keithb7

I quite enjoy performing valve sets in my old Mopar cars. Its fun and very rewarding. I have set them while hot, static. Cold too. I have checked them while the engine is running as well. I made a fairly lengthy detailed video for beginners who want to tackle a valve set. One thing I figured out, when you are playing with tappet lash, you are indeed also playing with valve timing. Valve timing has a large effect on engine power at different operating RPM's. This is the principle behind the "RV" cam. More power at lower RPM's. Ever wonder why they recommend to set your valve lash a little looser for extended hi-way trips? Say you were going to head out on a week long hi-way trip. Set them a little loose so the valves can run cooler. The wider the gap, the longer the exhaust valve gets to sit on it's seat and cool. The law of diminishing returns holds true here as well. You can only go so wide and then other bad things start to happen. When I remove the wheel well inner fender window to set valves, after I am done I leave it out for a while. I drive around for using the car as normal with the inner window out. If I need to get back in there to re-adjust one or two its easy. Once I am satisfied, then I reinstall the inner window.

This won't work with the cam and tappets in, but gives you an idea how they can move in a 75 year old engine.

Cool. I didn’t know you that was an option!

Over the decades its hard to know what really happened to our engines. Perhaps someone needed a crank pulley. Found one that would fit and went with it. Did this engine run before you took it apart? If so did you happen to take a timing light to it, to check the timing while it was running? Someone mentioned the harmonic balancer may have slipped. Not all mopars have harmonic balancer type pulleys. Some are just solid pulleys. Are there signs of torn rubber when you look at the pulley? I ran out to check my spare harmonic type pulley. The rubber is old, and crumbling. Easily chunked out with an o-ring pick. Seems now I should just throw it out. It will fail. With #1 at TDC compression stroke the marking on the pulley should be at the pointer. If you’re dead sure that you got the cam timing right, matched with crank positioning, you may need to make a new mark on the crank pulley if you plan to re-use it. Either that or move your pointer. Lol. I’ll wager its easier to draw a new line on the pulley. The line on the pulley to the pointer is a visual reference as to what’s going on with ignition timing. Its not a show-stopper. By the time you have this engine running and tuned you won’t need visual references to set the ignition timing. You’ll know by how it starts, idles, pings and drives. ? You’ve just got to be sure you have set your cam to crank timing right. That is indeed a show stopper.

How about cam, some valves and a few tappets thrown in? Might make for a cool subject.

No adjustment with air screw is an indicator that it may be time for an ultrasonic carb clean. Fluttery vacuum indicates valve seats could possibly use some hand lapping. Check your points anchor screws. Tight? Points may be moving around a little bit, seen by the jumping mark with the timing light. Return spring arm on points adequate? Wear block and points cam in good shape. Closely inspect wire from coil to distributor, junction, and internal wires in distributor. All solid? No stray wire strands occasionally grounding slightly? Any possible porcelain cracks in the spark plugs? Fire up you car in the dark. No lights. Look for possible sparks to ground. Check wire from ignition key switch to coil. Set points open. Set a multimeter to reference ground. Check continuity of all wires in ignition system that they are not "beeping" the multi-meter indicating they are grounding somewhere.

I never had any issues with the simple ring compressor shown above when I rebuilt my engine. Like most of us here, we might only have 1 engine rebuild left in us! Lol. This low cost tool gets the job done if you pay a little extra care. Mine may never get used again. ?

I recognize first/reverse gear! Its seen the heavy hand of an impatient driver. ?

Soft new accelerator leather cup? Nice bouncy full length return spring? Pump stroke shaft set to middle position? 2 check balls of different sizes in their proper seats? Correct throttle cable to bracket mounting and pump linkage routing? Carb clean? Ideally ultra-sonic cleaned. Float height correct. Nice full bowl of fuel?

No ZDDP additives in my engines. From what I can tell the same valve springs and valve-train design was used for well over 25 years in our flathead 6 engines. If you are building a flathead V8, squeezing as much HP and torque out of it as possible with multiple mods and high performance parts, I'd probably go for it. Add the zinc. For my 7:1 compression 110 psi flathead? I don't believe its needed. I guess I'm risking every dollar and hour I spent on my recent engine rebuilt. New cam, tappets, springs, valves, plus possibly and entire contamination of all pressure fed oil surfaces if cam lobes and tappets fail. I'm not feeling vulnerable here. Needing zinc in our old Mopar flatheads seems a little bit like some internet folklore to me. Maybe.

