Cooling System Refresh Tips (1 Viewer)

[Gretsch]

I taped this section in here so paint wouldn’t get in so the depth wouldn’t potentially change when I added the seal.

View attachment 1830131

I think this is the way to go as well. Just feels like adding paint there would introduce a medium for allowing leaks to develop as the paint degrades. I was going to tape off all the sealing surfaces when I paint the cover and pulley. I am not sure if the sealing surface was painted originally or not. Knowing now the deal on the pulley snout and how it engages with the seal, I am not going to paint that part either.

 

[emac]

BTW @emac, just took a look at your 40 series build thread. That thing is unreal. Amazing work.

Thank you, it was a lot of fun. I wish I would have taken some pictures of all the ziploc bags labeled with every single bolt and nut. I had two boxes filled with labeled ziplocs, one interior and one exterior. Like nevergiveup posted, pictures and ziplocs are your best friend.

 

[Gretsch]

Hello all again. Got pretty far along and now I am ready to start putting stuff back. Trying to get a feel for how clean these gasket mating surfaces need to be. I got the timing cover off and most of the old gasket came off with the cover. Man that cork hardens to almost like a plastic. Spent most of yesterday just trying to remove it from the timing cover. Now if this think kept oil in the way it was, I would imagine anything new I put on there would work 1000 percent better no matter what sort of surface I put it on. But wanted to check with the brain trust to see if that's right. See below:

I have since cleaned up the timing gear cover a bit more with a razor blade from what you see in the photos here and there is some oil and grease still on the engine surface I need to clean up from whats in the photos but wanted to focus more on the areas around the holes on the block where the timing cover sits and where the water pump sits. Is this clean enough to take a new gasket without leaking or should I clean it some more? As always thanks for the help.

 

[Gretsch]

Sorry these pics are a little more real-time representative:

Is this clean enough or should I work on it more? Thanks.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

Personally I got my cover pretty shiny. I wanted the sealant to adhere well and not have any discrepancy in the surface. You want not lifts in either surface (imo) or you’ll have gaps.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

All the raised areas should be quite clean. Similar on the face of the block so they mate together cleanly.

 

[joebattle1]

Welp, I guess I'm going to go ahead and pull the timing gear cover off too now. This was just the inspiration I needed. I have to jump into the AC compressor anyway and I've already got the water pump off, diz, Head, side cover... Why not go ahead and do this...

Regarding above... Get your wire wheel out on your drill or grinder and get all of that old gunk off of there. Or as much as humanly possible.

 

[emac]

Looking good! Clean it as good as you can wipe it off with brake parts cleaner. I have a soft wire wheel on my grinder, it works great for removing gasket. Scotch brite pads are good. There are tons of opinions about gasket sealing. I use Permatex high tack in this situation. I am not a fan of silicone. A very good engine builder I know uses yellow rubber weatherstrip adhesive to stick gaskets to covers to hold them in place for assembly.

Take your time, you only want to do this once. Replace any coolant/oil hose you can get to while you have it apart.

 

[Gretsch]

I had been using one of these Roloc bristle discs found here. Seems to work well but seems strangely abrasive for being rubber. Worried I am damaging the part by doing this. This stuff on the cover is like cement after all these years. Should I keep going then and make sure I get every bit of it off? As @emac points out I only want to do this once. I also was not going to use any sealant on the cork gasket, just sealant on the two bottom bolts. Is that wrong. I don't think sealant is mentioned in the FSM.

Also as part of this I am removing the oil cooler to get it painted and cleaned up. There are O-rings embeded in the part that touched the engine block. I got new O-rings from Beno. Are these O-rings to replace whats in the cooler or additional such that the two O-rings stack on top of each other when the cooler is mounted? I am pretty sure the O-rings from Beno are to replace whats embedded in the cooler itself but just wanted to make sure that's right. Stupid stuff I know but thanks for the replies.

Edit: O-ring question was dumb. I looked up some additional photos and understand now what to do.

 

[Gretsch]

So spent the majority of today cleaning this timing cover. I think I have it better cleaned. This gasket is unreal how hard it is. Sitting here with a razor blade scraping away. I think I have it cleaned a bit better. Thoughts?

