My 54 is on its way, (updated 10.24)

[Mike]

Well...life has gotten in the way of Stude building, or rebuilding.

Since the beginning of December, my refrigerator died, both my washer AND drier died, I had to have all the water piping in my house redone...! Plus all the stuff that comes due at the beginning of the year..(property tax's, house and car insurance, etc., etc.)
So now my checking account is almost zero and I'm dipping into my savings..!
My bathroom is still a mess from the pipe redo, the plumber guys trashed both the floor covering in the bathroom AND the first 18" of carpeting comming out of the bathroom. He gave me a "little" money back for repairs...but there's still a big dent in the carpet padding that can't be fixed..!

I did manage to blueprint my oil pump and a coupla other small things this weekend.
A discussion on the drivers site about oil pressure came up I thought...hmm I just bolted that thing back on..didn't touch it.
Soo...off came the pan again, off came the pump again...better now than after it's back in the car..1

Anyway, I set the gear clearance from the cover to the gears to .0025" from .0045", radiused both the inlet and outlet inside the pump, gave it a good cleaning and put it back on the engine.
Normally...just the raduising is good for 5 or 6psi on a Chevy pump.

will be splitting my time on the car and finishing the bathroom till it's done...!

Mike

[Mike]

Actually got some work done on the wagon.
I had to order a set of steel shim head gaskets, because the gasket set I ordered was supposed to have...steel shim gaskets...it didn't.
Anyway, got the heads in place on the block, the pushrods all cleaned and in place, I pulled the lifters, cleaned, oiled and put back in place. Some had some strange marks on them...little concerned that everything will work properly. I have two flat tappet cams and a set of new lifters if there's any problems..

I started to put the rockers in place and decided that since everything had been sitting out, getting all mannor of garbage on it all, that I'd take the rocker assembly apart, clean everything, and put it all back together. Well..since I can't seem to leave well enough alone, I removed some useless material, polished mating surfaces and deburred both the rockers and stands on one side last night. I should get it back together this week, do the other side next weekend and finish the basic engine next weekend.

I still need to make a bracket to hold the Hall sensor for the crank trigger to bolt on....somewhere..!

All for now.

[Mike]

A little more engine work done.
Made up a bracket to hold the Hall sensor for the crank trigger (ignition). If I'd had a mill, it would have taken an hour or so, but since everything is by the hammer and chissle method, it took almost all day Saturday. Made up a timing tab/pointer to go with it.
Actually, I'm fairly happy with the way it turned out. Moderatly small, and unobtrusive.

I've decided to check into the way the rocker arms were wearing. It seems I may need to shim the stands a bit to get the correct geometry. More stuff not planned on.

Nothing to the car itself lately.

The month of May seems to have a lot going on on the weekends...so probably not much on the car. I will try to finish up the engine though.

Mike

[Mike]

A short update to last weekends work.
I found that to obtain the most possible timing to start the system with (40 degrees), I had the trigger wheel drilled off on its rotation. While it "will" work as it is, the sensor will either be VERY close or even in the path of the steering (reach rod). So I'll be redrilling that this weekend so that the sensor is "up"...farther out of the way...!

Mike

[Mike]

Finally...something is "complete"..!

The front of the engine is...done...!
All the way to the pulley and crank bolt. The timing sensor bracket is made and bolted in place, the new timing tab is in place, the gear cover is in place for the last time...

And I did something that reckons back to what I do for a living...many might find odd...
In the space part of areospace (even in planes), there is a lot of redundantancies. If something fails, a switch can be flipped and the second system takes over.
Well...I brought that theory home. Being that this will be my "driver" when done, and that...things fail... I bought an inside the distributor ignition as a backup for my fancy crank trigger assembly. Originally I thought of just buying a second sensor to rest in the gloove box until required. But then thought...I have both the sensor that can fail AND the MSD box itself that can fail. Soo... I bought a Crane unit (simillar ot the Pertronix) to just sit "waiting" inside the distributor...in case of crank trigger assembly failure.

In case of failure, just disconnect the crank trigger completely from power. Plug in two Crane wires into the coil, mess with the timing a little....and in five minutes, I'm back on the road.
Hopefully, it'll be wasted money...but I feel better knowing I won't need a flatbead truck ride home for ignition problems..!

Oh yea, finally installed the front brake lines and manifold block, with a new light switch. Now to build a bracket to hang the master cylinder...and connect all the lines, and I'll have brakes again.

Mike

[Mike]

After cleaning and deburring the rockers and stands and putting them back together, I assembled the left side with light springs on cyl. #1 valves. I rotated the cam thru a full lift cycle and found that even with .010" milled off of the heads, that the rocker to valve geometry is still way off. I wouldn't be able to put my R2+ cam in and have the rockers in the proper location on the valve stem.

Soo...I took the stands out today to have .040" milled off of the bottom of the stands to hopefully correct the geometry. I originally though of going .030" off, but decided on more...incase .030" was still a little off. This way, I can use shim stock under the stands to brings everything into the correct geometry.

