1999 Air Tique: Engine work

Going to be posting up some stuff about what i did to the motor on the air tique i picked up last summer. As all my projects go, this will take more time than i thought, but i have until April to get it done. My garage is packed full of stuff so i have about 40sq feet of working space which is tough. I also have a 8 month old so i have to take a lot of breaks

I picked up a weiand stealth intake and some gt40p heads. I decided not to change out the cam, and may pick up a DUI distributor in the future. As of now i just want to make sure i didn't turn this engine into a giant paperweight before i put more into it.

I am bad at taking pictures, so they will be sporadic and added in later.

Day 1: Pulled out the motor and trans as one unit. This was a lot easier than pulling car motors. I pulled the 4 bolts from the shaft, and the 8 bolts holding the motor mounts, disconnected the wires/fuel lines/exhaust and out it came. This took me about 4-5 hours taking my time and taking breaks. I didnt take pics, but will when it is going back in. After the motor was out the first thing i did was tear out that catch pan that was sitting under the motor. Working on anything around the motor i would hit my hands on that and i had enough.

Day 2: Next came pulling the manifolds off. There were 4 bolts that basically didn't have a head left on them. The other 12 took some time to slowly tap an allen wrench into them, put a pipe on the wrench and then break them free. Then came these 4.

I got my air cut-off out and started with that, About 10 minutes i realized it wasn't going to work because the guard was getting in the way. Got the air grinder out and about 2 hours later i had made some progress. After that i decided to just take the guard off the cut-off and finish them out. I was left with 4 studs sticking out of the old heads. Even though i wasn't going to be using them, i decided to pull them to see how bad they were. One i could unscrew by hand, the other 3 i put a set of vise grips on and got them out. The manifolds, as with everything on this motor were heavier than i thought they would be. I have to imagine they are 50-60 pounds each, maybe more.

Day 3: Then i pulled the motor mounts, intake, heads, and some front accessories. I decided it sucked working on a motor hanging from a cherry picker so i pulled the trans and picked up an engine stand. That night i brought the intake in the house and set it on the kitchen table. My wife was not happy, but i got away with it. I pulled the tstat housing and carb and made sure everything fit on the new intake. I also let the old drain over night.

Day 4: I began the day off by bringing the set of gt40p heads inside and got them on the kitchen table before my wife got up. A few hours later I got my wife and daughter in the truck and we headed to harbor freight to pick up some drill bits. I am doing this as cheap as possible, so i decided to drill the heads by hand. 20 holes didn't seem like it would be bad. About 4-5 hours later i had them all drilled out. My drill and arms took a serious beating, but it worked out good. I had to step the holes up a 16th at a time. Again, my wife was rather impressed with me doing this on the kitchen table so she left with my CC to run some errands. I got to work where it was warm and she got out of the house for a few hours. I took the heads out to the garage and cleaned them up and test fit them on the block. A couple of the bolts are a little tight, so i didnt get them all perfect, but it is going to, or should, work.

Day 3-5: Grinding rust and paint. I would grind a little at a time of the rust and old paint off. My compressor would wake the baby up and i would get yelled at and have to shut it down. On day 5 i started in the morning and spent about 4 hours grinding and another 2 de-greeseing the engine. I though all the oil had drained, and found it really odd that there was only 3 quarts in the motor. I pulled the drain hose off the pan, then immediately rolled the engine on the stand to get to another side. Turns out all the oil didnt drain and i got about a quart on the garage floor. I started to put some new paint on the engine and t stat housing. I am horrible at painting, but as long as i get it all covered and the rust removed i will be happy.

My vacation is over so i will have a few hours during the week and a few each weekend to work on the motor. I will keep updating as i go. Once the motor is done i need to work on other parts.

-There is a shower that no longer works so i will be removing all of that.
-The heater also doesn't work, but i will be fixing/replacing that
-The blower doesnt work and needs to
-The electrical is iffy at best and needs to be reworked

The more work i do the more i realize how bad this boat was hacked together and neglected. For $2k i am still happy for a boat that floats and runs. I do things on the cheap, but try not to cut every corner possible.

brantb wrote: Day 4: I began the day off by bringing the set of gt40p heads inside and got them on the kitchen table before my wife got up. A few hours later I got my wife and daughter in the truck and we headed to harbor freight to pick up some drill bits. I am doing this as cheap as possible, so i decided to drill the heads by hand. 20 holes didn't seem like it would be bad. About 4-5 hours later i had them all drilled out. My drill and arms took a serious beating, but it worked out good. I had to step the holes up a 16th at a time. Again, my wife was rather impressed with me doing this on the kitchen table so she left with my CC to run some errands. I got to work where it was warm and she got out of the house for a few hours. I took the heads out to the garage and cleaned them up and test fit them on the block. A couple of the bolts are a little tight, so i didnt get them all perfect, but it is going to, or should, work.

I want to see a picture of your kitchen table

Did you really mean to say that you drilled out the heads 1/64th of an inch at a time?

The original 302 holes only had to be drilled out to 17/32 of an inch. From the original size 1/16 just once would have done it.

8122pbrainard wrote: Harbor Freight drill press $69.99

I know it's probably obvious, but that's the kitchen table model

Here is a bad pic of what i was starting with:


One of the heads on the table. I did think ahead and put down a towel at least.