Some additional progress photos. Painted parts:

Thanks all for the help.

 

[Gretsch]

So got pretty far yesterday for the time I had put in. I got the timing cover back on and the crank pulley put back in place and torqued down. Pulley needed to be coaxed into position with some light taps on the front to get it on the crank just as the FSM says. Also got the oil cooler back on the truck. @NeverGiveUpYota motivated me to make sure the gasket mating surfaces were uber clean so I spent a lot of yesterday doing that. She was dead on as usual and I was able to get things a lot cleaner than I thought they could be. I cleaned them up, took some photos. I found that it would look clean and then the light would hit the surface different exposing more gunk I thought was gone so I hit them again. Over and over. Surfaces are even cleaner than whats in the photos. I found new levels of patience and clean doing this. ScotchBrite pad worked the best but took awhile. Anyone doing this should just settle in and scrub. I might have been scrubbing on this for in total half a day. Also had to get a inch pound torque wrench to make sure I got the torque correct. Folks are correct. With the pulley on you cannot get at a good number of the bolts with a torque wrench. I hit what I could get to with the wrench and just sort of did the others by feel. But its in now and is either gonna work or leak.

I went to put the water pump on and test fit the new mounting bolts for it. The new ones do not seem to fit. Seems to be a different thread than whats in the block or whats on the old bolts. I got a call in to Beno on it. I really wanted to put new bolts on here but with these not fitting I am a bit stuck. I don't see anything wrong with the old bolts other than they are old. While I would prefer to use new bolts, just wanted to check on what the harm is in using the old? Seems that they changed the thread type between model years. Up to 84 used a coarse thread and 85 out used a fine thread if this post from JimC is to be believed:

The two things that change are:
WP construction: E-74 are cast iron.
75-newer is AL

And the bolt pitch: E-84 are M10x1.5 (coarse thread).
85-later are M10x1.25 (fine).

So maybe I got the fine thread version. P/N is 90119-A0139 for the new ones I received. Anyone know a part number for the coarse version?

Some pics of my day.

 

[Gretsch]

So ran into a little issue with the WP bolts. Seems there was a change to the thread on the mounting bolts October of 84 which happens to be when my truck was built. So while Beno sent fine thread bolts, mine still had the coarse thread. So called Onur up and he got me the coarse ones sent out (thanks @beno).
So working on getting everything put back together today. Got WP in and torqued. Started getting new hoses on and I ran into this:

I test fit the new belt and found that the hose clamp comes fairly close to the belt. The way I put it on seems to bring it real close. There is no real way to re-orient the clamp so that it fits any better without sacrificing the ability to tighten it. I could flip it around but then I think it would hit the timing cover so which is why I put it on this way meaning I don't think taking this off and re-doing it would work any better. Maybe the band type clamps would be better here. Should I be worried about the closeness of the belt here or just let it ride. The best way to do it is to take off the pipe and start over on this part of the re-install. Just wanted to get thoughts if anyone thinks this is an issue or just me being paranoid before I do that. Thanks.

 

[John McVicker]

In this case an inch is as good as a mile. Unless your water pump gets wobbly you're fine.

I would however remove and reposition that clamp. As it is, you're going to play hell trying to get the hose loose for any maintaince. Better to do it now than later.

 

[Gretsch]

OK thanks. I am mulling it over now. I would assume there is not some slick way to get these wire clamps off without taking everything apart. Seems like you would destroy the clamps if you tried to slide them over the hose somehow by taking the bolt out of the clamp, and opening them up to get around the hose. No choice but to take the pipe off and reposition the clamp? I don't see any way to make the clamp positioned better. If I flip it around where the bolt head is coming straight at me to the front of truck, the tightening mechanism either hits the big radiator hose above it or would hit the crank cover depending on the orientation.

On another note, I went to start getting the thermostat housing on. The gasket I have between the lower housing and engine block seems to not be correct. See below:

It looks to be for a different truck. The lower part of it seems to drop below the housing. Is this the way it is supposed to fit or should it follow the lines of the housing? Part number I have for it is 16343-61020. Any help appreciated.

