Hopefully the closeup and white color balance issues I had with the old camera are a thing of the past ! The rudder and rudder support bracket are back from the machine shop. 3-1/2" stainless steel pipe stubs were tig-welded to the Gibson Transom Mount mufflers. We also picked up a 1350 series Center H Yoke which will replace the torque tube.

2. These performance mufflers should be legal at idle. Can't wait to hear them when that 283 comes to life !

3. A bare-block 400 cubic inch V8 was bolted to the Velvet Drive transmission and hoisted into position.

4. Temporary motor mounts provide up, down and side-to-side adjustment.

5. Found some vintage transmission mounts at Ayling's Boat Yard. They're stout pieces and fit better than the previous ones I had. A new set of stringer brackets is being fitted.

6. A 1350 series Borg Warner power takeoff (Glenwood Part # 90-797) is bolted to the Velvet Drive transmission's output shaft. Ratio is 1:1. The used Casale 12 degree v-drive with 15% overdrive was equipped with a 1350 series V-drive flange takeoff (Glenwood Part # 90-865).

7. Cutting into the oil pan (adjacent to the frame) moves the engine back far enough to install a 6-1/2" long H joint instead of the 10-1/2" long torque tube (Glenwood Part # 90-835) we initially thought would be used. This also drops the engine down 2" closer to the keel. To provide more oil capacity, a front sump and kicked-out sides will be added to the pan.