I’d never heard of this TV show until recently. It showed up on You Tube yesterday. A half hour TV show called Hiway Patrol. It was on TV from ‘55 until ‘59. I watched a couple of episodes on You Tube and enjoyed it. It is nice to see the 50’s cars. The people, their mannerisms. Their Clothes. A sort of simple innocence in society in 1950’s America. I’ll be watching more. Some of you here might like it too. Perhaps you watched them all back in the day! Clint Eastwood was in this episode. I look forward to watching it later tonight.

I varied throttle and load conditions. Not pushing it too hard for first while. A few trips around the neighborhood at first. Varied speeds. Then I took her for a longer local drive. I varied my speed, up and down. Finally driving it up the hill home. I know I got the engine and initial oil up to full operating temps few times at at least then dumped it. Probably 100 miles then drained it. A few trips up the hill home and I figure the rings were well seated.

Yes I do know that car. I suspect the folks claiming “its hi-way robbery” haven’t rebuilt an engine in the past 4-5years. It used to be relatively cheap compared to today.

I must admit, the first low hour oil dump after my engine rebuild was interesting to say the least. Lots of crap floating in the oil. Oils and special lubes that were used during engine assembly were blended in with the engine oil. It struck a little fear in my confidence. Lol. Was there coolant emulsion in there too? No. The second oil change was all good. Filters clean.

I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of the Airflow engine. I did however rebuild a 3 ⅜ bore 1953 Mopar flathead engine. I bored it over to 3 7/16. I did all my own labor except the machining. I got the majority of my parts from Vintage Power Wagons. I am not sure how many parts from the airflow engine are interchangeable with all the other Mopar engines from the era. Everything has been inflated so much in the past couple years. Everyone has got to eat and try and keep up with rising costs. I’d be inclined again, to do all the engine labor myself and save a lot of money. What your engine actually needs can only be determined by complete disassembly of everything. Then a thorough measurement and inspection of all worn parts. Some examples (but not limited to): -Main and rod bearing clearances -Cylinder taper and out-of-round -Piston ring end gap - crank thrust -crank journal taper -tappet wear -valve set surface contact -camshaft lobe wear

Marc the questions here about oil pools inside the valve covers reveals that you really should to be doing more reading. Researching. Your understanding of these engines appears limited. The oil pools are a very basic foundational level topic. Think about all the various ways oil can enter into the cylinders. There really aren’t that many ways on a flathead engine. There is no oil pressure up in the head area where the spark plugs are. There are no valve stem seals. How then could oil get up there? Ideally you’d be able to answer this. If not, definitely do more reading and research. Asking for quick answers here may get you a solution but you likely won’t gain any understanding. You really should strive for deeper level understanding. You’ll struggle to get that from a social media site such as this. I am carefully not trying to sound pretentious here. I’m really trying to help you by guiding you to opening massive doors for yourself. Once you get your car running and driving you’ll benefit tremendously by having a good grasp of the basics. Then you can and will, be able to troubleshoot and fix your car literally on the roadside, quickly.

Last time I just plowed ahead and removed rad. Wasn’t hard. Rad came out of my ‘53 quickly. Later I got a flywheel turning tool. Worked great too. Image shown. Why is engine hard to turn with plugs out? Good question. Do you have any history of this engine? When you say starter turns it over, yet cannot be turned by hand is concerning.

My experience is the 6V led light bulbs are absolute junk. Maybe the ones you found are better. I’m skeptical. “USA Seller” is trickery and means nothing.

Did you loosen all the spark plugs?

I wouldn't sweat being out a ½ thou. That's finer than frog's hair. Me? I'd be inclined to resume with reassembly. Some books I have here show .0005 to .002 specs. The Chrysler Industrial engine book I have here states .0005 to .0015, maximum allowable .002 I look forward to what others have to say!

I like that flathead 6 rumble. Made my day.

It sounds pretty decent to me. Congrats on getting it running. Tell us what you sealed the joint with, between the exhaust pipe and the exhaust manifold flange. How long ago did you assemble this joint? Are the bolts tight? Does it have a gasket? Or some type of goop? Are both iron mating surfaces of the joint true and square? If you have good engine oil pressure, I’d plan to move forward with car reassembly. Break the engine in later. If the engine has to come back out after extensive break-in time, so be it. You won’t need to take the body off the frame to do so. ? How’s your coolant look? Any air bubbles? Any oil in coolant?

