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Houston, we have a problem!!

"Mach1Rider" said:
Kat... I don't want to make this sound too critical but.... :wtf Why do you want to shoot yourself in the foot?

You have the eng out and on a stand. you want to insure that there are no problems befroe reinstalling and having to redo work.
Yes there is more to tearing it apart and extending the time frame, But do it once and do it right!
Once you have the eng apart to a shortblock stage, a simple inspection of the bore and parts is easy.
While its apart you can flush the coolant passages clean, Replace the seals and gaskets to insure no leaks or seepage (like the rear main)
Clean and paint the parts and tins without worry of overspraying and messing somethig else up.

Now once the eng is assembled and ready to go back in, You won't be kicking yourself and having to tear it back apart because your Hubby was right about that headgasket leaking and trying to remove the parts when is back in the bay and you scratch your new paint.
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That's what I was hoping to accomplish. I'd rather make sure everything is ok with the engine while it's out and half apart before it goes back in the car. Especially with the unknown history of its rebuild. I just don't know anything about taking apart or putting engines back together. It doesn't seem all that complicated, but looks can be deceiving!

It'll be out of the car and on a stand for a while so time frame I'm not worried about. Plus I have parts (intake, brackets, etc) off and being powder coated and I won't get those back for a couple weeks.
 
So....if you are going into the engine....remember one thing....any moving part that is being reused should be kept in its same location that it came out of. This keep the wear patterns matched just in case.

Pull the rockers and push rods prior to removing the head bolts. Then the head bolts...they are torqued pretty high so be careful. Check the bolts as you remove them.....make sure the of the lengths for replacement if you do not buy new.

The heads are most likely stuck in position. Some persuasion with a rubber mallet helps. Be careful if you think about prying on any edges of the head.....you can break it. I have used a pry bar in an intake opening with success but be gentle.

The heads sit on two guide dowels (lower corners if memory is right) so they have to be lifter about 1/4" before they "slide" off the block and onto your toes.

The lifters will pop out but may be stuck with a ridge of crud just from normal running. Again, prying can damage the surface at the base of the lifter or the cam lubes. If you do not remove the lifters, they could fall out when the block is rotated.

Water pump, timing chain cover, and oil pan are self explanatory....listen to them and they will tell you how to remove them....lol

Hope this gives you a starting place.
 
:thu on having a manual handy.
Teardown tips, Use a couple of egg cartons for parts removed to keep them in proper order.
Mark the top with cyl# and place the parts in the hole, I simple punched hole in the raised part holds the pushrod.
place the rocker,fulcrum and nut in egg hole and lifter in hole opposite of each in order.
Headbolts can be layed in top with long heads facing down and short facing up.
I use small part boxes for all the bolts from oil pan, valvecover ect marked for location so the don't get lost.
There is enough help on this forum to walk you thru it. :beer
 
Yes....get a book....even if it is not the best in the world, you can use it. Of course, as mentioned.....there is just a bit of knowledge here.....even if we have different ways of doing the same job.....it all works.
 
Awesome advice! :thu

I'll probably mess with it within the next week or so. I need to find something to work on until I replace the cowl vent. I'm going to have to order a side cowl as well as the brackets on the top before I can do anything else there. I don't really want to bother doing the engine bay and making it pretty until the cowl is replaced. Don't want to mess with installing new suspension, steering, or brake lines until the cowl and bay are done.

Need to find something to do on Gertrude! :roul
 
"AzPete" said:
Then the head bolts...they are torqued pretty high so be careful. Check the bolts as you remove them.....make sure the of the lengths for replacement if you do not buy new.
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If the motor is a stock 5.0 roller block, then the stock head bolts are "torque to yeild" that stretch some and are not reusable from what I recall... For chits and giggles, I retorqued a stock torque to yield bolt once and it felt like it turned to butter. Twisted wedge sells reasonably priced head bolts...
 
Sounds like while you're at it disease to me.

Take the lifters out and check them for wear then with the heads still on spin the engine over and pull the pan and check the bottom end.

Take the timing chain cover off and check that too.

