LocostUSA.com

Hmmm, followed by pulling the heads? While you have it apart you might as well. Just to be sure none of those piston thingies got banged up. You don't want to be blowing smoke rings out the crankcase breather on your next race day. A leak-down test doesn't foretell the future.

_________________
Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."
Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52

Awwwww, mannnn.... Pull the heads... I was afraid somebody would say that. Thought had crossed my mind too. Earl said wait for the test results, then maybe.

But ya know, smoke rings would be kinda cool... If only I could just learn to direct them, like Gandalf. Make 'em fly circles around the timing trailer... That'd be EPIC!!!

Good advice, Tom... Thank you.

JDK

_________________
JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

.... and?

It's been too cold to work there. It's been down in the 70's for days on end and who can work in that kind of weather without getting frostbite and losing toes, fingers, ears and what not?

_________________
mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.

My Goodness, that's tragic, the poor fellow!

Maybe we can give to help out? I can send 2 pair of long underwear (floral) from my last winter, never worn for more than 4 days straight.

Okay, I know this is a car site, but we're talking about a different kind of skid marks here!

_________________
Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/

well at least the crank isn't broken!

my guess to why the distributor gear on the cam is that the cam walked forward.

what make is that cam gear set?

if the gear is o.k. and the timing chain is good, you could buy a cam bushing kit and drill out the hole in the gear to suit the bushing, then you could adjust the cam timing with different off-set bushings.

if you are running the stock water pump with a tin back cover, you could cut a large hole in the timing cover behind the water pump, put a thread on the inside of the bushing and slip them in and out with a bolt just by removing the water pump and removing the center bolt, but don't forget to add a dab of rtv to the vent slot at the bottom of the timing cover where the water pomp fits on, this will make timing changes quick and easy instead of using a three key-way crank sprocket.

as far as locking the bolt in position, get a fuel pump eccentric and drill a hole in the side lip and drill the bolt, the eccentric and washer that fits inside it will hold the dowel in place and will provide something for the locking wire to attach to, this is far too critical for a chemical lock.

a little about ford blocks and valve to piston clearance, the crank is probably not in the center of the block unless you have had the machining done to correct this, so don't just rely on #1 cylinder giving a good reading with play doh, do them all.

i lost a 351 windsor engine about a year ago when #2 cylinder touched valve to piston, it was a hell of a mess, broke the valve spring, dropped the valve which demolished the piston, the beautiful H beam rod and fully floating wrist pin smashed the block to hell, broke the cam and the lifters fell down and damaged the stroker crank.
the root cause was probably due to lifter pump up at high revs and not checking all the cylinders for clearance.

clearance should be checked with a solid lifter, not with hydraulic lifters and light checking springs as you still can't ensure that the lifter is fully extended.

you can make a solid lifter by brasing up a hydraulic lifter.

cam timing, i would normally set it at 3 degrees advanced as the chain will stretch and timing will back out with use, if you check your valve/piston clearances, do it at 6 degrees advanced and retarded on inlet and exhaust with a used head gasket.

you can cheat a little with thicker gaskets if it is too close but compression will suffer slightly, if i remember correctly the standard is .040 compressed thickness.

just some thoughts from an old fool!

glad you found the problem.

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

PICTURES or it didn't happen!
Good to hear from you, CR. While you and David have been swapping underwear, I was kinda busy my-own-self. Work stuff, taking care of TWWTFM who has her foot in a cast at the moment after ankle surgery, and that whole "Grand Parent" thing.

How-some-ever, I did manage to order a leakdown tester from Amazon.com. Truthfully, TWWTFM ordered it, I only looked over her shoulder. And when it came in, it was the wrong one. All the spark plug adapters were metric, none of them fit the cylinder heads on my car.

But, we were able to mix-n-match adapters between my leakdown tester and Earl's compression tester, which DID have the right size fitting to match up with the Ford spark plug threads. I hooked everything up and tried cylinders 3 and 4 first, because they had seemed to be entirely TOO hot at a track event in November. Lo and Behold, the results were surprisingly good.The way this particular set of gauges works is the input pressure is on the left. There's a knob under it that you turn to raise/lower the pressure sent to the cylinder. The gauge on the right is the pressure IN the cylinder. There's a chart to look up the leakdown percent based on the two numbers. In this case, I called the input pressure 90 and the cylinder pressure 89. That equates to 1% leakdown, barely. Cylinder 3 showed pretty much the same.

I did cylinder 3 again, just to make sure I was seeing it right (and doing the test right), and using 85 pound input I got 84 cylinder. Looked good, again.

I did all 8 of the little boogers. Every one of them showed 1 to 1.5 lb difference. All of those numbers equate to 1% leakdown. Additionally, I didn't hear any hiss of escaping air. The test was done with the intake and headers off the engine, so if there was air coming out, it should have made a noise I could hear.

So, I'm rather pleased with those results... Guess I passed the leakdown test. And I didn't even stay up late studying!

Now I just have to pick an opportune moment to discuss a new cam, set of pushrods, timing gears and various odds and ends with TWWTFM. "Honey, I need to put about 600 bucks on the credit card..."

In other words, stay tuned, there might be a fireworks show later...


JDK

_________________
JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

That's great news, JD. For gents our age, passing a leakdown test is a major accomplishment

_________________
Cheers, Tom

My Car9 build: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14613
"It's the construction of the car-the sheer lunacy and joy of making diverse parts come together and work as one-that counts."
Ultima Spyder, Northstar 4.0, Porsche G50/52

That tells your your ring seal is good, you have no bent valves, and no holes in the piston tops.

And the engine's in good shape too!

_________________
***************
Geek49203 aka
Tim Wohlford
Louisville, KY
Hayes front, S10 +2 rear, Lalo body.

Oh thank God you 'splained that. Me and Bubba was all confuzed!


JDK

_________________
JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

Mr. H- Thank you for your information and insight. I'm running behind at work and probably won't have time to read and understand your entire comment this morning. What I'm going to do today is print it out and take it out to the shop where I can look at the pieces/parts you're talking about and think on what I want to do this time around.


JD

_________________
JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

Hey, at my age I've got a few leaking seals....

_________________
***************
Geek49203 aka
Tim Wohlford
Louisville, KY
Hayes front, S10 +2 rear, Lalo body.

well you seem to have better luck than me there JD,

if that had happened to me, the timing chain would have cut its way out of the timing cover, zipped over the top of the engine smashing the carb which would then burst into flames and continued back to sever my jugular.

lucky b'stard, (to use the french term)

_________________
this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.