Out here in BC we are fortunate to have lots of snow and glaciers. Rain too, as moisture evaporates off the pacific ocean and condenses up against the mountains. We have lots of hilly terrain. All this snow and ice that melts, the rain water, it all fills lakes and rivers that all eventually works its way tirelessly to the sea again. Elevation and gravity are creating seemingly endless energy to move all that water. We dam powerful rivers, create water reservoirs, flood valleys, divert a portion of rivers to power generating turbines. I'll guess that probably 99% all our electricity here in BC comes from moving water. Hydro-electricity is a household word. So common, that the electrical bill is called the "hydro bill". Yes mostly all of us just call the entire process, "hydro". Hydro is pretty green and renewable. Yet an incredible amount of concrete, steel and copper are used to build these hydro dams and turbines. All products that are mined from the earth and processed. Coal is usually burned to dry the materials needed to make concrete. Copper mines here in BC are massive. Steel is shipped-in to BC on trains , trucks and boats from other areas. Shipping methods that all need fossil fuel to move the steel here. There is no way to get around mining and carbon emissions, yet hydro-electricity is pretty darn clean once it is all set up and running. The nature and wildlife preservationists are dead-set against flooding river valleys with the introduction of a new dam. It's never easy. Yet we all need and love our electricity. It has to come from somewhere. Hydro seems to be the least risky and damaging long-term of all electricity generation methods.

A hearty welcome Carl! I think I'm gonna like you...Reading, learning and understanding first. Then you put your new found skills to the test. That my friend is a plan. By doing so you are not "hoping" to fix this car. You are "planning" to. A hope, is a just dream without a plan. I suspect you may have watched some of my YT educational videos on these old Mopars. I live here on this site and will happy to help you out where I can. As will many other members here. These cars are so simple, they are fantastic cars to learn all about automotive systems. You can indeed lap valves. You could just have the machine shop cut the right seat angle and install new guides. Then you can do the rest. Lapping and sealing valves is very rewarding work. The experience gives you insight and feeds your brain. The more work you do yourself, the better you feel. The better you feel, the more new projects you'll take on. The better you understand things on a foundational level. You'll be able to troubleshoot almost any problem. Whether in the garage, or on the side of the road. In terms of the stuck engine, I came into possession of one like you describe. The piston rings rusted to the cylinder walls. I got everything out of the way. I flipped the block over on my stand and used a couple pieces of 1"x1" dimensional lumber and a 3 lb sledge. After soaking both upper and lower parts of the rings with penetrating oil for weeks, I finally took a swing of rye and started pounding the pistons from the bottom side out the top. I know I split up a few pieces of the wood in the process. The job was was a bit of a bugger, but they came out. Done carefully, I can't see this doing a whole lot of cylinder wall damage. You can hone the top of the cylinders above the pistons before you run them out. The damage is already there with the rust. Just don't pound on any rod ends. You could bend them slightly. You want to try and re-use your rods. Mucho $$ to replace the rods with new. Keep in mind, if you look around, 25" block engine cores can be found for cheap. You can rewire that whole car yourself. Make your own harnesses. I did so, in my '38 Plymouth. Fun and again, very rewarding. It will provide excellent training and experience that you'll have for the rest of your life. I started with old Mopars about 2016 I think it was. I learned more about cars in the past 7 years than I probably did the first 30 years of my adult life. I wish I had started way earlier. 22 years old sounds about perfect. I look forward to seeing you work through this car. Don't be scarce around here. Feel free to ask any questions. There are no dumb questions. Tons of people here to ask for great advice. Keith

Welcome @hbpaints to the forum. Lots of knowledgeable and helpful folks here. A very important point to make about your Canadian car is the engine. It will likely be a 25” long 218 ci. Do not confuse this with the 23” long 218 ci engine built in the USA. Different bore and stroke. Crank. Rods pistons, bearings etc don’t interchange. I read and understand that the “C” on the end of the engine SN indicates it is a Canadian built engine. I have doubts that it means custom. That engine could go into countless different applications. Custom on the block SN meaning custom what? The car itself, the trim, the options, color, upholstery, map light, etc indeed could indicate it is a factory built model Dodge Custom. I don’t think the C on the engine is an indicator. I could be mistaken. Anyone else have any thoughts on that?