Return of the "Spare Engine" for Willa Dean

I too like get threads prepped and cleaned such that the male/female threads work in blissful harmony. I have a Lang metric thread tool kit for the German and Italian cars I‘ve worked on - a bit less aggressive on threads than taps/dies, and will get an SAE set for all the TLC I’ll be bestowing on Tom1956’s former 1957 Pickup. I have a very old, Made in USA bench mounted G.E. electric motor my wife’s Grandad* left to me, with a shaft set up for a 5/8” center wire brush … I use it constantly for fastener cleaning. I’m not a fan of bead blasting threaded fasteners.

* Grandad Pollard was from Kansas and in the 1950’s/60’ drove a Willys Wagon. Dunno if it was 2- or 4WD, wish he was around so I could ask him!

John
 
I haven't stopped, only slowed to a fast crawl......

Still on fasteners. Last batch was the little ones that hold on the oil pan. There was lots of old silicone stuff on them (and everywhere else on all gasket surfaces). Really glued stuff together.

1000008945.jpg

Takes a long time to get from this -

1000008931.jpg

To this -

1000008952.jpg
All "tapped and die-ed" of course. Still working on the receiving holes on the bottom of the block....
 
A new favorite way of setting up the tappets! Turn the engine on its side, tappet opening upward. Remove crankshaft and everything else except cam and valve train.

1000008988.jpg

No more wondering if the cam lobe is REALLY all the way off the valve stem! Haha!

1000008989.jpg

Rotate and do the next one. Whole job takes 5 minutes.

Of course, there's that part about removing the crankshaft and everything else........
 
Oh I hear you on the finger tips and gloves. I start off soaking everything in gasoline to remove the wax and gunk. I don't need my wire wheel flinging that junk all over the place.

I will grip the bolt head in a pair of vice grips and spin on the nut tight up to the head. Wire wheel with the direction so the nut does not spin off and clean up all sides of the nut. With the bolt head still gripped, spin off the nut and clean up the bolt threads. Now that the threads are clean I can hold them in my fingers and clean up the bolt head. By doing the bolt head last, the wire wheel removes any bur from the vice grip jaws impressed into the opposite faces.

You may even want to grind off the checkering or ribbed jaw surfaces and have one vice grips with relatively smooth jaws dedicated to nut and bolt clean-up.
 
From the link I posted with the pic above, copied here for your convenience. Yer on yer own recruiting the G.I.s.
9 prep steps for tilting your rig:

1. Drain the fuel tank and run the engine until the carb is dry.
2. Drain the engine oil, transmission and transfer case lube. (He didn’t drain the radiator, but notes he probably should have. It didn’t leak but caused a problem when he had to remove it later.)
3. Remove or drain the oil bath air cleaner.
4. Remove the battery.
5. Remove the passenger seat since it can pivot free.
6.Remove or restrain anything else that could come free.
7.Inflate the “downhill” tires to max pressure since they must support the vehicle weight on an angle while the tip is in progress.
8. Fit some 2×4′s between the engine block and “downhill” frame rail so the engine mounts wouldn’t shift.
9. Chain the engine to the frame so the mounts wouldn’t let loose.
 
I've been distracted the past few days, because of some new things going on (vehicles) here, and some resulting changes. That's all a long story, for another thread, when I get caught up... (HA!)

But today, I finally got back to this engine for a while. I was anxious to see how the oil pump looked inside - to see if there was anything visible there which might give any clue about what caused the spun bearing problem. But it was all normal inside - eveything all "in spec."

1000009278.jpg

Then, back to the Block... I finished up cleaning out the bores, from that recent honing - and masked off the block, while we're having warm (50°) sunny weather. Got it all cleaned up, and got it painted.

1000009276.jpg

I also got paint on several other parts - filler tube, timing cover, tappet cover, etc. Time permitting, I'll get the cylinder head and some other stuff painted tomorrow, after the turkey.

Why silver? I don't know.... I like the look better than black. I was going to paint it dark green, but The Bride told me to use silver again. And @JABJEEP once said he liked the look. Good enough!

The Machine Shop called this afternoon, too, and the crank is now turned and ready. I'll pick that up on Friday.
 
Last edited:
I've been distracted the past few days, because of some new things going on (vehicles) here, and some resulting changes. That's all a long story, for another thread, when I get caught up... (HA!)

But today, I finally got back to this engine for a while. I was anxious to see how the oil pump looked inside - to see if there was anything visible there which might give any clue about what caused the spun bearing problem. But it was all normal inside - eveything all "in spec."

View attachment 130487

Then, back to the Block... I finished up cleaning out the bores, from that recent honing - and masked off the block, while we're having warm (50°) sunny weather. Got it all cleaned up, and got it painted.

View attachment 130488

I also got paint on several other parts - filler tube, timing cover, tappet cover, etc. Time permitting, I'll get the cylinder head and some other stuff painted tomorrow, after the turkey.

Why silver? I don't know.... I like the look better than black. I was going to paint it dark green, but The Bride told me to use silver again. And @JABJEEP once said he liked the look. Good enough!

The Machine Shop called this afternoon, too, and the crank is now turned and ready. I'll pick that up on Friday.
Hey Don. Jeff mentioned you were able to get the inside galley plugs out of your motor. One of mine is a slotted screw type and doesn’t want to move. Any thoughts. Here is a pic of the one 5A672A8B-C6E2-4C88-BDC2-6103544A10F9.jpeg
 
Why silver? I don't know.... I like the look better than black. I was going to paint it dark green, but The Bride told me to use silver again. And @JABJEEP once said he liked the look. Good enough!
How ironic. I was admiring the silver color before I read the above. I was also wondering if that was the stock color.
 
An old machine shop owner buddy of mine taught me the trick of heating the plug up and touching a small candle to the plug. The heat will draw the wax down into the threads and you can almost back them out by hand (well, that's the theory!) It does help a lot.
 
See? We need one for the engine. Collect the whole series, engines, transmission, differentials, heck maybe with enough pre-orders the manufacturer might print Fixing Rusty Door Bottoms shirts?
Then we could insert them in the re-prints for of factory service manuals and actually have useful, readable part/assembly diagrams.
 
Back
Top