Are you sure it was sand? As long as none of it got into the crankcase or oilpan, you should be fine. I don't recall ever seeing that.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Well, sand in the castings is as much of a fact of life as dust in the wind, so yeah, to some degree it's kind of a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ situation. Of greater concern is rust and mud that accumulates in the water jackets/coolant passages and sludge and crud that accumulates in the oil passages. How did you clean out the block?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

It was definitely sand. When I removed the freeze plugs, I saw some sand stuck around the cylinders, and I did poke around a bit to release some of it--not a lot, maybe a teaspoon. I was planning to flush the whole block with soap and water before machining, but then I couldn't get the oil gallery plugs out, so I took it to the shop to clean and machine. I'll have to ask the machinist what he did with the water jacket. I know he washed the oil passages.

The main reason I was asking is I was wondering if I should flush with plain water before adding the Evans waterless coolant. If so, I would need their prep fluid. If the sand isn't a big deal, I'll just add the Evans coolant to the dry system.

Eh. You don't need prep fluid, just drain the block as best you can, let it dry (compressed air or hairdryer can help here, as can a few days' time) then whatever little water is left you can bleed off as steam after install/startup/run til pressure no longer develops.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I have a couple of gaskets left over from the kit. One is for the oil drain plug, I think. Does anyone use that? I don't think I ever had one before, and it never leaked.

The other is this one. Anybody recognize it? I see it pictured in manifold gasket sets.

Looks like the gasket for the Air Pump tube, which attaches to the driver's side firewall end of the cylinder head.

California smog equipment on my 72...

I'm almost ready to fire up the rebuilt motor. Any tricks on getting the dipstick tube to go in all the way? If I recall correctly, the raised ring was flush with the block before I removed it. I tried putting a bolt in the end and tapping with a hammer, but I don't want to hit it too hard and bend it all out of whack.

Use a dead blow hammer and support near the angle bend.

Take the dipstick out of the tube.

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

the dipstick on the 83 in the D150, the OE 68 motor in the 68 Barracuda and the 87 motor currently being built simply pressed in with very light hand pressure.
I put a thin coat of RTV at the step on the end to seal it.
If the tube is not fitting in with out hammering it, I would be looking for an out of round condition on the tube end, maybe it got stepped on or hit while it was out or the tube is not properly aligned during the install process.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

OK! We got the engine running today. I marked the pushrods so we can tell if they are spinning, and they are all spinning but not all at the same rate. We took a video right after adjusting the valves, before setting timing and idle mixture: https://youtu.be/sAhXHGn-EzE. Does this look OK? All of the rocker arms are spitting oil. The lash is 0.015" for intake and exhaust for the Oregon Cam 2106r. We set them all to 0.018" cold and most of them were within 1/8 turn of where they need to be when the engine was warm. The timing is currently at 8 degrees advanced, which is as much as I could get without removing the distributor to adjust the underside bolt. I set the idle mixture by tightening the screw until the idle started to drop, then backing it out a bit. I plan to do the break-in drive tomorrow, then retune at the 500 mile oil change. Let me know if that sounds dumb.

And just for fun, here's the engine compartment after everything was put back together.

Nice work. Did you run it for 15+ min at 2000+ RPM to break in the new cam/lifters? Or, maybe you didn't change the cam/lifters, can't recall. Pushrods spinning at different rates is fine as long as they are all spinning.

Enjoy the drive!!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I ran it at 1700-1900 RPM for about 10-15 minutes, following Dutra's book. He says 1000-2000 RPM for a few minutes. I've seen 2000 RPM elsewhere, so I figured close to 2000 is probably good. I had poured the break-in additive directly onto the rocker arms and made sure it was running down each pushrod.

OK, perfect. Looking forward the drive/performance tests!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

That engine looks terrific and sounds like it runs really nicely. You'll want to pay some more precise attention to the idle mixture as described here, and review the tune-up parts and technique suggestions in this post.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I watched the youtube and I do not see oil oozing out between the rockers and on top of them and dribbling on the pushrods. Did you see that happening? Sometimes it takes one or a few minutes of running to start seeing that.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988