Valve cover gaskets and breathers.

[1964Fastback]

... the other head had a much wider passage (at least up at the bolt hole where you could see it) and the restrictor disappeared down into the hole.

This would bug me, personally.  I'd be worried I'd forget it was in there, or someone in the future would not be expect it and let it drop out, etc.  Maybe just an OCD thing.  I would pull the rocker shaft on that side and with the engine cold (thicker oil) put a towel over the hole and crank it over with a remote starter switch and see if it shot out into the towel.  If not, I'd probably give up. 

Pat

[Yellow Truck]

I am having my neighbour machine a set of tubes to come up out of the rocker to take a push on breather, I've ordered a couple of K&N breathers and we will get that done next week when they come in.

Today I pulled the rockers off and checked the dimension of the oil passages. On the BBM heads I have they were able to take  a 1/4 threaded plug so I tapped them and threaded in a pair of plugs. When I vacuumed up the little bit of tapping debris the restrictors came flying out. They are far too small for the passage in a BBM head.

Having never built an engine before I didn't recognize how small they were compared to the oil passage. They are probably sized to a different head. In any case,  passage is now stopped and the rockers are back on.

[Yellow Truck]

Not super exciting, but a nice job by Percy (my amateur machinist neighbour made me two) lets me put a small breather on the valve cover and it clears the brake booster.

This means I can use an 8 inch dual diaphragm booster with a new set of disc brakes I'm ordering.

You will have to click on the link because I can't figure out how to embed a picture here.

https://links.flickr.com/u/click?_t=40ac9f0c38d540238d36950e58265982&_m=888f69ade8b7417abdf8c87767db86ac&_e=ZLamHGtXKn8SeO5ZxUCDDF3GaJsTuwKj-3QN8pEVPtcJHMwhLW7h6kfOac3leY6MhlxntfSgruGXbHTa_ZnZmcT7cf1aDjSkTW0LF1PJP2aq0mMzZDArq-KSg5U9QJ9fH-eIqd3BsrpYzI97WfL_zMP8fErs41eCUV8Pyu98AE2GQ1zBtAaUuOhrFM5rDj7sI7iCc-JtyxyvsIoRuqSAf4lDNuCbrDg19Yk29edvLNP8R_G8llQPl0Zqh8CGnOvrfr5HnMP-8XUi4Jovl72YOPpxrAeX3eGYgITYdHq_Rj4sos8SMnmIGZFilY9DYbhS

[Yellow Truck]

Since I pulled the rockers to block the oil passage I have to reset the lifter pre-load. Usually this is a bit fussy since I was using the EO/IC approach and turning the engine and watching the rockers is tedious.

My neighbour has a nice approach and made a clever tool to find the base circle on the cam lob of each cylinder. He made a little tool he drops over the distributor and follows the rotor as it points to each spark position. I can set the pre-loads in about five minutes.