How I do what?

Oh, please shake Donnie's hand and give him a heartfelt 'Thank you' for me when you see him next.

 

I thanked him this afternoon when I called to make sure he had been able to contact you. Next time I am up there I will get the information off the box van for you. From the look of the engine it's probably somewhere between 84-87 E-350 cutaway.

 

And, what do you think I'd do with the pump other than clean it up and flush it?

Sorry for the hijack Bruno.

 

I like the JB Weld idea also. I think maybe it should go in the blast cabinet to prep the areas , then a little break cleaner followed by a healthy dose of JB weld. Let set for 24 hrs and then take the *******(the fatherless child) file to it.

Jim you are right, there isn't much pressure or heat in that area. So in theory the JB should do the trick nicely!

 

If we mask off the intake sealing areas and just hit the coolant areas where the corrosion is that'll work. It'll get the corrosion out and leave clean aluminum with edges the JB Weld can grip.

Only problem I can see is the timing as we'll need the surface to be level to let the stuff set up, and then put it on the side that's down. I can do the 2nd side later today.

 

Paint it or polish it.

 

The only pressure will be the 15-16 psi from the cooling system. I have used JB weld with good success on applications like this.

 

If its upside down sitting on the carb surface I don't see why we cant cover all the areas needing the application at the same time? I don't remember JB being runny, its more thick and pasty.

Just got out of the dentist office and about to head up.

 

Maybe I should send it out have and have it plated???

Honestly, depending on how scruffy it is I may well paint it with Hammerite or just gloss black.
Anything is better than the leaky pump I have now.

 

You saw the picture of it, it really didn't look too bad.

 

OK, so today was good and bad. We worked for hours to get the copper header gasket out of the way of the socket to remove the spark plugs.

We decided that maybe the manifold wasn't leaking coolant into the cylinders. The pressurizing tool pumped the cooling system up to 16 psi and only dropped about 1 psi over an hour.

So we decided to replace the spark plugs and fire it up again! We did and no more smoke. Gary put the timing light on it and dialed it in. Then he adjusted the mixture and idle on the carb.

I drove it for about - miles. It ran terrible and rough as a Cobb. I pulled it back in the shop and we discovered that it had a couple vacuum leaks from the intake manifold.

So the intake does have to come back off and then we can fix the rough spots and put it back on again.

Oh yeah, also I discovered that it wasn't the pan gasket leaking oil it is the rear main.

Gary hooked up the ignition scope to it and I am really not sure of he ever got it adjusted to diagnose the motor?

 

Gary, do you think tightening the intake down a few more ftlbs might stop the leaks?

 

All this talk of milling the intake...

Have you actually checked how it sits in there without the gaskets?

 

I doubt it. As you know, but to fill the others in, we went around the torque pattern at least 20 times, with the last 10 times being at max torque since the passenger side kept creeping. And, that's the side that appears to be leaking. But, since the fasteners are ARP's and since they go into cast iron, we could try tightening them further. It won't hurt anything unless we go overboard.

I was initially thrown off by the MSD's multi-strikes, thinking the three sparks were three cylinders with a gap to the next cylinder that fired. But then I realized you have MSD on there and understood what I was seeing. All cylinders are receiving a spark every time, so the MSD box, the coil, the wires, and the plugs are working. And, I'm not seeing much difference in voltage between cylinders, which would indicate that the compression is fairly consistent.

What I can't tell from the scope is whether each cylinder is actually running as the scope just deals with the ignition side. So that's why I pulled out the infra-red thermometer and found that the exhaust pipe for several of the cylinders is cooler than others. The max temp I saw was 460˚, with several between 400 and 460˚. But, #'s 3 & 4 were low, with #4 at about 360˚. As it turned out, those were the two cylinders that appear to have vacuum leaks because the engine sped up when you sprayed brake cleaner on the intake/head joint for them.

Nope, but that is something we certainly should do - and something I didn't think of. Thanks!

And, for the record, my talk about milling the intake has been that it is almost impossible with my equipment. I had explored that a couple of years ago when I built a Windsor and had a coolant leak. There just isn't a way to secure the intake to the table such that it cannot move. So I had a local guy heliarc the coolant ports up and dress them back down flat. He's retired from one of the aircraft companies in Tulsa and I've been told there is no one better with a welder. I think he charged me $20 or so, and he might be willing to do this one as well.

 

Gary, you might want to do what I have done with French engines, use RTV for the end seals instead of the cork pieces. That way they aren't keeping the intake from pulling all the way down.