Because the engine I had wasn’t entirely complete, I was unsure how I should run the vacuum lines.  Last time I ran my vacuum lines, I’m pretty sure I guessed — Or, maybe I asked dad.  This time, I consulted google and learned a little bit more about vacuum lines.

First, there seems to be plenty of confusion about whether vacuum lines should run from the intake manifold or from the ports below the carb.  As I understand it, the vacuum from the intake manifold is a little more consistent at or near idle.  However, most stock applications will operate fine from the ports below the carb. Here’s some information about vacuum that I used.  I found some additional explanations, but I seem to have misplaced the links.

The high rise manifold I am using only has one vacuum outlet, so I chose to use that for my powerbrake hose (which I will obviously need to lengthen).  I used the port behind the carb to hook to the th350 governor on the back of the transmission.  I blocked the large port on the front of the carb.  Finally, I hooked the small port on the carb to the distributor.  I figured these were low risk decisions, as all of these are easy to change if I need to make a change.

I didn’t invest a ton of time doing research on this, so if anyone has any other suggestions or info, please add a comment.

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One issue I’ve put off for a while is the close clearance between the front driveline and the transmission.  Because the TH-350 is so much wider than the standard tranny, the driveline runs very close to the transmission pan. Unfortunately, some of the pics didn’t turn out great, but here’s a few of them.

To improve the clearance, I used a torch to heat up the pan and dent it.  That went well, until I tried to put the pan back onto the tranny.  It turns that a casted piece was now bumping against the pan slightly, keeping the pan from going on correctly.

To fix that problem, I wrapped the transmission in plastic and cut a little hole so the cast piece was sticking out.  The plastic would keep any grinding pieces out of the tranny.  Then I grabbed my grinder and ground down the part.

This worked surprisingly well (meaning nothing went horribly wrong).  The piece ground easily.  The pan fit nicely.  My clearance improved. So,  I sanded and painted the pan and put it back together.  I’ll add an additional pic showing the clearance once I improve the light so it shows up better.

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