Longblock

I got the barrel shims in the other day and began top end assembly. I washed and installed the pistons and cylinders then put on and torqued down the heads. Then I began rocker geometry.



Now setting rocker geometry takes a little bit of patience and when you just got the parts that will let you complete your rebuild, patience doesn't come freely. After being sure that I absolutely needed new pushrods I cut one and tapped it so I could adjust it to make it the right size. I don't have a dial indicator so I used my depth guage to find mid-lift of the valve. After a lot of adjusting and measuring and putting a few different variations of shims I finally felt that it was good enough. With .090" of shims my adjustable pushrod came out to an even 11.25 inches. I had to measure them by putting them up to a ruler, but I feel confident that 11 1/4 is not just a conveniently round number that I made up.



I should have ordered the pushrods before hand but I was just being stingy hoping I could reuse my old ones. I also thought I would have to have it cut on a lathe so I couldn't order it until I knew. But having no way to measure to even a tenth it's awesome that it came to an even 1/4, so I decided just to cut it myself and save $30 and the extra time it would take to get here.
Anyway. After I ordered new cromoly pushrods I put on the tin, alternator and carbs. I finished my custom carb linkage, then bolted the breather onto the back of the tin and routed the lines to it. It looks far better than before and it's out of the way. Then I mocked up the header and realized I would burn a hole in my oil line if I left the fitting facing out towards the exhaust. A trip to Ace and I had a street elbow.. oops it doesn't have enough clearance to screw on. Another trip to Ace and I had a 1.5" nipple and 90° elbow that fit. Its totally honkey-dory plumbing but it works and it won't burn my oil lines.



I bought new oil and gas lines, then new oil filters and a box of oil. Online I ordered a flywheel gasket, a new (and very expensive) SCAT gland nut, exhaust gaskets and new teal/green spark plug wires. I have no money left : (
Right now I'm stopped dead until I get the flywheel gasket, gland nut and exhaust gaskets. If I had those I could at least get as far as installing the engine in the car and finishing the oil line plumbing.
I'm still worried about torquing the gland nut. It needs 300 foot-pounds of torque. My only plan is to stand 1 foot and 10 inches out, from the center, on a cheater bar. That should be equivalent to 300 foot-pounds. It's a good plan and there is no reason that it shouldn't work but it just seems unprofessional.