The picture of the dropped engine reminded me of an "Oh e36m3" moment I had many, many years ago. Working in front of my Parents house, I dropped an engine from the tree when the chain let go, during a motor swap. I think my Mothers cussing was louder than mine.
I'm happy to see you picked up this project, and moving forward. Nice work.
I've got a conference call tonight for work so I took a long lunch and did a little work. The GM Performance Parts LT4 Hot Cam Kit includes new valve springs, shims, retainers, and keepers, as well as 1.6 aluminum roller rockers and of course the cam itself. Today I wanted to change a valve spring and take a few pix of the process.
start by rotating the crank so #1 piston is on its way to TDC, then push a bunch of woven clothesline into the cylinder thru the spark plug hole. Leave a few inches hanging out:
then rotate the crank until it won't rotate any more. Now the #1 piston is at or near TDC and the soft clothesline is smooshed up against the faces of the valves, preventing them from dropping out of their guide and into the cylinder. Attach valve spring compressor to rocker stud:
and compress spring until valve keepers can be removed:
Assembly (not shown) is reverse of removal.
Now with keeper magnet grip!
Put some pegboard up next to the wheels so you can enjoy pegging and rimming at the same time
dang, i never realized how much dog hair this fleece picks up.
In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :
neighbor walks by and says "nice welding helmet." i asked what made him think i wear that for welding.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:dang, i never realized how much dog hair this fleece picks up.
All of it. All of it.
wawazat said:Now with keeper magnet grip!
But wait! There's more!
If I ever need to change valvesprings without removing head from block, I'm getting or making a compressed air fitting to thread into spark plug holes. Pushing rope is no fun. Still, got one kinda big thing knocked off the list:
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
I use my compression test kit hose. It connects to the compressor chuck easy-peasy
I caught the sarcasm in that first line right off... how old is she? Sounds like she "gets" ya, at least!
Ha ha
GoLucky said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
I use my compression test kit hose. It connects to the compressor chuck easy-peasy
If angry patrick is anything like this Patrick, his worthless now incarcerated cousin burned up his compression tester in a meth lab explosion related barn fire
Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:GoLucky said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
I use my compression test kit hose. It connects to the compressor chuck easy-peasy
If angry patrick is anything like this Patrick, his worthless now incarcerated cousin burned up his compression tester in a meth lab explosion related barn fire
i'm kinda relieved to say that you've identified another way we are different. my compression tester was not involved in my worthless now incarcerated cousin's meth lab explosion related barn fire.
When you first posted the rope I thought to myself "what about compressed air?" but then I figured that spring pressure would be strong enough to overcome the compressed air and just open the valve when you are trying to compress the spring. I guess not?
say the valve is 1.5 inches (the smallest valve on a 'merican v8, ish, small engines could be worse), that's 7 sq inches. so 100 PSI would work up to a 700 LB/in spring. I guess you don't have to move the spring a full inch, but they are also preloaded a bit. Smaller valves like 1 inch would be able to resist less spring pressure, but the springs are generally less strong for smaller and lighter valves.
So, all said, it sounds like compressed air would work just fine!
edit: duh. unless the spring is sort of stuck to the valve, you're not pushing down on the valve at all with the spring compressor. So really you dont need much pressure at all to hold the valve in place. Just need to overcome gravity. lol overthinker.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
not only that, but you did (pi * D^2) instead of (pi * r^2).
i need to look up coil spring stiffness vs dimensions, because the new springs appear to be thinner wire but slightly larger coil OD and definitely had a taller free height.
unrelated to spring discussion, since oil consumption wasn't an issue on the drive home from FL, i rolled the dice and reused the valve stem seals. ah, budget.
also unrelated to spring discussion, i'm looking forward to stabbing the new cam in and installing the roller rockers. it's gonna look cool and should run pretty good when it gets to that point. i think the cam kit was $300 well spent.
had my buddy Jay make that $200 offer to make my previous $200 offer seem legit. Then my buddy Jay went rogue and accepted the $300 counter instead of trying for $250. Dammit man, I'm on a budget here!
Tonight's main goal was to finish the cam install. Step 1, grab toaster oven out of kitchen
and heat new crank gear to 400F. Remove old crank gear with 3-jaw puller and slip the hot gear on on its place:
To prep the cam for install, there's a pin that has to be the correct height for your version of OptiSpark. It is supplied in the long position. Mine is the early (short) pin so I had to press it farther. Hmmm, no press, use hammer. Which mushrooms the pin and the timing gear won't go on. No biggie, hit it with a file. LOL no, the pin is hardened. So fire up the belt sander and carefully yet awkwardly rotate the cam to dress the pin down a bit. I practiced on the old cam first! And the new cam turned out OK:
Then apply a little assembly lube to the cam bearing and lobe surfaces, and slip it in:
That was the bulk of the work. Everything else was pretty mundane. Here's the completed task list for Thu 5/7/2020:
That's enough for a weeknight. I'll hit it again tomorrow.
Friday night was family movie night, and today I slept in. So I put a bunch of things on today's to-do list, but only got to work on a couple of them.
about 20 years ago I bought a vibratory tumbler for cleaning hardware, then put it on a shelf and forgot all about it. Opened the box today, dumped a bunch of General purpose sand and some Simple Green in it, and tossed in a bunch of LT1 fasteners.
And they came out pretty sweet. It didn't take the thread sealant off the water pump or intake bolts, but I can do that quickly with the wire wheel on the bench grinder.
I also spent some time pondering fuel delivery, and I've got that all sorted now.
if I get garage time tomorrow I'll knock out the rest of the list I made today. Hard to say since tomorrow is Mother's Day.
Hey, you guys wanna see the inside of my finger? Because I can show it to you.
Pro tip: when separating dogs, keep your hands out of the aggressor's mouth.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
I put triangular ceramic media in mine and it cleans quite well, including the sealant.
In reply to Stefan (Forum Supporter) :
I used what I had on hand, "General purpose sand" leftover from setting stones, because I didn't feel like going to the Future Hammer Store. I will get better abrasive someday. Results of this sub-optimal experiment are encouraging.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Good tip! Well, that slows down progress, eh?
seriously though, hope you have a speedy and successful recovery.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Hey, you guys wanna see the inside of my finger? Because I can show it to you.
Pro tip: when separating dogs, keep your hands out of the aggressor's mouth.
At least it's the fun finger!
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
I'd be happier if it was on my left hand.
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