From the BillyBob Shop log October 26th 2021 Slacked off a week for dental work. Extracted a quarter of my remaining teeth and got fitted for new choppers. Mourned the loss of three that have been with me from the beginning. Wasn't as painful as it sounds. Should have cowboyed thru it better. Quik-n-durty cleaned the remaining valves to measure them. Shined them up some by chucking them in a 1/2" drill motor secured in my bench vice. Set it running and used wire cup in the electric die grinder. Exhaust valves, in general, were in better shape than the intakes. Three of the intakes had raised "GM" and "TP" letters on their faces. Cleaned the guide bores with Hoppes #9 and engine bottle brush. Measured the valve stems with the mic and the guides with a small hole gauge and mic. Initial readings were pretty even at "0.3317" for the stems and "0.3327" for the guides, including the new one. Must have not done it right. Gotta recalibrate, bone up on procedure and do it again. Beer of the day was Millstream Brewing Company's Schild Brau Ambar Vienna Style Lager. Background music was Return of the Grievous Angel: A tribute to Gram Parsons.
From the BillyBob Shop log October 28th 2021 Recalibrated my micrometer and took another go at the nailhead valve and guide measurements. Ended up being more confused then a blind man feeling his way around the elephant. Number one cylinder intake valve was pretty pitted so, when I ordered a new exhaust valve for the one I buggered, I ordered an intake as well. These came from Fusick Automotive Products and now I can compare them to the existing valves. My new measurements were unclear but they gave me a sloppy .0005" average valve clearance between valves and guides. The new valves and guides were consistent with the old ones, however, and this was a good sign to me. According to my Dad's old 1959 Chiltons manual, the valve readings were closer to a 364 nailhead than a 322. This is a head scratcher to me unless replacement valve specs changed over the years. At any rate, I have enough info to take to my friend John to help me suss out. Beer of the day was Sprecher Brewing Company's Scotch Ale. Background music was Asleep at the Wheel Ride with Bob: A Tribute to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
Many thanx for the heads up. I'm still out here but misplaced my ambition temporarily and am trying to get back in the saddle again. Here's a placeholder log entry that I didn't post here because I don't have enough progress to really report on but it will, at least, explain the current situation. January 19th 2022 Misplaced my ambition somewhere in the shop for a couple of months. Getting acclimated to my new choppers has made me cranky as well. Took me a few months to claw my way out of the lazy pit I had stumbled into. Started by detailing my Caddy, Elvira, before getting back to the Nailhead.. She hadn't been cleaned in months. I also got a jump start from my landlord. My three year lease is up at the end of February and lease extension papers for two more years were sent to me. Ruinous increases of $500/month for 2022 and an additional $132/month for 2023. It's not a time for shopping real estate in South Florida due to the influx of Blue State refugees driving up prices. In March, I will paying three times what I was paying three years ago to rent the BillyBob Shop. Gotta get these trucks done so I can eventually move into smaller digs. On the bright side, I obtained a '53-'56 Buick Dynaflow flywheel cover that I had been looking for almost as long as the Vertex Magneto. The Transdapt Adapter bellhousing was designed for this cover. Beer of the day was Ellicottville Brewing Co's Foggy India Pale Ale. Background music was Jefferson Airplane Volunteers.
From the BillyBob Shop log September 25th 2023 Trying to pick up where I left off two years ago with the nailhead. I had left the valves unattended and they picked up some surface rust in the meantime. First thing is to do some remedial work. I sat in the Deep Ponder Mode chair, in front of the fan, with a Sugar Plum Fairy Complex Dark Ale from the Alphabet City Brewing Company, listening Gram Parsons Grevious Angel, planning the fastest way to derust the valve heads (there was no rust on any of the valve stems). #ad I determined the fastest approach would be to place one of my drill motors in the bench vice with a brass wire wheel. Each valve that showed rust had it removed and then all valves were given a thin coat of Marvel Mystery oil to keep the rust away until I was ready to do a better job on them down the road. #ad September 26th 2023 Cleared the Hank Langsenkamp workbench and started cleaning one of the Buick heads. Went at the combustion chambers with wire wheel cups in the electric die grinder. Problem is, due to the speed, the wire cup turns into a wire wheel in short order. Put a wire cup in the 1/4" drill and tried that. It worked better with the lower speed. Got out the Oil Eater solvent and went looking for the Dremal tool, along with wire wheels and ScotchBrite buffs for it. Took some thrashing around in the dark since I had misplaced them. #ad September 28th 2023 Ports are tight. Dremal tool with wire cups in combination with Oil Eater and Extreme Simple Green passes were made. It was good enuf fer govern't work after a couple of hours but I'll probably do a few more passes later. Beer of the day was Atlanta Brewing Co's Soul of the City American Pale Ale. Background music was Neal Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. #ad September 29th 2023 Next task is to hit the