So... I had a chance to tear into the motor this weekend. It's been a crazy month and a bit for me. I don't have photos because I have a new phone and no cable to connect it to the computer.

In brief, I tore apart the entire top end. I took the time to yank the valves for cylinder #1 on both exhaust and intake. Yanked those springs as well now that they're broken in. I pulled all the lifters, and I squeezed all of the old oil out of them at the shop that rebuilt the motor - they're working just fine. The oil that came out of them had some dark streaks, but that's to be expected since the oil from the break-in period was quite dark after the first 200 kms on the motor.

So here we are... lifters are all functioning. Fresh gaskets in every nook and cranny. The Right Stuff used at the china walls this time. Permatex High Tack used on BOTH sides of the Fel-pro 1240 intake gaskets. I even made some dowels out of 5/16" bolts to help set the intake down on the heads evenly.

I even took the time to repaint a couple of things that got cooked after overheating the motor those couple of times.... it was a very long, hard and arduous weekend, but everything seems to have gone together quite nicely.

The last piece of the puzzle is to actually fire up the darn thing and check it over for timing, vacuum, and tune the carb a lot better. Holy cow is this thing still running RICH! I seriously need to invest in an A/F ratio gauge...

So... Here are my measurements for the valves, and springs...

Intake Valve - stamped P 3082 HD
Valve Height = 5.240" - 5.245" (approximate!!! This was a very difficult measurement to get and I used a set of digital calipers, so take it for what it is).
Spring height (uncompressed) = 2.247"
Spring shim = 0.056"
Height from retainer to head = 1.865"

Exhaust Valve - not stamped
Valve height = 5.050"
Spring height (uncompressed) = 2.245"
Spring shim = NO SHIM
Height from retainer to head = 1.815"

So there you have it. I yanked the heads and got some measurements. Now tell me I don't have to change anything LOL.

It's already all back together, so it wouldn't be coming apart until the spring anyways.... won't matter how much you guys entice me and say "something's wrong" LOL.

I hope to fire this thing up on Wednesday. We'll see how this evening goes for my prior arrangements. Fingers crossed I have zero vacuum leaks now...

EDIT: Thanks for the suggestions on new gaskets for the intake btw. Those Felpro 1240 gaskets are nice and thick! The High Tack will really help keep things in place and keep the fuel with the fuel, and the oil with the oil. No more oily spark plugs (one can hope).

 

So I bolted everything back on the top of the intake last night and fired it up.

She was a bit noisy at first due to the lack of oil in the top-end from having the heads off, but that's to be expected. Once it ran for 2-3 minutes, she was purring. No more clatter. No more noise. No more ticking. It wasn't running smoothly, but I solved that fairly quickly with some carb adjustments.

Hooked up my vacuum gauge and it read 17 inches of mercury and holding steady!
Played with the timing a bit, and settled on 14 degrees for now. Will readjust in the spring.
Leaned the carb out enough to make the motor stumble on each bank, then readjusted so it ran smoothly with no stumbling.... I had the adjustment screws out by 1.5 turns too rich!!! No wonder why the garage stunk to high heaven.
Readjusted the idle for 750-800 rpms.
Stabbed the throttle several times and WOW.... the responsiveness!!!! The vacuum needle jumps to 21 inches, drops to zero, then comes back up to 17 inches and holds steady.

I think it's safe to say that I've solved my issues... it appears they were mostly gasket issues + the lifters being full of break-in oil (and whatever those dark streaks were). Ticking is gone, all the stumbling/noise is gone, and it runs extremely smooth.

It's so quiet now too!!! Just to see if everything was honky dory with the carburetor, I turned the truck off and walked away for 5 minutes. Came back, and fired it up - took less than a full rotation and the truck was purring again.

What a great feeling!!!!! Now I'm singing a happy tune

 

I love it, when it all comes together.

 

power good?

 

You mean the ability for it to take off at the line ??? or??

 

Pretty sure he means overall. Does it run good. Good is very subjective, but were you pleased with the result?

 

 

It's reading really well to be honest. I've driven a couple of my uncles around town now and they were pretty impressed with how a big heavy truck can just take off and handle like mine does (they're all Mopar muscle car enthusiasts, so I take it as a compliment coming from them).

I do have some thoughts on my stock tired torque converter and not having a limited slip diff in the rear, but those are future upgrades I guess

As of right now, it's got LOTS of power down low and you can certainly feel it when you romp on it. It's a single tire fire, but she gets going really quick from a stop. I won't be driving it much in the winter because these heavy old trucks don't stop so well on black ice... and I don't want to wreck my last 8 years of hard work.

