Engine Assembly

Today was a busy day! All in all it went fairly smooth, but not without problems.

Started the day cleaning up the intake manifold. Scrapping old gasket and making new ones and a little touch up paint.

After getting the paint on the manifold I made a water pump to head gasket and put some Perematex on it and stuck it to the water pump outlet.

Then I installed the head on the right (Drivers) side no issue. I then put the rocker assembly on and proceeded to break on of the 2 studs that not only help hold the rockers on but the right side of the valve cover (first pic below) .... grrrr Fortunately, there was enough thread left to still work. I will be looking for a replacement! These are hollow and have a hole about half way up, I assume to let oil in.

After installing the head I put the radiator hoses back on and tightened the clamps, installed the alternator bracket, alternator and belt.

Then I put the intake on and the carburetor and hooked up the gas lines and heat and oil pressure sensors.

I then installed the new distributor cap and the plug wires.

I think that covers the engine .... now I hooked up the exhaust. I had a bit of trouble here. They came off easily but were a pain to get back on ..... I still do not have the passenger side tightened down!

Added some water and checked the oil. The I put the steering column back down and bolted it tight ...slapped on the steering wheel and was ready to go!

Hook the battery back up and disconnected the coil. Turned it over a few times to pump up some gas and listen for major noises .... nothing heard. Put the coil wire back and fired her up. Other than being a bit loud and needing to warm up, she pretty much fired right up.

That's about all I had time for today. I had to clean the garage up and move the truck back to the wall so I could get another car in there.

Drivers Side Valve Seals ...

More of the same today, got all of the seals in, cleaning, lapping, etc and cleaned off the old gaskets. I also cut out a new water pump to head gasket and repainted the exhaust manifold.

Tomorrow I should be able to get the head back on and button her up.

Crossing my fingers!!

Valve Seals

I got one side completed today (Right).

After soaking the ends with PB Buster last night, a tap with the hammer loosened the retainers from the springs and that made things go a lot smoother today. I also managed to get the spring tool one twist lower on the spring and that allowed me to work with the retainers a lot better.

First here are the pictures I promised to clear up what I was trying to say in yesterdays post.

The one on the right is bottom up, note it is thinner on the bottom.

The grooves mate up to groves on the top of the valve.

Top of valve ... see groves for retainer.

The valve above would not slide out of the sleeve. It appears that it was hitting too hard on the top of the piston or someone hit it with a hammer! I had to grind down the side a bit to get it to slide out. this one definately should be replaced, we will see how it does.

Overlap preventing it from slidding out.

Another shot of the damaged valve

Ground down

After the grind

And her are some pics showing how the clip should be once it is installed. The first few pictures are showing one side too high, this is the issue I was having yesterday. Its hard to see in these pictures but one side of the retainer is right and the other is one groove off.

Wrong

Wrong

Wrong

The right way, about 1/8 inch of valve showing

Each valve I removed I cleaned up the tops and backsides and I lapped them with the lapping tool and compound. I also cleaned up the two flat washers under the springs and ran a wire brush through the ports.

Put the spring tool on ....

Remove the 2 retainer halves

When your ready to remove the retainer halves be sure and support the valve from underneath so that the stem is up as far as it will go so that the halves are exposed as much as possible and the stem doesn't move up and down while your trying to remove the retainer halves.

Remove the valve from the head

Once removed I cleaned the valve up with a fine wire wheel on my drill then I applied the grinding compound to the lip of the valve (see next picture)

 Once the compound is applied, put it back in the head and take the appropriate size lapping tool, which is basically a stick with suction cups of different sizes on each end, and stick it to the valve and roll it between your hands, like a boyscout would use a stick to start a fire.

Lapping tool

Finished valve

 After lapping the valves, clean off all of the compound from the valve and the seat on the head and install the valve back in the head.

Then I put the new seal on and installed the spring and retainers back on the valve ..... on to the next one ...............

New seal installed

Installed the spring

Looking good

 After replacing all of the seals in this head I removed the exhaust manifold and repainted it.
NOTE: I also removed all of the exhaust valves even though they do not have seals ...cleaned them up and lapped them as well.

Repainted the exhaust manifold.

I also sprayed the old head gaskets with copper spray and made a new water pump gasket and installed the head back on the block. After that I put the push rods back in and installed the rocker assembly.

