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4 minute(s) of a 82 minute read
3-24-2014
3-24-2014
Status as of 03/24:
Lots of drama this last week, some caused by my lack of knowledge, some caused by the machine shop forgetting to give me pieces parts and correctly placed advice.
Got the engine back from the machine shop and the goal was to build it up and then install it in my car, with the first run of the engine being in the car, well...
I get the engine home and checked all the rocker arms and pushrods for damage. Yep, many of the rocker arms were not reuseable, mostly flattened too much on the end that contacts the valve. My bad, should have checked them way earlier.
So I called comp cams, since the cam and lifters were from them, and they said to order rocker arms, 1232-16 and pushrods 7834-16. So I ordered them fast shipping. When they came in I saw there was no way those rocker arms would work and the pushrods were too short.
So I called the machine shop and asked them what was up - they said "oh, those will never work, you need the 1411-16 and you'll need to install special rails and guides and custom length push rods". I'll leave out what I said to them at this point, wasn't very nice...
After much discussing with the machine shop, I'm bringing them the engine sans the intake manifold, rocker arms and pushrods. Now I have to bring the engine back to them and they will install the CORRECT rocker arms (1411-16), pushrods and all special hardware needed.
At this point I decided to have the engine dyno'd by the machine shop. No way I'm going to put the engine in the car and then find out that something they engineered didn't work correctly.
Fine, we press on...
Friday night I started and first I get to remove the oil dipstick tube from the old timing cover and put it in the new one - what a fiasco! Finally after my friend and his father in law helped me hone the size of the dipstick tube down we finally got it in, whew!
Next it's try and get the good studs off the cracked exhaust manifold and on to the one from the junk yard. Oh, did I mention that after the machine shop sand blasted the drivers side manifold they found a crack in it? Fun fun...finally after a while had the studs in.
Time to sleep...
So Saturday morning I start building the engine up and my friend noticed the head guides weren't in the block, great, now I can't install the heads either. No problem, the machine shop gets to install them for free since they didn't give me the guides.
Installing the water pump realized the new timing cover didn't have the holes tapped as far as the old one, so I had to get a few shorter bolts from the parts store.
Went pretty smooth from there as you can see from the pics. No, I didn't forget to install the oil pump, I just forgot to take a pic of it in before I put the oil pan on. And by the way, getting the old pickup off the oil pump and on the new one wasn't easy either.
Finally got everything all together around 5 pm...
So right now the engine, heads, exhaust manifolds, intake manifold, carb and other assorted pieces are in the truck waiting for me to drop them all off at the machine shop.
Hopefully, they'll be able to dyno it this week and this Saturday I should be picking up a perfectly running engine.
I still need to prep and paint it before I install it.
Money? I think I'll easily be over $5k after this week...
Stay tuned...
