The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Fun at the Car Wash

Yesterday I left work early to take the engine pieces to the car wash. As one mechanic put it - it is the most fun a man can have with his clothes on.

Yahoo. A couple of dollars later the whole thing was fairly clean. Now I can scrape, wire brush and wheel, and blow the rest of the crap and crud off.

I also found that the hold up is the push rods on the two center wrist pins were stuck. Probably from mud dauber spit. I shot a lot of PB blaster on them and it was turning a lot easier. This may free up after a couple days of soaking and wiggling.

All else looks good. Next I will move on to the frame.

Ahh, another milestone reached.

it will rust quickly now.

"I also found that the hold up is the push rods on the two center wrist pins were stuck"

Hmmm....pushrods on your wristpins, huh? Man, I would leave that thing alone because you've got the only one like that ever built.

I guess I do not know where the wrist pins are. I thought they were the pins in the pistons that the push rods attached to. OOPS

Whatever, I meant the piston pins that the push rods are attached to. The two center ones are stuck. I believe they are cylinders 3 and 4.

I PB Blaster everything (can't find Kroil locally) and wiggle as much as I can.

Thanks again to all for the help. I am learning a lot from the work in progress.

I'm no mechanic for sure, but I think it's just terminology here that confuses.

OldBlue - I think you're talking about the connecting rods that attach to the crankshaft and are held to the piston with the wrist pins that you mention.

Pushrods connect the valve lifters (over the camshaft) to the rocker arms on the cylinder head. Connecting rods attach the pistons to the crankshaft. It's very unlikely a wrist pin would be stuck tight enough to restrict the crank from turning. Just lube the cylinders some more and keep turning the crankshaft.

Did you remove the sheet metal side cover and secure the valve lifters like I suggested? If not, there's a danger they might fall out of their bores, and you won't know which holes to reinstall them. Lifters MUST remain mated to the proper cam lobes, or the wear pattern gets disturbed, and the cam and lifters wear rapidly.
Jerry

Jerry,

Thank you. Not push rods but connecting rods. So, wrist pins are the right word. Cool.

Push rods are over at the cam shaft, lifters (solid), rocker arms, and valves. Connecting rods are with the crankshaft, wrist pins, and pistons.

I did what you said about the lifters. I pulled the side cover and pulled the push rods and lifters out, and lined them up on a towel - in the order they came out. The lifters and push rods will be put back in the same places that they came out of. Thank you for that advice.

And as for the connecting rods and wrist pins (?) I am squirting them with PB Blaster, turning the crank shaft, and tapping them with a dowel and mallet. I don't want to crack or damage them. I believe they will loosen up. Everything else has.

I bought a thumb pump action oil can. Squirted oil in the block cavity, and all over the head, then wiped it with a rag. I plan to periodically do this until I put it back together.

Other than that, and cleaning the mud out, it looks good.

Other suggestions are welcome.

Out of curiousity. Why do the lifters need to put back exactly to match perfectly? How do they match? I looked at the bottoms of the lifters and there was little wear. Don't they float and rotate? If I bought new lifters they would mate with the cam lobes. They don't come numbered. Or when we buy new lifters we have to put in a new cam? Just question(s).

Thanks for your patience with me.

Oldbluetruck: I was just yanking your chain for amusement and I did understand what you were saying but misstating. I'm a might concerned about tapping the rods or pistons with a mallet. That would be a side trust/load that could possibly cause some damage(cracks to the piston skirts or rings. I think you will do yourself a big favor by only rotating the crank as others have suggested. That is what it is made to do and the PB Blaster will do it's job that way just fine.

Lifters develope a pattern of wear that is very hard to see with the naked eye. You make a good point however about replacing lifters on an old cam. I don't recommend that personally and suggest both cam and lifters be replaced. They need to be run in at about 1500 RPM for 20-30 minutes after initial startup and don't forget the cam lube either. I can't see why a mechanical lifter would need replacement unless it was severally dished from a soft spot in which case it would also effect the cam lobe. So again, it's a case of replacing both in my humble opinion.

Ditto on the advice about replacing cam & lifters together. When a new cam and lifters are "run in" together, a wear pattern is established that is unique to each lobe/lifter combination. The new cam and lifters should be run at a fast idle, about 2,000 RPM or so, for at least 20 minutes. This allows the new parts to be splashed with lots of oil from the crankshaft while the wear pattern is being established. New lifters are slightly convex, higher in the middle than at the edge, and the cam lobe runs slightly off-center to the lifter. This causes the lifter to spin as it follows the lobe up and down, equalizing the wear. If a lifter wears flat, or gets cupped out in the center, both the cam, and all the lifters should be replaced. Push rods really aren't position-sensitive, just the lifter, which needs to run with the same cam lobe for its entire service life. If the lifter position is changed to a different cam lobe, a new wear-in cycle must happen, which usually results in very rapid cam and lifter wear.
Jerry

I hope I don’t spoil your party Dennis, but I have been following this thread for a while. And unless I am miss reading something in this discussion and the ones in the past for this engine, it sounds like the problems your having with hornets living inside the engine and things being froze up might be because of it being out in the rain for a while also.
I hope you do not intend on trying to run this engine after you get everything turning free? An engine is a very precise machine and with precision close fitting parts being froze up about the only way to fix that is to re-machine it. If this were my engine and it was in the condition you have described, once everything were apart it would go directly to the engine re-builder and have a complete and total overhaul. Starting with a long soak in the striper tank and rodding out all of the oil passages, a cylinder re-bore, crank regrind, recondition con rods, new pistons, new cam, lifters and pushrods, new water pump, new oil pump, complete top end re-build, probably a new rocker assembly also. Then and only then would I think about running this engine.
But that’s just me and this is probably what you were going to do anyway once you got it apart, right??? Or, I would find a good used one that someone had swapped out.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I love that first post! We got some many rods and shafts in these trucks it's hard to tell them apart. Denny's makes a great point but I'm wondering wouldn't it be even more thrilling to put a bit of oil in each hole, add some fresh gas and blow them hornets out the tail pipe!

Hi Denny,

I did not want to do that. But you are right and I knew it at the get-go. Take the whole shabang apart and soak/strip/rod it. I wanted to do the quick and easy way.

I also wanted to keep the cost down. It's a $500 rusty, nasty, dirty truck that I only wanted to rebuild but you are right about the safety and dependablity.

Darn reality.

Thanks for bringing me back