360 LA getting oil in #3 cylinder.

[tinman2]

Bought a little oil squirter can so I could get some motor oil on the valve stems and seals, pushrods, lifters, rocker arms and shafts. Bought a Kobalt inch/lb torque wrench to torque the rocker shaft bolts. Both of my SnapOn torque wrenches are too big. But ever notice there is a rubber plug in the end of a torque wrench. I never thought about it. When I was pushing the torque wrench on the rear bolt on the driver's side, I popped that rubber plug out. I never thought about that happening either. That little plug bounces around like a super ball in the lifter galley until it finds a space down by the cam and oil pump shaft gears.

 

[tinman2]

I could barely see that little bright blue plug from my Kobalt torque wrench laying down in there. I got out the Craftsmen automotive pick up tool to try to retrieve it. Of course as soon as I touched it, it jumped on down out of sight.
Will the oil pan come off with the engine in place? Or should I just go ahead and shoot myself? Lol
@pittsburghracer
Sorry to keep bugging y'all.

 

[Rat Bastid]

I could barely see that little bright blue plug from my Kobalt torque wrench laying down in there. I got out the Craftsmen automotive pick up tool to try to retrieve it. Of course as soon as I touched it, it jumped on down out of sight.
Will the oil pan come off with the engine in place? Or should I just go ahead and shoot myself? Lol
@pittsburghracer
Sorry to keep bugging y'all.

If it’s in the pan, leave it there. You’d be surprised what you find in oil pans. It won’t hurt a thing being in there.

 

[tinman2]

If it’s in the pan, leave it there. You’d be surprised what you find in oil pans. It won’t hurt a thing being in there.

I just spoke with one of my areas old time Mopar drag racer / engine builders and he suggested the same thing.
And yes, I remember hearing that about oil pans finds.
Thank you!

 

[tinman2]

Getting close. I installed the new heated Edelbrock Performer RPM. Need to reconnect exhaust pipes, add coolant, hook up oil pressure tube and wire, install battery, and run compression check.

 

[tinman2]

Got everything finished up today. My brother-in-law came by so we checked compression and got right around 180psi. Had some gas leaks from the carb. Snugged up the gas lines and bowl screws and good to go. It's exactly ½ mile around my neighborhood so we made 3 or 4 laps watching oil pressure and coolant temp... 180° thermastat and temp stayed at 180°. Timing looked to be 14° advance at idle and got up to about 32° at 3500rpm so thats where I left it. Got it out on the country roads and everything acted like it should. I drove it about 12 miles to his home. Drives much better now with the heated intake. It's probably still a little rich but it runs good for now. Get back to that later. Time for me to take a break from it.

Thanks to all for the great advice. Had to get my brain working for this sort of thing. It had been 40+ years since I had been this deep in an engine. I definitely needed this confidence booster.

Thanks again, Carl

 

[MOPAROFFICIAL]

If it weren't for it being rubber... I'd have at least said to hand crank the motor to make sure it wasn't sitting on a counter weight ready to bind, grind or launch into or through something.
Good job. Enjoy it.

 

[tinman2]

Fuel atomization and vaporization is a big problem with todays fuel (blended for EFI) and cold air intakes.

I won’t do a cold air intake without a quality annular boosters any more.

As a general rule, that series of carbs were “universal” which means they universally fit nothing.

The idle circuit is so rich it’s crazy. Like most everything else they need T slot restricters.

They need some work but if you tune them they work well.

Good information. I bought an Edelbrock 7176 heated intake just in case and made a last minute decision to go with it. I could have saved it for my 340. Street manners seem much improved. I did put the 750 Holley back on it though so I could still change to my 650 Holley later. Or it seems like some people like the AVS2 carb. That may be even better. Thanks.

 

[Uncle Bob]

If it’s in the pan, leave it there. You’d be surprised what you find in oil pans. It won’t hurt a thing being in there.

I found two rod bolts in the pan of a 360 I recently tore down. The rods were all bolted up as expected, and it didn't look like it had ever been apart, not even the valve covers. I dunno how that could've happened.

 

[tinman2]

Since this worked out, I thought I would add it to this story. At the time, I thought people may think I was crazy for filing on the deck surface. I bought a machinist's straight edge from Summit to check the block deck surface and found that the deck was pulled up at each of the top row of head bolts. I could fit a .003" feeler gauge under the straight edge right where the gasket blew out. So I thought the engine needed to come out. The machine shop thought I should just put it back together and try it before going to the extra trouble. I thought about that for a couple days before deciding to try a very small, very fine file on the deck to see what that would do. I put paper towels in each cylinder and sprayed a little WD40 on them so they would stick to the cylinder walls to catch any filings they landed there. I worked on and off for a couple days on the raised area around the head bolt holes until the worst place was still right where the gasket blew out but a .0015" feeler gauge was snug under the straight edge. One of the race engine shop guys said the Fel-Pro 1008 head gaskets needed .002" or less. My file is so fine that the filings weren't visible as metal. It would just show up as black on a paper towel.

 

[Dale Davies]

Don't really know anything about inside of engine. I did run my new inspection camera down the #3 intake port and I could see intake gasket and/or face of head port sticking out slightly on 3 sides of the intake port so there is another issue. I'm guessing no on head porting. And I'm learning a lot about racing type parts on a street engine. It has an Edelbrock RPM/Airgap intake and a Holley 4779 750cfm mechanical secondary, double pumper. Also an MSD billet mechanical advance distributor. When I took the carb off, gas was standing in the ribs in the intake floor. So cold intake and big lopey cam creating less vacuum maybe not keeping gas vaporized.

Copied from Fastenal website: https://www.fastenal.com/fast/services-and-solutions/engineering/screw-thread-design

"It appears that one could theoretically increase the thread strength by increasing the length of engagement. However, as illustrated in the Load Distribution chart above, the first thread will be taking the majority of the applied load. For carbon steel fasteners (including tapped holes) the length of engagement would be limited to approximately one nominal diameter (approximately 1-1/2 times the diameter for aluminum). After that, there is no appreciable increase in strength. Once the applied load has exceeded the first thread's capacity, it will fail and subsequently cause the remaining threads to fail in succession."

Thread engagement for ferrous is 1.5 × bolt diameter. In Al, I would go 2 × to 2.5 ×.