Quote from: cammerfe on July 12, 2023, 11:09:21 PM

If it turns out to be an oil feed hole from the block into the head, a pressed-in thin-wall tube in the block hole could be done without block teardown.

KS

That must be the repair that I've heard of using a pushrod with the ends cut off pushed into the oil passage thats needs repair ?

yup
KS

Let me throw in a vote for Smith Brothers. This has been several years ago, but the attitude counts.

I found out late one afternoon that the pushrods I had intended to use were not an acceptable length. I had a dyno session scheduled for mid-morning the next day and we were doing the final assembly. I took a tubing cutter and cut a small section out of the middle of one PR and then tapped the insides of the two end pieces. Used a cut-off bolt and a pair of nuts and made an adjustable-length PR to be able to ascertain the length I really needed.

Called Smith Brothers and explained my difficulty.

They made a set of push-rods the length I needed and overnighted them to me. We had the engine running on the dyno before noon.

For what it's worth, when you are putting an engine together for the first time, the tolerance stack-up on the various pieces can be such that you literally can't know about such things as push-rod length until the last minute.

Due to the above, my first choice will ALWAYS be Smith Brothers

KS

Related to a comment made above, it was common, "back in the day" to put a quarter-turn valve in the line to the vac pot so as to be able to easily negate the modulation offered by vacuum. The shift-control governor valve in (the tailshaft housing) was then ground so as to lighten it and thus raise the upshift RPM. (There was testing equipment available at T&C Livonia---if one knew where to look--- so as to be able to play with the valve weight.)

KS

I put 427 main caps in a C4 block while doing a build-up series in Mustang illustrated a few years back. The block started as a 330-390 PI engine. I knew the guy who bought it new and tracked it down.

All the machine work was done in Jack Roush's Prototype Shop. At that time, they were also building all the NASCAR engines there, as well. The bores on the block were well-centered and there was lots of iron available everywhere for machining.

I bought a set of 427 main caps at a swap-meet at Milan. They came with crossbolts and a whole handfull of spacers. Tossed the bolts and used as many of the spacers as we could make fit. Since the level of workmanship required torquing everything down after machining for size and alignment and then inserting the spacers with no more than thumb-finger pressure, we ultimately had to make a couple to get the right fit.

It was necssary to hone the mains after fitting, and the crossbolt holes in the block were drilled after the caps were cut and honed. The nubs inside the block skirt were a pretty good match. In fact, the only eyebrow raiser was that the tapped holes in the outside of the block skirt for the manufacturing-process carrier were slightly in the way. We simply ignored them, and the HD washers on the head-ends of the crossbolts covered what little was left after the drilling and spot-facing were complete.

If I were to do it again, now, I'd undoubtedly use a new block, but this was long enough ago that such a thing didn't exist. But it surely is doable.

KS

Hey Bill---

Does that Crosley have a cast engine block or is it fabricated?

KS

Experience with my '63 ICB Effie/390 PI. I used a factory radiator with a large top tank but the radiator itself was only two tubes thick. When I got the truck, the '64 390 PI was already installed. the fan was a plastic flex unit and was spaced back from the rad in such a way that it undoubtedly did nothing. (There was no shroud.)

I had some experience with overheating while driving in traffic within the Detroit city limits and dumped the plastic fan for an electric item that I believe I bought at Gratiot. It was unitized such that the blades were formed with circular self-shrouding as part of the design. When I installed it, I used the mounting arrangement that passed posts through the core and held the entirety within a quarter inch or so of the back side of the rad fins. There were built-in anti-vibration pads also incorporated. Part of the package was a temp probe that was to be installed in contact with the tank and triggered the on-off switch. I was time-limited and had a convenient hole in the dash apron so I put in a simple toggle switch instead, to be used until I could do a completion. I discovered, however, that since I had a direct-read mechanical gauge and could therefore monitor the possibility of high temp, I never bothered to put in the probe. We don't get much higher temps than low nineties here in southeastern Michigan, and unless I was stuck in traffic, the engine never got much over 190. I'd simply flip the toggle and within several seconds the temp would be back in the 180s.

Problem solved.

KS

hemi nitro blocks are all solid with no water jackets, so far as I know. It is possible to have the true billet blocks made with water jackets carved into them. Then you can street drive

KS









hemi nitro bocks