Quote:
Originally Posted by Dangerous Doug
Jerry & David: That's what I was looking for in terms of information.
Some things are not, at least to me: How DO you get an oil pan gasket to seal the first time? You tested the piston clearance with puddy, so you know it clears, but how thick should the puddy to compensate for hot/cold metal fluctuations in the metal?
DD |
o-k, some odd and end tips:when removing pistons,especially your first time,wipe the top of each piston clean and mark the top with a marks-a-lot,put the number of the piston on it and an arrow pointing to the front of the engine...after you remove the piston,then put the rod cap back on the rod as you took it off and scribe the rod and the cap on the same side with the rod/piston #...you can also mark the side of the rod with an arrow pointing to the front of the engine,now clean up the top of the piston,99% of pistons already have an arrow or notch on them pointing to the front of the engine!!!!
oil pan sealing:clean the bottom of the block, I put small dabs of RTV on the bottom of the block between the bolt holes,very small dabs, then smear them smooth with your finger, then glue the pan gasket to the block, let it set,so the gasket is held in place, when your ready to instlall the pan,do the same on the pan gasket and add a nice dab of RTV on the 4 corners of the gasket/front/rear main seal,now put the pan on,start all bolts,then begin snugging them up,I like to start from the middle going outwards to each end.snug them up and then continue to go over each bolt in sequence,turning it about 1/4 turn.as your tighterning the bolts the cork gasket will have some"give" to it and I usually do this 3 times, you don't want to overtighten the bolts where the gasket squishes out, that's too tight....if done right, you'll see a little RTV squish out, that's o-k,let it dry completely and then with a razor blade trim off the excees RTV for looks....
if your talking about testing piston to valve clearance,to do it correctly, you'll need 2 solid lifters,Summit/Jegs sells them in pairs for this...I put enough putty to fill the valve relief on the piston and have it sticking above the flat part of the piston top slightly,now take a drop or two of engine
oil and smear on the top of the putty and the bottom of the valves,this will keep the putty from sticking on the valves, bolt down your cylinder head to the required torque #s.put in your push rods and tighten the rocker arms to zero lash,now rotate your engine over by hand twice,remove heads and see what kind of marks are in the putty..some do this without a head gasket,I have an old pair of head gaskets hanging on a nail just for this use,both ways will work,I prefer using a used head gasket as it has already been compressed and will give an accurate reading...
One could literally wirte a book, many have, the HP series of books by Tom Monroe is excellent and it will give you plenty of technical info such as torque specs/firing orders and other things as well as very good photos....get one of these books....
David