Pepe blew his head gasket. Suggestions.

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I think they are ready to blow the thing up with all the noise I have been making the last couple weeks.

So I am hoping to finish the head gasket job sometime next week (week of April 6th) depending on Noah's availability...so if anyone else has a day off and interested in helping that would be awesome. I would really love to have a third knowledgeable person check out the bottom end of the engine before starting with the re-build back up. I'm finally finished cleaning up and painting everything....that wire wheel is a bitch when it kicks back! The painted stuff looks killer.

I am going to get some steel braided oil lines from Spector with my order and try to get those on there this week. I am also going to replace 8 of my head bolts because the look a little questionable....I'm not sure that a couple of these didn't back out and cause the leak. Gonna try to fix the oil leak between the two casing halves on my Bellview winch while it's off.

The one thing I still need that I'm not sure Spector will have is this heater valve #10. It is listed as unavailable on their website. I have the block section I just need the threaded secondary piece with the heater hose outlet. I don't really care about having a quick twist shut off and it seems like there should be some sort of easier replacement than an old used part. Anyone modified theirs that works good? I started a thread in the 40 section for it and a couple other pieces, found everything except this piece.

Still kind of holding off on the final Spector order until I hear back about my head. Just don't want to pay their shipping rate and then find out the next day I have to drive up there to pick up a refurbished head.
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1973Guppie said:
chris, go to a good hardware store and try to find something with the right size nipple and thread that will fit in there, you should be able to figure something out......
Click to expand...

Is what I'm thinking too. Not a unique part that has to be OEM.

If matt goes on the 4th he is bring his nabor, so no extra seat there.:meh:
 
No worries, might ride in the back seat of Doms rig. Found a replacement for the heater hose tree at Marshall hardware of Miramar Rd. Best hardware store I have been in, they have everything. The part was still kind of hard to find since it needed and 3/8 inverted thread. I guess I could have just bypassed the block piece and found something that goes straight out of the block to the hose but the piece I found should work pretty good.

Still waiting on the head....good news is it doesn't sound like it is cracked. Got the steel braided oil lines yesterday. I am a little hesitant to install them until I get the head back since they are so short. I guess they will fit since everything is still stock but they definitely seem short. Also the little banjo bolt on the one end has a really tiny inlet hole.

See you fxxxers mananna.
 
So I got the radiator, shroud and fan all painted and back in. Lower block is painted, intake manifold cleaned up, front frame painted, all new radiator hoses, heater painted with new core and restore kit back in, all new heater hoses put in and ready for the head, axels painted, new thermostat and gaskets put together. Going to pick the head up this morning and get some paint on it.

Great seeing everyone this weekend, I'll try to get a few pictures I took up today.
 
Looks like Fri April 10th gonna try to get everything back on here. Picking up and painting the head today so should be plenty of time to cure before throwing it back on. I'm also going to Marshalls hardware today to pick up some hard to find bolts for my old Bellview winch to try to stop an oil leak between the two case halves and also install a drain plug....realy stoked the case is totally full of gear oil, that stuff smells great!
 
Hey Chris, sounds like you are doing a great job on the rig. Should be looking as good as it will be running once you get it all back together. Post up some more pics of the reassembly and all of your hard work so all of us can see. We're all eagerly wanting to see how it turns out.
 
So we got a little held up on getting my truck back together but are planning to finish it Fri April 24th. If anyone is free that day and would like to help out that would be awesome. I will treat you to a great lunch and some beer. Can't wait to get this thing back together, the weather has been too nice lately to be driving my commuter car.
 
So my truck is back up and running great. Thanks to Noah and Brett for helping out. Gotta say I was a little hung over on Sat but finished up the job. Major ugh oh was when I wired the distributor backwards for the first fire up. Crank, crank, crank...KABOOM! Sounded like a 12 gauge shot gun went off.....and I had to go change my underwear. So loud I thought the neighbors were going to call the police to say someone had been shot. Reversed the wiring and it fired right up. Smoked like hell with all the new gaskets for a couple minutes. Temp, oil pressure, idle all good. I haven't really pushed it too hard but it definitely feels more powerful. Thanks again everyone for all the help. So glad to have my truck back.
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Thanks! No, I thought I knew how it went. I numbered it but forgot if I numbered from the front back or back front. Wrong guess, lesson learned.
 
Beautiful!
 
That red wing nut on your aircleaner just pushes it over the top!! Glad to see that it's back together and better yet-glad you decided to do the job yourself :clap:

Tim:steer:
 
Thanks, couldn't have done it without your help! Power is great but I haven't really gotten on it super hard yet.
Having some small leak issues with the new radiator hoses but expect those to clear up. Don't these hoses basically seal better to their contact surface once they get hot enough. I tightened all of them up except for the very lower radiator contact...which is the one I think is really leaking. The hose clamp is being blocked by the fan shroud so I just can't get to it...doh. Worst case senario I will wait till I change the coolant in another 40 miles or so then tackle it. Also my aftermarket Sunpro water temp sensor is weaping a little out of the top. I've had this problem before and I'm not sure the metal seal at the top of the sensor isn't cracked. Might be time to switch out to Autometer? One thing I didn't realize until I tackled this job was how shallow that inlet is so with the guage thread, mounting thread, and the metric adapter all having to fit and seal...it has to be just right. Super PITA.

Besides those little issues, which I will work out soon, the truck is running great. The new heater gets crazy hot...stinks from all the new paint but it works great.
 
Thanks Tim, the wing nut is color matched with the fan blade. :) I had a s*** load of red paint left over from trying to find a spray paint match for my body color so I could paint my bows on the cheap.
 
So after getting everything back together and running the truck for a couple days I noticed I was still having a little intake leak on deceleration. I was having this same problem before the HG job. We finally narrowed this down to decel when braking and eventurally to rough idle when braking. Bad brake booster. I got a rebuilt OEM from Booster Dewey and it fixed the problem. Perfect idle and no more popping on decel. Glad I swapped this out now because a booster leak supposedly leads to burnt exhaust valves in 5 & 6 which would definitely suck since I just got the valve re-grind.
 
nice.....

starting to sound like a pro there Chris!

:)

one note: you may want to recheck your master cylinder, if it starts leaking again or is leaking out the back of it, it could ruin your booster all over again, if the master is an older one, I usually replace it along with the slave cylinder.....
 
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Just found this thread, It was great meeting you and cant wait to make it down there sometime for some Dago wheeling The Cruiser looks Great
 
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