 

[OGBeno]

OK thanks. I am mulling it over now. I would assume there is not some slick way to get these wire clamps off without taking everything apart. Seems like you would destroy the clamps if you tried to slide them over the hose somehow by taking the bolt out of the clamp, and opening them up to get around the hose. No choice but to take the pipe off and reposition the clamp? I don't see any way to make the clamp positioned better. If I flip it around where the bolt head is coming straight at me to the front of truck, the tightening mechanism either hits the big radiator hose above it or would hit the crank cover depending on the orientation.

On another note, I went to start getting the thermostat housing on. The gasket I have between the lower housing and engine block seems to not be correct. See below:

View attachment 1843275
It looks to be for a different truck. The lower part of it seems to drop below the housing. Is this the way it is supposed to fit or should it follow the lines of the housing? Part number I have for it is 16343-61020. Any help appreciated.

Your parts guy got you the wrong gasket.

He made a mistake.

He will get you the correct one.

 

[John McVicker]

That's not the correct gasket. It may work, may not. If you can find the correct gasket, that would be best, otherwise just take that gasket to NAPA or any GOOD auto parts store and buy a sheet of like material gasket material and make your own gasket. Simple job.

Regarding the moving of the clamp...I would get it done some how or the other. W/o being there it's just speculation on what is the best way. But it's not rocket science...you can do it.

And you are correct, completely undoing that clamp will likely ruin it. Can you loosen it enough to reposition it in a better way?

 

[Gretsch]

That's not the correct gasket. It may work, may not. If you can find the correct gasket, that would be best, otherwise just take that gasket to NAPA or any GOOD auto parts store and buy a sheet of like material gasket material and make your own gasket. Simple job.

Regarding the moving of the clamp...I would get it done some how or the other. W/o being there it's just speculation on what is the best way. But it's not rocket science...you can do it.

And you are correct, completely undoing that clamp will likely ruin it. Can you loosen it enough to reposition it in a better way?

I can loosen it and swing it around, but it then it runs into the bigger hose above it as well as placing the bolt head of the clamp in even closer proximity to the belt. It does not really give any better access doing that either. If I swing it around the opposite way then I cannot get at the bolt head at all. The right thing to do is to take the pipe off and flip the clamp around so its oriented with the mechanism on the opposite side and the bolt head then facing front of the truck if that makes sense. Its just oriented opposite of what might work better. This is the lower oil cooler pipe that comes off the WP. I know the photo does not illustrate the whole of the problem and as you said its not that big an engineering issue. I can get access to the clamp to tighten/loosen it now without too much fuss so as long as it won't interfere with the belt I am debating whether I want to go through the headache of removing this pipe to change the orientation of the clamp. I know access will be more difficult with the radiator/fan shroud in but I think its still workable. I cannot see what maintenance you would be able to do on this clamp/hose without getting fan shroud out of the way to do it anyway. As you know this area is super busy place on a 2F with oil cooler. I know you can slice the shroud in half to gain better access but I am not inclined to do that at this point. Maybe somewhere down the road I'll get sick of taking it out all the time and may do it but for now I am keeping it OEM.

It seems I'll be in a holding pattern until I can get the gasket for the thermo housing, so I'll debate if I want to go through the pipe removal process in the meantime. Just to be clear, you can get the lower oil cooler pipe off the timing cover studs without removing the main water pipe/hose directly above it. I think so but thought I would ask. Not as easy but doable right? Thanks John and others for the help.

 

[John McVicker]

You are correct about being able to get the lower pipe off as you describe. It's not easy, but yes you can get it done.

Have not read all your thread...but make DOUBLE sure every hose you are working on is brand new. And your call about removing that clamp or not. It 'would' be best...but but almost 6 of one & 1/2 dozen of the other.

 

[Gretsch]

OK thanks. Yeah all hoses are new OEM from my parts guy. I am sure taking them on and off of pipes is not the greatest thing for them so also weighing the benefits of doing this in terms of hose life.

 

[John McVicker]

Taking the hoses on & off? Unless you were Jack the Ripper, I would not sweat it.