manifold mating surface with gasket scraper and wire wheel in the electric die grinder and to apply the Dremal tool wire cups and Oil Eater / Extreme Simple Green routine to the intake runners. Also got the engine bottle brushes out for this work as well. #ad October 5th 2023 After the intake runners, the rocker arm area was cleaned with wire cups in the electric die grinder, drill motor and Dremal tool. Finished with Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremal tool. Turned out to be less tejus than I thought it was going to be, for a change. #ad October 6th 2023 Okay, time to remove a couple of freeze plugs and clean up loose paint as well as the exhaust manifold surfaces and ports. Then I'll be almost ready for this head to go back out to John Carey's carport machine shop. #ad November 16th 2023 Finally got the first head clean enuf for the first pass. More nooks and crannies in this area to clean and wire cups in the electric die grinder and hand drill along with Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremal tool were used to get all the loose dirt and paint off. The two freeze plugs were slightly easier to remove than the battle I fought with the other head. They were heated up with the MAP torch to break the sealant grip and after they cooled down to room temp again, they were hit with the CRC Freeze-off spray. After that, they were chiseled out with punch and hammer. I did screw the pooch by knocking one of them down into the water jacket and that required extra combat with needle-nose vice-grips as well but eventually got it out. Got the loose rust out of the water jacket with a telescoping pocket magnet. Finished up by relieving the approaches to the pushrod channels with die grinder burr in the Dremal tool. This area is a little tight, even with the original 1/4" pushrods. The replacements most likely will be 5/16" and need the extra clearance. Beer of the day was Alphabet City Brewing Company's Village India Pale Ale. Background music was Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins Neck and Neck. #ad April 8th 2024 A couple of weeks back, Jon Carey dropped off a pair of ramps at the BillyBob Shop for me to use with Elvira's maintenance chores. While he was there, he examined the Buick heads and, while I wasn't quite finished with rough cleaning operations, he determined they were good enuf for me to bring them out to his place for machine work. Last Wednesday, I arrived at his place with the heads and valve guide cutter and a twelve pack of craft beer. Jon spent a couple of hours lining one of the heads up and making a guide for the cutter. When he cut the first intake guide to accept a valve seal, it was too much and he had to make a shim for the seal. The cutter which cost me $75 from Summit, wasn't true! We broke out the beer as the sun was over the yardarm by that time and planned our next moves. Jon said he could fix the cutter and I could bring the valves with me to the Senile and Surly Car Club Sunday morning coffee at Dave Sexton's shop. He asked me to check the valve spring pressures as well. I pulled out my Dad's '59 Chilton manual and checked the Buick valve specs. Installed ht for the '54 322 engine is 1.5" and the outer valve spring pressure at that height is 46 lbs while the inner spring pressure is 23 lbs I set a telescoping gauge to 1.5" and commenced to measuring the springs. I wasn't getting consistent readings with the telescoping gauge until I had a "Eureka" moment. For me, that's a palm slap to the forehesd moment. I set the telescoping gauge aside and found a hex bolt slightly shorter than 1.5". Put a hex nut on the tip to make it exactly 1.5" and now I had a "stop" for the spring testing tool. Made short work of testing the valve springs after that and they were all consistent and close to the Chilton specs. Gave the valves, springs, retainers and keepers to Jon Sunday along with the Chilton manual and some notes I found on the Intarweb and he will now finish up by putting two angles on the valves and seats for me. #ad April 18th 2024 Jon Carey showed up at the BillyBob Shop yesterday with the Buick heads. He had installed the seals on the intake valves and put the two-angled cut on the valves and seats. Jon said the valve seats had been cut before and he was not aggressive in his cuts leaving room for the future. He also added thirty thousandths shim washers below the valve springs to maintain stock pressures. Jon installed the valves with assembly lube and also fixed a spark plug cover mounting screw I had broken off during disassembly and pressure washed the heads before bagging them to bring them to the BillYBob Shop. I was fixing yet another tire puncture on one of Elvira's tires when Jon arrived and I ceased operations as he also brought beer with him. This illustrates again why I don't ask Jon for help unless he volunteers. He's one of those people who won't allow you to pay them back for their efforts. Glad to have him as a friend. Beer of the day was Atlanta Brewing Company's Homestand Pilsner. Background music was Songs of the Civil War (Waylon Jennings, Richie Havens, Judy Collins, Hoyt Axton, John Hartford and others). Well, this log entry is as long in the tooth as any I've ever published and it's time to let the BillyBob Shop followers know that the lights are still on in the shop, even if it's only one fixture at this time. Next log entry up will be about more bottom end assembly on the nailhead. #ad
Just be sure that the shims for the outer valve springs do not cover the recess for the inner valve springs.
