Lord Gruntfuttock

Ahem. Seagull...

Wow, sweet. Cheers for that... (Thank Lisa for me)

About a quarter of a teaspoon of oil in the separator can after a good hoon on the way home, so relieved, used to fill up in a very short time. Great feeling of accomplishment, tempered by the fact the whole reason I pulled the engine 3 yrs ago was cos it was oily. Could've fixed baffle and been using it... Then again, the compression was wonky and I've replaced all the front suspension, so not a wasted exercise. It should be good for a while now though. Time to look at tidying up the appearance and wiring etc after a tune...

Oh fuck yes. I'm a wizard, Barry...

Yep tried factory ford covers with better baffles but the roller rockers hit them. Cut out where they touched then oil was shooting into pcv valve. Bought edelbrock alloy covers as they had baffles and more clearance, assumed they were ok, but not so...

A quick shape and test fit using the 2 screws that held the original baffle in place... Old baffle placed to indicate it was located between the rockers, plasticine was around 4mm thick here... And a very thin layer indicated there should be enough clearance, if a bit tight... So a clean up and it looks like this... Big plate area blocking oil splash, no folded edges and a large gap around the edge for low velocity air flow... And loctited the screws in and installed. Hopefully it'll be the end of this sort of thing... I put my finger on it through the hole while I rotated the engine to feel if there was any contact... And great success. Went on a 30km thrash at lunchtime, and where this would have been full previously, there is a smear of oil in the bottom of the can, which could largely be residue from the oil that was already in the separator mesh.. Quietly confident I have sorted it, will see how the plugs look after some more miles...

So all legal and been using it a bit, seemed to be going all right considering the rough tune, but after I took her out to a car show at Mataura it damn near run out of oil, The catch can was chokka and the plugs were a sooty, oily mess... So depressing, immediately thought the worst, I'd somehow coozed the rings (perhaps with a cheeky skid as soon as I got it going). A quick compression check though and all cylinders were around 160psi, not particularly high but was a cold test and were all pretty close... Then started thinking about what could cause the problem. Valve stem seals kept coming up, particularly as it gave a puff of smoke on startup, but they were damn near new heads. Was gearing up to pull a valve with the heads on for a look when some extra research led me to look at the baffles in the rocker covers. I knew there were baffles there... This seems like it should protect the PCV valve well from oil splashes, but a theory is the small gaps at the edges create a high velocity draft that pulls oil into the baffle, and the folded ends means oil can pool there, getting sucked into the bottom of the carb. A cotton swab inside the hose at the carb end confirmed oil was getting through... It was an easy thing to test so started knocking up a bigger, flatter baffle after checking clearances with plasticine... And found a bit of suitable scrap...

Yep grabbed it at lunchtime. Wheel alignment done and full of fuel. WOF check friday... Alignment guy commented on how new everything was underneath. And now the steering wheel is pointing where it should be...

I agree. Stupid house renos pretty much halted progress, made it hard to pick things up again. Main reason I take heaps of pics and document build progress, proved invaluable over last few weeks...

JB Weld is a miracle, when it hardened to a putty consistency I flattened it out, pushing it under the lip, and looked good (put it on dash of other car in the sun to speed up curing)... And cranked up good with no fuel spills, ran it 10 minutes to cycle coolant and cure header paint... And a quick hoon with no bonnet... No probs apart from some hoses needing tightening, plus the upper arm is pretty close to the tyres, hopefully an alignment will improve this... And bonnet on and time to wash off 3 years of storage dust and grime... to Mr Sparkle... And down the bottly for a celebratory ale... Another check and nothing amiss, still need to fit air cleaner and fan shroud, plus top up trans fluid... And deserved I reckon...

Busy weekend, ripped into it last night instead of drinking beer at the footy, and up at sparrow's this morning to get back into it. Ticked off all the little bits and pieces like diff oil, draining the tank of old fuel, torqueing water pump up, rechecking cyl head/intake/sump torque, connecting trans selector rod/kickdown cable, installing dizzy and plug leads, torquing and pinning steering tie rods etc. And after filling with fluids was ready to go... Apart from the brakes I'd forgotten about, so jacked her back up and installed the new pads... Then a quick spin to get the oil pump primed, plugs in, and it started damn near straight away. Was stoked till I noticed the stream of fuel pissing out of the secondary bowl... Thought it was dried out seals but after a tighten and starting again it was obviously the blanking plug that was leaking...? Did some research and apparently theres an o-ring behind these, or they just come loose, and you can't do much about it apart from trying to peen it back to stem the leak, or drill and tap it to accept a taper plug. Easier to replace the bowl, so ordered one, but a bodgy fix is to JB weld it, so cleaned it up as prep... And applied some goo... This should let me give it a burst tomorrow to bed in the rings and cure the header paint anyway...

Yeah didn't see any match in XY or XA manual.

Another productive lunch break. Used my supercheap arbor press to install the UJs, went ok but it's not bolted down and things got wobbly, so finished installing them with the big vise and a large socket. Never actually changed universals before... and cleaned up the trans for it's new seal... used another plumbing fitting to tap it in, went well. This one has a boot that isn't necessary, but was what they had at SCA... And I had another look at the pinion seal nut, apparently these are done up to around 260ft-lbs, and as my wrench only goes to 150 I put a big pry bar on and pushed with my foot till it tightened a little more than I could heave it lying under the car. Re-checked the torque req'd to rotate it and is now spot on with what I tested before replacing seal... And driveshaft is in.. Just gotta tighten the clamp bolts at the diff end and that's most of the awkward underbody stuff done...

Really big ceiling fan pls...

More unexciting updates, looked at the radiator, had it flushed 3 yrs ago but been sitting, so hosed it out in both directions... And blew the mummified bees out of the fins with compressed air, then sat it in the sun to dry out. Impatient, so blew the hot air gun through it to prep for paint... A very light coat of engine enamel to make it black again... And in. Ordered a new lower hose as the old one got squashed in storage and crushed the spring... And had another go at knocking in the diff pinion seal, used a plumbing fitting and went in nice and straight this time, helped that I'd jacked her up a bit more... And I had diligently marked the shaft and yoke so things went back together the same way, then just as diligently stripped and painted the yoke, removing all traces. Some forensic examination of old photos showed some distinguishing marks that let me line it up as near as dammit, and torqued it up to bloody heaps... And re-created my shonky connection to check torque required to spin the wheels... Came out near exactly same as when I removed it, yesterday's pic... And 3 years ago. Not an exact science, so surprised it was as close as this tbh... So assume things are pretty much ok. Thought I may as well pull the old rear trans seal and replace that at the same time... And used my new seal remover tool, thought it'd pop it out without all the hammering I normally do, but was sealed in pretty tight, so fancy tool just ripped the old seal up. Ended up knocking one side in as per normal to get it out... So the underneath pretty much ready to go back together when pits arrive Satisfying, if boring tasks ticked off...