This left me enough time to remove the other head. I see a problem but I will ignore it until I get to it! ........ Ok I got all but one head bolt out and the last one is behind the steering column and I can't get a socket on it ...... Off with the steering wheel so I can slide the shft cover out of the way!

Deja vu ... been here done that .... LOL

Made things easy though :O) Man I need to do some work on that cover ...UGLY!!

Bolts out and head off!!! WOOO

Ready for tomorrow!!

Tear it down ..... Again!

Decided to take the heads back off to see if I can fix the smoke issue. I noticed burnt oil running down the right side muffler and some water build up on the back side of the engine. That compiled with the smoking from the tail pipes .... I have had enough! So I tore the engine back down.

Yesterday, I took the alternator, belt, carb and intake off and removed the valve covers and rocker assemblies and pulled the right side head. I cleaned it up good and took off all of the old gasket. I plan on putting the heavy duty metal gasket back on it. I cleaned up the original gaskets and put the head back on. This was a bit tedious as the water pump can not move since it is connected to the front motor mount and supports the engine. I had to put gasket maker on the gasket and stick it to the water pump port and then maneuver the head on without messing that up. Got it on and firmed up the head bolts. Quit for the night.

This morning I decided to locate the valve seals that came with the engine gasket set and give that a try as long as I had the engine apart. Having never done seals before I thought that I was missing 8 seals, but it seems I just need them for the intake valves and not the exhaust valves. This is good news! All I needed was a valve spring compressor tool. Off to the parts store ......

Picked up the tool and a lapping tool with lapping compound as well as some gasket material and gasket maker. I also got a fine wire wheel to clean things up a bit.

If money were no object, I would take the heads to a machine shop and have them rebuilt .. hell I would take the entire engine and have it done ...... well unfortunately I have to work with what I have.

So, I pulled the head back off and replaced the seals on 3 of the valves and cleaned up the valves and the area around them. I also lapped the valves as I went (Intake only so far). The first seal I did was pretty simple, the next one over would not break loose from the retaining clip so I shot it with PB buster and moved to the next one. This one came off easy enough but I had a heck of a time putting the "clip" back on! If you are not familiar with these Poly retainers, they are two pieces with 4 slots each that match up to four ribs on the valve. You put the 2 halves together in the groves and that completely encircles the stem ... you release the spring and it holds it on. I will get a picture of this tomorrow to better illustrate how it works.

The problem I was having is that the tool would not quite compress the spring enough to completely expose the retainer so I had to fiddle with it to get the 2 halves all the way down on the stem .... Again, pictures can show this better than I can explain it. I will ad those tomorrow.

Where have I seen this before LOL

Organizing the parts

The cool Poly heads

Strip, Strip, Strip

More work on the tailgate & right side bed ....

Sprayed with rust converter

Top rail paint did not want to come off

No more door lettering

Almost done

May have been replaced at one time

Found a patch

Tough area to get to

Getting there

Running board so far

 

Looks worse than it is

This is after several applications of paint stripper and a once over with the wire wheel. I did not find any rust through and very little Bondo. It looks like the lower front of the standard was replaced at one time. The metal looks newer and there appears to be a seam about half way up. There was also a patch panel welded in on the bed side right on the bead roll. they did a pretty good job of lining it up. 

The worst of the rust is the heavy surface rust behind the wheel, normally covered by the fender. I will remove the wheel and get this area with the wire wheel.

I also put a few applications of stripper on the right side fender and started the process of stripping the paint from that. There are a couple of splits that will need attention. I will drill a hole at the end of the split to stop it and later weld this up. 

I also started the running board on the right side, but I will remove it to get it 100 percent. Also sanded off the lettering from the door.

More Removing the paint ...

More stripping today for a good part of the day. I apply the stripper let it stand then scrape the bubbled paint away. I do this a couple of times to get the better part of it off. I then use the drill with the wire brush to get the last of the paint and to remove any surface rust. I spent a little time removing a small deep dent from the tail gate using heat and cold water to shrink the metal then heated it one last time and brought it flat with a hammer. The tailgate will be a challenge to get most of the dents out... I will eventually take the tailgate off to work on it. I will do what I can with it on since it is tack welded on.

To get it done

Stripper at work

Eating it away

Running board too

Tailgate is almost stripped

Lots of dents to fix

This dent in the bead roll is gonna be tough.

The hinge rod

I also removed the hinge rod and stripped it. It was very much out of shape and needed to be straightened. The picture above is the finished rod. I straightened it using a vice as well as a hammer.