Now all this said...I MAY...need to buy shorter pushrods..! I'm hoping not so...at least not right now.
Hoping to get the stands back next Friday...stay tuned.

Mike

[Mike]

Ok...here I am a few weeks later...

I got the stands milled the .040" I had planned on. A quick check revield a much better situation, but still not correct. Note that this change also required the push rods to be shortened..!

I found a rocker shaft with the later (62 and newer) rocker arms attached. Just for the fun of it, I put one on the later rockers on a shaft and put it back on my cyl. head. I used the original (short) 1959 pushrod. The later (62 up) rocker assemblies used a longer pushrod with this rocker arm.
Wonder of wonders, the geometry is almost perfect..! Not only does the rocker tip sit properly at TDC position on the valve tip, but as the crank is rotated to rotate the cam and the rocker hits and starts to lift the valve, all contact points are VERY close to where they should be for proper geometry. Plus, the later rocker arm valve tip pad, is much larger so as it rotates/slides across the valve tip, there is "much" more room for a larger lift cam.

Great, now to find a good set of the later assemblies. The assembly I had in hand, the rocker tips were pretty beat up...read that unusable. I dug around thinking I had a set...somewhere... Well last week I found two sets. One came with an engine I bought years ago that turned into my 299 inch engine for my "blue" car, and the other set, I was given with some other stude stuff...also years ago. I had all but forgotten about these..!

After disassembly, a lot of cleaning, I was able to...just...put together one full set (out of two full sets). Some had bad rocker tips, some had bad adjuster cups, some..both... After mixing and matching, I've got 16 somewhat usable rocker arms, with one or two nice ones..!

After some deburring, lightening, match weighing, a good hard scrubbing, and reassembly, the rockers are ready. Same basic, stripping, cleaning, reassembly for the shafts. One shaft was really bad with sludge in the shaft. Out of 6 shafts, I have four usable. One set for this engine and one set for the 299 engine for my "blue" car. Still no rockers for the blue car yet...looking..!

So...I ended my weekend with two, fully assembled rocker arm assemblies bolted to my cylinder heads.

Now onto to modifiying my intake manifold to properly fit the heads.

Mike

P.s. - For the what it's worth column...
While the three (early, mid and late) rocker arm designs "look"...somewhat the same. There are MANY differences in them. With the 62 and later being a MUCH better design than either of the two earlier designs.

[hi-per al]

Mr. Mike....Thanx a bunch for the rocker arm tips. I assume to achieve this geometry you are still using the milled rocker stands with the 62 and newer arms.That is how I read your post but at times I am a little obtuse.

Great to hear that you are making progress.

[Mike]

Al -

Correct in your assesment.

Yea, found the fix sorta by chance. I put the original parts back together, knowing there was a problem because of the wear pattern on the original rockers. The way they were, I culdn't put an R2 cam in without the rocker pad running off the pad edge past the valve tip.
So...just verifying, yep at full lift with the stock cam, the rocker tip is on...both it's edge and the valve edge...! NOT good... As noted, I had the stands milled to remove .040" MUCH better, but still not enough.

I found one late rocker arm. Don't know where I got it...but I've got it... Cleaned up and put into place, with the stock/original, (short per this rocker) pushrod. Ran it thru the cycle, what do I see...but it looks almost perfect. And I only had to unwind the adjuster about 1/2 a turn from where it was to get the lash adjustment..!

So, stock (never ground) cam, .010" off the heads, original style shim head gasket, original early pushrods, .040" off of the original stands and late (62 up) rocker arms.

Remember, every engine is different. The geometry may be fine in your engine. For whatever reason, mine wasn't...from the factory. And this engine is out of my 60 Lark with a documented 23,xxx original miles on it. I have the original owners bookwork, and though it went thru two more sets of hands before it got to me...only about 2000 additional miles were put on it.
Before me...this engine hadn't even had a valve adjustment..!

If you're looking for the best performance (and valve guide wear), check your engine...

Mike

[Mike]

I got a home-made intake manifold a coupla weeks ago. It's modified to fit the Stude engine.
It's gonna take some work to be a good intake. I picked up some "expensive" epoxy to help with that task. I've got...at least the first...fill done.
Had to fill the floors and side walls in to fit my heads properly. It's a normal 180 degree design intake, with a set of high and a set of lower runners and a fully divided plenum. The low set (4) aren't too bad except for where they enter the cylinder head. So I'be going to build up a sorta large radius so the fuel/air flows more smoothly into the head port from the manifold.
The high runner set (4), have a deep drop in the port floor that needs to be filled to make the floor straight...with no hole in it...which is done.

I'll be matching the ports to the heads here in the next few days and porting to my layout lines. I may need to add some more epoxy to the "low" set of ports to make the transition from the manifold to the heads nice and smooth.

All this work for a "street" engine...!? And with all this, work...being a low hp Stude engine to begin with...I'll be lucky to see 325hp..! I do have an R2+ cam to go in later...but even that's not gonna make that big a difference.

Mike