Putting the Engine Together, The Fun Part!

Getting the heads on wasn't a big deal, but each head weighs about 60 pounds with all the valves in, so watch your fingers.
I had to removed the valley cover to get the push rods all lined up with the lifter caps, but otherwise it was easy to get the rocker arms back in. I torqued down the heads starting in the center and working out, as called for in the shop manual. The head bolts got 70-75 foot pounds of torque each.
The intake manifold and valve covers were next. Nothing difficult here. I also ran the heater hoses up to the water pump. You can see them coming out the front in this picture. I wouldn't have wanted to install them after the manifold was in place. I installed the crank pulley onto the harmonic balancer too!
Look at that intake, ready for those 2 barrels!! I'll get to them next! Notice on the left side, I've got the oil filler, and fuel pump on now! This is really the pay off after a year of toil!
The Carbs are next! Here they are with gaskets installed and ready to bolt on! I'll do the center first!
1 down and 2 to go! If I had it to do over, which I did, I would have connected the vacuum lines up before installing the other carbs. I had to remove this carb later just to get at one vacuum line!
There they are, all back after a 1 year stay in the attic. Now its just a bunch of linkages and vacuum lines to connect, in fact about 1 weeks worth!
Here is a nice side shot! Looks allot better than before, I hope it runs as good as it looks. Now the challenging part, figuring out where all the linkages and vacuum lines go!

Next Getting it Running!


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Author: Bill McKenna
email bill@mckennasgarage.com