67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

[Joe L.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Patrick,

Did you use any kind of sealant on the surfaces before tightening down the screws without gaskets? Thanks.

Kirk

Kirk------


Not only is sealer not necessary if the exhaust manifold surface is flat, there's no commonly available sealer that's going to withstand the temperature at the manifold-cylinder head interface for very long.

[Kirk M.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Nope, nothing. Go naked.

Just be sure to use the correct bolts to install the manifolds and torque them correctly.

Patrick

Always wanted to drive naked

Kirk

[Jim T.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Ok, almost everything went ok. About noon, I threw my sweatshirt across the garage knocking the distributor cap off the table and breaking one of the towers. $70.00 of stupidity. We used Fel-Pro gaskets for the heads and sides of the intake manifold and then the gasket in a tube for the front and back of the intake manifold. We also used exhaust gaskets. I know they aren't correct, but I drive my car a lot and didn't want to have to worry about leaks. I will loose a few points there.

One strange thing we encounter once we had everything back together (see pics below) was that after we filled the coolant back up and test fired the engine to set the rockers, we had coolant come squirting out of one of the valve cover bolt holes on the driver side head. I guess the hole must have been buggered and they drilled it out to fix it and went all the way through to the core allowing coolant to flow out. The valve cover screw prevents any leaking, but I am thinking of using a set screw and some sealant to permanently fix the leak and then put the valve cover screw back in. What do you think?

To set the rockers, I turned the engine a single shot while by buddy adjusted each rocker. Once we had them about there, we fired the engine up, backed them off a bit and then re-set them all. Seemed to work well. We had marked where the distributor was when we removed it, but clicking the engine over to adjust the rockers changed all that. So, we re-set the distributor to a best guess spot and fired her up. She started but chugged her way along. We eventually figured out we were two clicks off. Once we got the distributor set the engine purred right along.

Very long day, but not bad to totally tear the intake manifold, heads, and exhaust manifolds off and then re-install a new set of heads. Installation took way longer than I thought it would. I also have an AC car, so passenger side work was cramped by the compressor and bracket. All in all a good days work and now I can enjoy the early warm weather!

No comments about my table. I'm a bit of an organization freak and wanted everything at hand and ready to go

Kirk when I installed my bought new ZZ1 350 crate engine with aluminum heads in my 1970 back in 1992 I used my original 1970 factory installed exhaust manifolds. Sure hated to hear the exhaust leak when I started my new Z1 engine using manifolds that had never leaked any exhaust on my 1070's original cast iron heads. I bought C4 exhaust manifold gaskets and installed them. This sealed up the exhaust leaks on my ZZ1 crate engine installation. Still sealing today, no complaints from me on using exhaust gaskets, only wished I had done it on initial installation of the new ZZ1 engine.

[Kirk M.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Kirk------


It's possible it could go through into the cooling system, but that won't mean it will go into the crankcase where it could cause problems.

However, it's easy to prevent even the possibility of it going into the cooling system. Simply use a wire or thin probe to determine what the THREAD length is. Then, do not thread the set screw in beyond this thread length. The chances are you will not even be able to thread it in beyond this point (it will stop when it gets to the end of the threads), but just in case the threads were tapped for the full length of the hole into the water jacket you should probe for thread length.

Pretty much exactly what I was planning to do. I am going to be real careful!

Kirk

[Timothy B.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Kirk, Looks like from the pictures you installed new rocker arms. Where did you buy them, I think that is a good idea..

[Kirk M.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

Kirk, Looks like from the pictures you installed new rocker arms. Where did you buy them, I think that is a good idea..

Corvette Central. Figured since I was in there, I might as well use new rocker arms, ball and nut.

Kirk

[Kirk M.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

By the way, just as follow-up. I did use a set screw and some thread sealant to close off that head cover hole that was leaking coolant. The hole was clearly drilled out. Obviously, way too deep and I would say some sort of thread coil put in. So, I definitely felt like if I had kept turning the set screw, it would have passed right off the end of the thread coil and fallen down into the motor. I suppose it would be the coolant side of things, so I'm not sure if it would have caused a problem. Once set (overnight), I fired the engine up and no coolant came shooting out (because that is literally what it did before). Had to shorten the head cover bolt to fit the hole. Kinda bummed me out, since I paid real good money to get those head rebuilt. Hate it when things aren't perfect Oh well, you obviously can't tell a thing with the cover bolt in place, and at least if I need to remove the cover and mess with engine it won't shoot coolant all over the engine any more.

As a final note. I now have two 462 heads that were working perfectly fine on my engine, and I mean beautifully. One is a corvette head dated March 9, 1967 and the other is a passenger car head dated late December 27, 1965. PM me if interested.

Kirk

[Jim D.]

Re: 67 Head Installation - 9 Hours Later She's Purring

I'd leave the exhaust gaskets on if I were you. I've always used them and have never had one leak. The ones on my 60 have been on for over 25 years with no problems. My guess is that with several thousand heat/cool cycles, there is some warping that make gaskets necessary.