fbekholden.com

Near enough to an ounce. Fair bit of metal.


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Blacky wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 9:50 pm Good to see you back mate the old ute didnt miss a beat after we left your joint (palace) before the nationals until we got home about 6500 km later

What eventually happened?

Craig Allardyce wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 6:06 pm

Blacky wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 9:50 pm Good to see you back mate the old ute didnt miss a beat after we left your joint (palace) before the nationals until we got home about 6500 km later

What eventually happened?

We drove to Sydney, then Temora, then all over the shop having a wonderful time all the way then we got home. Had a bit of gearbox trouble between Wagga and Mildura.We gave it a top up the oil and used an occy strap holding it in top gear for about 600km until we got to Whyalla and after that it didn't jump out of gear for the rest of the trip.

Good progress this week. Ended up having to machine down the rocker shafts as they were badly worn. With that the rockers needed to be be rebushed with oversize bushes and honed to suit the new shaft size. Block dummied up again with the rebuilt rockers, cam, and hydraulic lifters in place so I can get dimensions for the new pushrods. I also threaded the internal ends of the rocker shafts for fitment of tapered/threaded plugs. The originals are small welch plugs which I wasn't going to risk popping out with the higher oil pressure I will be running. It also helps with cleaning out the 60 years of gunk inside the shafts.
One other job I do to all of these heads is bevel the top edges of the valve guides. This stops oil pooling close to the valve stem which gets drawn down the valve guide causing high oil consumption and carbon on the crowns of the valves. This is generally missed these days, particularly with the advent of positive valve guide seals.

You get used to seeing rockers with half a century worth of muck over them. Clean and machined ones like that really stand out.

Cheers,
Harv

More progress today.
Finished clearanceing the alloy side plate for the bigger pushrod diameter. Also started work on the spacer plate for the oil pump as I'm fitting longer gears to increase the pump capacity a little more. This is due to the extra flow I wanted for the change to hydraulic lifters, and for the increase in compression and ultimately the power output of the engine.

Craig Allardyce wrote: Thu Aug 21, 2025 5:47 pmAlso started work on the spacer plate for the oil pump as I'm fitting longer gears to increase the pump capacity a little more.

GMH 308 gears?

Cheers,
Harv

Yes mate.