After a couple light coats. I know i probably should have taped more off, but the majority of the overspray will get wire brushed off.


Me deciding what drill bits i should get:


I really do need to take more photos of this process. Tonight i will grab a couple more and get them up.

Also, checking the cutlass bearing is a great idea. I will have to do some research as to what to actually look for. I know the shaft doesnt have much, if any, play so i would assume it is still good.

8122pbrainard wrote: Josh, I don't see a problem drilling them yourself since they are not a precision locator of the head position. I do recommend a drill press and sharpening the drill bit for cast iron.

8122pbrainard wrote: Here's a picture. Basically the cutting edge is ground to a 0 degree rake. "dulled" See the flat on the cutting edge in the K picture.

Question for anyone who can provide some insight after a little backstory.

I put a head on to check the push rods and rockers. From 0 lash all 8 rockers took 1-1.25 turns to get to 20ft-lbs. The lifters took a while to compress and it was actually opening the valves, not adding preload. We went out for dinner and when we got back i checked and the lifters were now compressed and the valves were good. The majority of what i read says .25-1 turn, with most looking for .25-.75.

Put the old heads on assuming these had had been decked. Seller said no, but you never know. Exact same thing with the factory heads, ranging from 1-1.25 turns to get to 20 ft-lbs.

So is this actually fine?
Does the factory just have *************** tolerances?
Do they not really check and just torque the rockers down at the factory?
Are the lifters bad? How do they operate at say 3k rpms when it is taking minutes for them to compress in the garage? Is it that the remaining oil is 20* vs 190* at operating temp?

I am going to check where exactly the rocker is contacting the valve stem. If i can get away with shimming the rockers i will do that if it is needed. Otherwise shorter pushrods i guess which i would prefer not to do.

New Lifters are shipped full of stoddard solvent not oil. They will compress much easier than a used lifter with oil in it. As soon as this engine starts the stoddard solvent will be replaced by engine oil and your lifters will all self adjust as needed.

A hydraulic lifer has about .120 total adjustment built into it.     Assuming your threads are 24 per inch, fine thread you will get about 3 turns total top to bottom of lifter travel from zero lash till the lifter piston is bottomed out.

With Non adjustable lifers you install them and torque them, each one will feel different as you torque them because your cam lobes are all in unique positions. That is normal.
Take them down slow to proper torque and move on.

Brant

You'll probably find that the shadetree method works pretty well with all stock components

Since there's a range of preload like from .020 to .060 inches, you don't need each one exactly the same and the hydraulic lifter compensates for any small differences.

What you described above in your post is what happens with lifters that haven't been bled down before doing the job.

Your stock Ford fulcrum bolts are 5/16-18 so MrMcD's math isn't too accurate in this case. I think he's trying to make a Ford into a Chevy again

Here's an old thread in the link with some discussion

Not knowing anything about the previous history of your heads, it wouldn't hurt to check so you know what you have

link

May be silly of me to ask, but did you put all the lifters back in their original holes so you won't have to worry about killing the cam/lifters if they didn't go back in the same spots?

What thickness head gasket are you using as compared to the original, since that will affect things also?

Since this sounds like a "test fit" did you have the head torqued to 105 ft lbs for these checks?

It's one of those easy but complicated jobs

Time for more silly questions, but better now than later

80 pounds compression is "not too good" even for someone at 5000 to 6000 feet like you are and the quote below from an earlier post says you're gonna check the bottom end, so did you do anything to figure out why the compression was low before taking things apart? ...........or are you just hoping everything is good and maybe putting together an engine that will still have low compression?

You also mentioned the couple of freeze/core/casting plugs that weren't put in too good, now's a good time to take care of them.

Was that big catch tray catching any oil leaks like maybe from a rear main seal or anything like that? Now would be the time to take care of that too

brantb wrote: Plans for the winter: -pull motor and that damn tray under it -gt40p heads -performer or other intake -cam/lifters, maybe new pushrods -roller rockers? -DUI distributor -check the bottom end and clean everything up After that fire it up on the hose and make sure everything seems good. Then, -rebuild/replace carb -redo wiring -replace heater -if time/money allows tear up carpet and sea deck the floor

brantb wrote: Once i get that done i will bold up the bellhousing and starter and test the compression on the stand. What should SBFs of this era be at?

If you search here on CCF, you'll see all kinds of numbers from different people, with different gauges, different test conditions like hot or cold, freshly charged battery, throttle wide open or "oops, I forgot that step", freshly oiled up rings/cylinders, different altitudes.

Since you're at 5000 feet, your numbers will be 15 % lower than at sea level, so randomly saying 125 psi at sea level for a reasonably healthy used 20 year old low compression (like 8,3 to 1 or so) engine would translate to about 105 psi. That would be without squirting any oil in the cylinders)

For your condition right now, look for consistency in the readings with about a 10% variation being normal

Whatever you get, somebody will probably tell you it's not good enough, but like you said, it ran decently before you took it apart

Also for your "other condition", once you get to be a certain age, you're always worried that you might be too far from the toilet

PS ................I think I'd have the distributor in place too so the oil pump will work during the cranking

If you are in the middle of a project and your garage is spotless, you probably aren’t doing much.