However, spring time is a different story

 

So it's update time. New year, old progress, old news but said I would post so I am

The truck was running like crap (as mentioned before), and there was a VERY distinct 'ticking' sound on certain cylinders. I traced the noise with a long piece of 3/8" hose, and my assumptions of it being the lifters turned out to be true.

This is how we started. Yanked everything off, all the way down to the block. Heads, intake, headers, the works.


I yanked all of the lifters and inspected them. A few of them were bled down, but 6-7 of them were very strongly pumped up 100% and did not bleed down on their own.
I bled down each lifter in the shop vice being extra careful not to mar any surfaces.
When bleeding down, I noticed that any that were not freely bled down on their own before being pulled had a lot of very dark oil inside them. Streaky oil.
After being fully bled, each of the 16 lifters moved 100% freely without issue.
More on the lifters near the end of this post.

Once my heads were off, I decided to go 1 step further. I yanked 1 valve from the intake port and 1 valve from the exhaust port. I didn't have any need to check over all 16.


Intake valve shims are Part Number 6160 - 0.055" thickness




After that, I checked over the valve lengths themselves and the stem wear. Also measured the Spring installed height and the free height. All of my measurements are below.

Notice the wear pattern on the stems? It's quite wide because of the number of times I've fiddled with the pedestal shims trying to get the lifter preload correct. The good news is that I never went too extreme in any one direction.


Spring Free height = 2.245" - ignore the number in the photo.


Used a bore gauge to figure out spring installed height (keeping in mind the 0.055" shim under the intake valves ONLY).




Measurements:
Intake Valves/Springs
Intake valve P/N (stamped): P3082HD
Intake valve length = 5.240" - 5.245" (Was very difficult to measure a single valve accurately so I have a range which is close enough... looking back, I should have used 2 straight edges and a helper to get an accurate measurement)
Spring installed height = 1.865 - 0.055" = 1.810"
Spring shim thickness = 0.055"
Spring free height = 2.245"

Exhaust Valves/Springs
Exhaust valve P/N: not stamped
Exhaust valve length = 5.050"
Spring installed height = 1.815"
Spring shim thickness = N/A
Spring free height = 2.245"

After that, I reassembled with fresh gaskets everywhere (can't be too careful since I overheated the motor 1-2 times in the summer due to bad timing adjustments... whoops!). Turns out all of the gaskets were just fine, but I changed them out anyways. Never too careful.
I bought Prussian Blue and put some on the stems when I reassembled so that I could get the TRUE wear pattern with the same shims installed before disassembly, but this time the lifters were 100% bled and freely moving.
The motor was rotated over 2 full rotations. This is the result which I'm quite satisfied with. Not dead center, but not extreme either - and this is with STOCK stamped rockers.


On my way back up, I double checked all of the lifter preloads. Everybody is sitting at 0.055" preload, when the maximum lifter travel is 0.100" which is perfect!
I assembled with higher quality gaskets for the intake this time.
They worked great and are HIGHLY recommended when running an aluminum intake.
On top of all this, I put Permatex High Tack on the intake gaskets to hold them in place AND I made myself some intake guides/studs to slide the intake into place perfectly without a shadow of a doubt.


Before the reassembly, I took the time to repaint:
Headers (they were rusting already and I flaked/cooked the paint too much when I overheated the motor)
Heads (exhaust ports had flaking paint)
Valve covers (had some scratches)


The moment came to fire the truck up, and she was noisy as ever since the lifters had nothing but assembly lube on the top of them.

Once the motor ran for 1-2 minutes, everything went quiet. So quiet in fact that my helper said "Shut it off!!!! Something's wrong!!!!"
I started grinning from ear to ear. Hooked up my vacuum gauge and we're sitting at 17" of mercury at idle, needle holding steady... more grinning.
Then we took her for a drive. Even more grinning

Looks like bad intake gaskets + gummed up lifters from the break-in oils/ fine metal were my problem. Now it's all good!! And man does it ever feel good!
The engine bay is so quiet now! I could actually hear the snow crunching under my tires as we drove around. What a feeling!

 

AWESOME, man i like the look of that offenhauser intake, happy for you!

 

It's good to see you using the right tools for the job, but I don't see any mention of the spring pressures.

Did you check 'em against the comp cam specs, 124 lbs @ 1.80'' and 293 lbs @ 1.25'' ?

Nice pic with the snow everywhere.