The Latest: No More Leak!!!!!!!
Well, we went ahead and reamed two of the four oil galley holes and then tapped them for pipe plugs. One of the soft plugs (The leaker) came out very easy and it looks as if it cocked in the bore during the original install. Here is a couple words of advice if you do this operation. These ideas were gathered here and from my friend Pat the machinist.
1. Place a small piece of cloth in the bore deep enough so you can retrieve it, but not shallow enough so you will catch it with the reamer.
2. The reamer bored a nice clean hole and the chips were very fine. I first used a shop vac to get the major chips out and then on my friends advice I use a pen magnet to get all of the rest of the dust out.
3. Turn the oil pump manually via the distributor hole to force out oil and possibly any missed chips (Same procedure used with reamer chips) after tapping.
4. Take your time with the tap. We managed to get a really nice set of threads and the brass plugs sealed great. I used copper RTV as a thread sealer just in case.
We did not do the rest of the plugs because the second soft plug I pulled seemed to be set in the correct way. After inspection of the other two we decided that they looked good and we should not tempt fate. I ran the engine to operating temp and rev'd it up a few times. She is pushing 80lbs at WOT, No leak!. Well Thursday night we start the Lakewood intall. I'll let you know what happens.
--Mike
Threaded Mode
