fbekholden.com

Yeh Greg I've made an adjustable needle valve for the oil feed to the rockers. It did help somewhat but I now believe most of the problem is due to high crankcase pressure. I also modified the sideplate (in previous posts).

Sorry mate,

I should have read it all

Its a hard one alright but you will find it, eventually.

Greg

Ok head all measured up.....not happy Jan! This head was supposed to be reconditioned. Spec for Exhaust stem clearance is .002-.0037" and Inlet stem clearance is .001 - .0027"
As you can see not one is within spec!
No1 Ex - .004"
No1 In - .003"
No2 In - .003"
No2 Ex - .004"
No3 Ex - .005"
No3 In - .003"
No4 In - .003"
No4 Ex - .005"
No5 Ex - .003"
No5 In - .004"
No6 In - .003"
No6 Ex - .003"

Just out of curiosity I measured up the old head that came off the original block. Most of the exhaust seats were well worn but all guide to stem clearances where .003" or less. This was on the old worn head that came off the engine with 150k miles on it!
Anyway block stripped so I can replace the rear main. I am sacrificing to the gods my last asbestos rope seal. I was going to save it but now my hand is forced as these graphite seals don't cut it. After that I'll be looking at working a conversion to lip seal if the rope seal leaks again. Had enough of pulling engines down for oil leaks!

Craig,

Have you had the block and head crack tested ? I always do this now just for piece of mind, especially when its stripped down like that.

Nothing worse than building it all and find the same problem due to a small hairline fracture somewhere.

Greg

Block is all good Greg. I purchased the head off Ebay from a company in Sydney as rebuilt. I haven't had issues with the head relative to cracks, only with the valve guides being worn out or over reamed. Oil consumption, running lean, and high crankcase pressure during high rpm and high load conditions such as towing up long hills. It's all starting to add up now.

bloody hell - you should put this thing together with overcentre clips, Velcro and wingnuts

Blacky wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 6:26 pm bloody hell - you should put this thing together with overcentre clips, Velcro and wingnuts

It's starting to undo itself all on its own now.............bloody EK's!

I love my FB.

I thought they fixed all these issues when they built the EK's?

Craig Allardyce wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 7:36 pm

Blacky wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2017 6:26 pm bloody hell - you should put this thing together with overcentre clips, Velcro and wingnuts

It's starting to undo itself all on its own now.............bloody EK's!

I love my FB.

comment of the decade !!!! You sir have won the internet today

Smashing it back together now. Did some relief work on the oil drain hole in the rear main cap so it'll get a bit better drainage but not too much in that it exposes the rear seal to excess oil splash from the crankcase.
Set rear main seal (crank in and out 4 times to get it right).
Lunch break.

Crank and pistons in. Side note all bores measured up well. Wrote a letter to the mob who built the head, don't think I'll hear anything from them. Knock off.
Digging through all of my old gaskets and found some original rear main seals in a brown paper bag. Todays bonus!

Cleaned bum of car after all the oil leakage.
Checked manifold fit up as the gasket was a bit leaky. Tried to separate hot box to aid alignment and as usual some of the bolts broke even after heating with the torch. No dramas, remove broken bolts and re-thread. Another issue found, the hot box section around the inlet manifold was totally blocked. No wonder it was icing up in Tassie. Most of the work is done, just waiting on new valve guides for the head.

Good work Craig. Love this stuff.

Ok a bit more today. Valve guides done but I've been scratching my head to find a way to chamfer the top edge of the valve guide. Chamfering mill tools are very expensive and no one seems to have heard of them out this way. Closest I can get is $124 for a deburring tool that might work. Some of the reviews were ordinary. So I ended up using a tube work deburring tool that is in my flaring kit. Pressed it into a large 3/4 drive socket and with a speed brace we're away. Got cocky and found a adapter for the cordless drill and managed to do all of them in 20 minutes. Lucky I think as the guides are cast iron. Not sure how the tool would go on anything harder. Next job to rework the coolant holes for the new revised head gasket.
Hoping to turn the key this weekend.

clever !!