So about a week ago Ben came over. He's been using the celery wagon (66 122)
until we can get the Yellow Peril going. Seems like one of the HIF6 throttle
return springs let go leaving him with a 3000 rpm idle, which he didn't like
very much. We took off the aircleaner box (from some undetermined 14x) so I
could get to the front of the back carb, and put another spring on it from my
culch heap, HIF6 box. So I told him to put the aircleaner back on. We also
fixed the bumper where he backed into the truck of a friend of his mother's,
and also straightened out the end of the left rear fender where the taillight
mounts, straightened out the socket base and installed a new rim and lens.
We got all that done and he left. Didn't see him again until Sunday at church.
(He helps my wife teach kindergarteners in Sunday School.) He told her,
"Grandpa's going to kill me...." Admittedly I was not too happy about the
taillight and bumper incident but was not expecting further developments.
Well, it seems that 3 of the 4 bolts that held the aircleaner box to the
rear carb had disappeared, and the engine was running pretty rough. I believe
that they were actually oil pan bolts. They were 5/16" 18 UNC bolts, ½" long
with integral washer heads, 7/16" hex. So I told him to take off the carbs and
we'd see what we could do. I started with some long pinchers holding one of
the nefarious Bartmann Bros' superstrong magnets and immediately resurrected
one bolt. While fishing for the second bolt the superstrong magnet pulled out
of the pinchers and attached itself to the inside of the intake port. Removing the manifold and messing around some more I retrieved a second bolt and could
see the third one lying on the valve on its side, holding the valve open about
1/8". No wonder it was rough! But even taking off the valve cover and prying
the valve open a little further, I still couldn't get the bolt out. So I had
Ben pull the head and we removed the retainer using the tube-and-hammer method,
closely related to the arm-and-hammer method. Everything fell within an 18"
circle and no keepers were lost. Once I got the valve open the bolt fell out.
We used a big box wrench under the rocker shaft as a valve spring compressor
and got it back together. But I have had so many problems using an aluminum
manifold with mounting flanges about 9/16" thick and a FI exhaust manifold
about 11/16" thick. Keep having the half-washer spacers fall out and get tired
of crawling under the car to retrieve the ones I can find. So before putting
the exhaust manifold back on, I took it and another one from my culch heap over
to my friend Neal at the machine shop. We used an extra long 1" end mill in
a Bridgeport milling machine and spot faced the places where one bolt holds both
manifolds to a thickness of about 9/16". In doing this I am pretty sure that
I have eliminated the pesky half washers for the foreseeable future. I'll let
you know how it turns out but the prognosis is for a much reduced installation
time. We have vast problems with half-vast solutions...... Actually the
half-washers are pretty close to being a half-vast solution. I think the
spot facing will be much vaster.
--
George Downs Bartlesville, Heart of the USA!