Forum Charity Project - Feisty the Festy in Oklahoma

[kumalaba]

you the man mark!

[FB71]

This is the worst part of rebuilding a head because it takes forever to get a B3 head clean on the exhaust side. I figure it will need at least 2 more cycles of Power Dissolver and then we can get on to the fun stuff

x several billion!!!!

I have a small sand blaster, and run some play sand thru the exhaust ports. Does a good job of removing most of the crud.

[Zanzer]

^^ GREAT idea!

I have a small self contained hand held blaster that has an attached reservoir that would work perfect for this! I use Dawn Power Dissolver and it does an excellent job on 90% of the carbon. Just spray it down and let it soak for about 30 minutes and it peels the carbon off like using paint stripper. But that last 10% is TOUGH. Sounds like the blaster may be just the trick to finish it off :thumbright:

I'll try it today and report back later

[Larry Hampton]

Maybe the reason for the gap is..... THE LACK OF GASKET?!?


THIS IS NOT A HONDA!!!


A/C no workie.... wonder why?!?

[Larry Hampton]

Uh-oh, I think the head may be a rebuilt head, it looks "new". I checked the bolts holding the rocker shafts down, they all felt pretty snug. I didn't pull them to see if they're in the right order. I need to check the timing yet. Anything else?

Also, the inside of the intake was black, bad PCV valve? The inside of the plastic intake tube that comes off the throttle body had oil in it.

[festfull]

I warned you about the PCV valve. With the valve stopped up it will cause oil through the valve cover in to the intake tube.

[Larry Hampton]

Yeah, I'm thinking thats the blue smoke, likely not bad guides. But I'm not sure about the ticking noise. It does it whether the clutch pedal is pushed down or not, so I'm thinking its nothing there. The sound eminates more from the driver's side of the engine. I guess I could do a compression check as well.

[Zanzer]

That's a darn clean head man. Maybe check to make sure the rocker shafts haven't been swapped which would starve them of oil and contribute to the ticking noise.

I'd do a compression check just for good measure. You can tell a lot about a motor by hooking up a vacuum gauge to it as well

If the ticking is just a dirty or clogged HLA, I can sonic clean them and see if the noise goes away

I warned you about the PCV valve. With the valve stopped up it will cause oil through the valve cover in to the intake tube.

Also, how dirty is the underside of the valve cover? If the baffle is clogged with crud it won't be able to vent to the PCV.

x several billion!!!!

I have a small sand blaster, and run some play sand thru the exhaust ports. Does a good job of removing most of the crud.

Tried this today. Awesome tip Jim! It worked very well! The only drawback: my profuse sweating and all the sand flying. I felt like a piece of chicken that was being breaded for the deep fryer LOL

Maybe this is a good excuse for me to pick up that blasting cabinet I've been wanting for a while

[Larry Hampton]

Would pushing down on the tips indicate stuck HLAs? Would a feeler gauge indicate anything?

I didn't pull the baffle, but it doesn't appear to be coked up. I don't have a vacuum gauge.

But my gut feeling says hold up on shipping the head. It might just end up needing rockers or something.

[Zanzer]

^^ Yup, sometimes you can do the "push test" where you push down on them to see if any of the rockers feel spongy or have slack in them. A feeler gauge is more for solid lift cars but I don't see why you couldn't try sliding a thin one ender each HLA to verify zero lash.


Awww man, everyone needs an old school vacuum gauge Seriously though, you can pick one up for less than 15 bucks at Harbor Freight and it's a great quick check to help diagnose an engines condition and can indicate things like leaky valves, leaky manifolds, worn rings, incorrect timing, and all kinds of other neat stuff :thumbup:

[blkfordsedan]

You should be able to feel any spongy or week HLA's by pushing on the valve end of the rocker. Just make sure you crank the engine over so that the valve(s) is closed and the rocker is resting on the base circle of the cam lobe when you check. If the rocker pad is even slightly on a lobe the HLA will feel hard, even if it's weak.

[Larry Hampton]

Okay, I had to take the family on a mini vacation this weekend, thought I'd get to the car today, as I was taking the week off, but I had to go in to finish up a project, so I got several other things out of my way.

It looks like the HLA's on the intake side, #2 & #3 are sticky or something. #3 could take a 0.010" feeler, but #2 took 0.050"!! So that's the rattle at the top end. I think the oil is a bad PCV. With the head being rebuilt, I dont think the seal would be bad. I need to pull the timing cover off to check the timing, and to put a gasket on it. I'm wondering if that Festy is still at PAP. I could have the thing running tomorrow if I could get some rockers off it.

[Zanzer]

^^ Yup, .010 it too much and .050 is definitely too much. You can source the HLA's from other cars as well, like 323's, Tracers, pretty much anything with a B6. I'm sure there's others and I remember seeing a list on here somewhere.

If you can't find any locally, I can send you a rebuilt set and you can just send me hers for cores.

[Larry Hampton]

So do I just get the whole rocker body?

I could pull mine off my blue car. Then maybe either find or swap the two with you. Could also throw my PCV on there to see if that stops the smoking.

[Zanzer]

^^It would be a little easier to pull the whole rocker rail and it's the same as a B3 so you'd have some spare rails, springs, and rockers if you only use the HLA's out of them. Or you can take a pair of pliers or channel locks and just pull the lash adjusters out to the rocker. If the engine is clean they usually come out easily.

You can swap in your rocker rails if you know they're good and have no "click". That would verify if it's the fix and buy you some time to either find some replacement HLA's or for us to do the swap.

A new PCV is only a couple bucks so I'd just install a new one instead of a used one. Plus it eliminates a variable.