Well it happened, been waiting since Monday for a break in the weather. Had her all ready and waited for my pal to show from the Ford dealership. He's a Ford Mechanic and a good guy for standby.
Took forever to get gas to the carb. Broke the line at the inlet to the inline filter and waited till we had it squirt into a cup. Can these get airlocked??
Back together and a few more cranks and it flashed up. My friend didn't even have to touch the distributor. I had static timed it yesterday for 14 deg. Guess that was damn close.
Tonight we ran it between 1500 and 2500 rpm for 25 min.
The only concern was seeing the temp. start to get a little high in those very few last minutes of cam breakin.
110 to 115 C was the hottest we saw at shutdown.
Oil was almost as hot. I had my electric puller fan on for the duration. Reasonable for a 25 minute at "1600-2500 rpm standstill" with the hood up?? You think?
Guys My initial
oil pressure on cold 10-30W was 65PSI then once it was hot (100-110) It was 30-40 PSI at 1600-2000 rpm
This sound good??
Now a fun part, immediately after turning the key off, I went from a nice 1800-1900 rpm to nothing, I did get a tinge of run on? Is that because the key switch came off at 1900RPM? Remember I have yet to get the timing light on it and the car hasn't been tinkered with yet.
Next in short order was my over flow starting to puke at the over flow nipple off the expansion tank(where the rad cap sits). At first I thought a hose clamp on the lower rad hose was letting go, but then we saw it coming out of the short length of hose that I luckily put onto the nipple and directed downto the ground.
Here comes the really wild part....we saw a little more steam.......then WHOOOOOOF!!!!!! instant sauna!!
Green juice everywhere out of the bottom of the car's rad...we ran for our lives, not knowing what was letting go........funny as hell, as we did the hop and skip-- two step...
Picture this, we had just seconds before, had our noses under the hood looking at the puke tank line...LOL Wet feet galore
( I recall the butcher of baghdad had stories of rad hose grief too)
So, what let go, once the water pump stopped circulating, was the bottom pipe most of us have fashioned to get from the bottom rad nipple to the water pump stub.
"We have separation" was the quote that came to mind!!
You all know that nice piece of metal that most of us have gone to the muffler shop to have bent for us. My piece does not have a lip at either end, like most rad nipples or pipes.
4 gallons of 50/50 had departed my cars cooling system, barely there 2 days.......
So guys what do I do to remedy this?? Have a lip welded to either end of the pipe? Have the muffler shop expand it slightly?
My hose and clamps need a lip obviously to anchor off.
Next question....I filled my expansion tank (FE) to just touching the inner baffle. This is recommended level. Do i have to get a puke tank on the end of the over flow hose for puking and recovery on cool down?? If so what are all you guys doing and where do you mount that??
As for breakin....awesome, sounded great! Not a single leak otherwise. No
oil, no gas....no exhaust leaks....Sad that I didn't really get to hear the idle, as Cam break in took priority.
Wanted to hear this Edelbrock RPM package! Holley 850 out of the box was great. The only thing I adjusted was 1.5 turns out on each idle mixture screw (4) Float levels obviously weren't hi.
Last thing I still obviously have to screw with is my McCleod T/O bearing as it's at the bottom of 1/4 of the pedal and will not disengage the clutch enough for me to put it into gear. I think because it is so far down at the end of the pedal, that I just still have some bleeding to do. It was set up for right clearances and travel.
BTW I used 94 octane .....2 Gallons in the car to get it going....after some more farting around its off to the paint shop.
Guys when should I do the first oil change?? Now after cam break in. In my oil (8 qts). I also had added GM's EOS for break-in ( half a can in the filter and the other half in the oil) George G. recommends it, as well as other I have talked to.
Tim
PS for tomorrow, fix the rad pipe, maybe an oil change- depending on you gurus, timing tweaking and some some carb tinkering with a Vac. gage. I am so happy it went well