Depending what you find will tell you how much more you need to do.

Head gaskets are not hard to do in or out of the car.

Mel

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
 
"stangg" said:
If the motor is a stock 5.0 roller block, then the stock head bolts are "torque to yeild" that stretch some and are not reusable from what I recall... For chits and giggles, I retorqued a stock torque to yield bolt once and it felt like it turned to butter. Twisted wedge sells reasonably priced head bolts...
Click to expand...
I think Kat, you said at some post in the past it was a late model roller cam 5.0 so as stangg said, the head bolts are a one time use only.
as all have said also, be organized, take pics of each stage during disassembly if that helps. It's not that hard and there is a lot of experience waiting here to help. What's that saying about an ounce of prevention....?
 
When I wound up removing the heads off of my 289(2 or three times!), I bought new head bolts from Summit racing~ they have a smaller head than the factory bolts(much better with headers!), plus they're new! Supposedly they"stretch" during operation, don't quite understand. But also I tapped all the holes in the block and that really helped~ then the new bolts screwed in easily until torquing down! I think it'd be a good idea to clean up every hole acessible and not just with compressed air~ tapp(sp) every threaded hole!

You have your motor out, may as well check the motor out very well by taking off what you deem necessary.
 
Dne' is correct. Any bolt that has a specific torque spec should be threaded into a previously "tap cleaned" hole. It's just good practice not too mention makes your torque readings more accurate.
 
Dne is correct except you should not tap the holes. You can really mess up the threads. You will want to use some solvent and air as well as take the old bolts you are going to replace and use a grinder and cut grooves at least three in the threads. They will kind of look like a tap but will not cut metal like a tap.

When I was doing machine work on engines, (heads and blocks) I started to use a tap and was nearly kicked out of the class. Yes it was a class, but we did commercial work for the year and was graded on it. Lord help you if you had anything come back.

You need to chase the threads during cleanup. If you are going to tear the entire engine down. If not you only need to chase the threads that you tore down. If you don't think the heads need to come off based on all the other diagnostic things that have been mentioned, compression test, looking at the top end and bottom end and timing chain then I say leave them together.

I had a 66 when I first met all these jokers and for some reason one of the valve seats turned sideways not allowing the valve to close. My then 14 year old daughter and I tore it down in the car using fender covers in an afternoon and when the new heads got there we put it back together in an afternoon. I will say that the parts were all painted prior to re-installation. I put 302 heads on a 289 and had to change the rockers. I was able to burn the cheapest gas there was. This due to the larger combustion chambers of the heads.

All in all a real easy repair in the car. You might want to buy an air ratchet 3/8 drive. This makes things so much easier.

Since it is an easy repair inside the car, I don't believe you should tear the heads off if everything else checks out!

Just my .02....
 
You just confused the heck out me. :wtf

Maybe I'll just leave it alone, cover and tape things and just clean it and paint it.
 
"guruatbol" said:
Dne is correct except you should not tap the holes. You can really mess up the threads. You will want to use some solvent and air as well as take the old bolts you are going to replace and use a grinder and cut grooves at least three in the threads. They will kind of look like a tap but will not cut metal like a tap.

When I was doing machine work on engines, (heads and blocks) I started to use a tap and was nearly kicked out of the class. Yes it was a class, but we did commercial work for the year and was graded on it. Lord help you if you had anything come back.
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Mel,

I've spent plenty of time (years) in machine shops (both industrial and automotive) and can tell you that it is common practice to use a tap to "clean" threaded holes. As a matter of fact, it is instructed to do so. Unless you are really careless you're not going to damage anything. And yes, using solvent and air to blow out a hole is also good practice. Typically you clean a hole that way , then chase it with a tap, and blow it out again for good measure. If an engine builder doesn't do this to head bolt holes, etc. he is not a very good builder IMHO.
 
Even though I like my builder, he didn't do the above mentioned~ when I removed the heads after finding out it had the incorrect valves, I went back chasing the block holes~ they were all in NEED of chasing! They were horrible! There's no way I could have obtained correct torque, and of course the most that needed it were towards the firewall! But when I went back with my new summit headbolts/with the stuff the headbolts came with~ they screwed right in effortlessly! I was so pleased! do it right the first time, not the second or third time! :wor
 
"guruatbol" said:
Dne is correct except you should not tap the holes. You can really mess up the threads. You will want to use some solvent and air as well as take the old bolts you are going to replace and use a grinder and cut grooves at least three in the threads. They will kind of look like a tap but will not cut metal like a tap.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with Mel on this.... I just finished rebuilding a small block chevy and did just as Mel suggested by grinding sliced in a bolt to emulate a tap. The other thing I did was use worn out plumber's wire brush that is used to clean the inside of fittings prior to soldering. I cut the handle off and mounted in a cordless drill to chase the head bolt threads... Looking online I just found that they sell power driven brushes... A couple of cyles through the hole with one of these on a cordless drill noticbly cleaned up any leftover sealers, rust, threadloc etc...
single-spiral-tube-brushes-powered-use.jpg


BTW... if your going to use a tap to chase the holes, it should be a thread chasing tap or a well worn standard threading tap.... just don't use a new or sharp thread cutting tap... If you feel a steady resistance when chasing the hole, then you are most likely cutting the thread which is not what you are looking to do.
 
Yep....buy a thread chaser....designed for just that. The wire brushes are good to use too. Also.....all this will create small metal pieces that can go where you don't want them. Be sure to keep things covered and clean up good.
 
"Horseplay" said:
Mel,

I've spent plenty of time (years) in machine shops (both industrial and automotive) and can tell you that it is common practice to use a tap to "clean" threaded holes. As a matter of fact, it is instructed to do so. Unless you are really careless you're not going to damage anything. And yes, using solvent and air to blow out a hole is also good practice. Typically you clean a hole that way , then chase it with a tap, and blow it out again for good measure. If an engine builder doesn't do this to head bolt holes, etc. he is not a very good builder IMHO.
Click to expand...

Horseplay, please don't take any offense to what I have to say. You definitely have some awesome skills, I don't mean to down play them or even question them. I just want to address a Novice here.

Someone who has experience with tap sets can chase threads just fine. However I don't want anyone reading this thread to think that they can not damage anything using a tap. Taps cut metal and therefore should be avoided by novice builders for chasing holes. I've been around automotive machine shops since the early 80s and have seen even some awesome pros use a bolt with three sided grooves ground in them instead of a tap. I have also seen some guys in the shops use taps. Neither is wrong. Just depends on you skill and comfort/confidence level.

Much better safe than sorry IMHO.

Kat, Sorry I confused you. You will need to use solvent and air to clean the bolt holes and then use either a bolt that has been ground to look like a tap or a tap, just be very careful with a tap if you use one because if you cross thread the tap, it will cut your threads and ruin them. After you run the bolt or tap through the threads use solvent and air again. This will insure you get accurate torque on that bolt/bolt hole. You should use new bolts as well. If you have reusable head bolts you should keep track of the hole they came out of.

IMHO, you should take the oil pan off and look at the bottom end and the water pump and timing chain cover off and inspect that. Depending on what you find you should go from there.

I think what you will find is going to be just fine and then you just do some clean up. Don't use water based cleaners on the inside of the engine. Solvent or carb cleaner or something like that. Post pics of what you find and we can help you determine what is going on.

Since it is a roller cam make sure you keep the lifters in a way that you can put them back in the same hole they came out of. Same with the push rods. I would likely keep the rockers in order as well.

A shop vac works great with the clean up of the big chunks of rust you have shown pics of.

If you choose to remove the heads, that is fine and it is something you can do. You have the skill. Just keep everything in order of where you took it from.

Biggest thing, at each step post pics and we will help you out. Lots of skill here.

Mel

PS. I forgot to mention that Ford bolt holes have a bottom where the SBC are open to the water jackets. For this reason it is super important that you clean the holes of dirt before replacing any bolts. IMHO it is much better quality for Ford to use a hole with a bottom in the block for the head bolts rather then the easier to mfg open holes on the SBC. MH
 
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