The engine's all ready to pull, so tonight it's coming out. Sometime this week I'm going to be switching the cam, and I had to change the flywheel too, so I decided to just take out the whole thing. Does anybody have any pointers that they can give me before I tackle this? Just wondering what kinds of problems I might run into while I'm doing this change. I'd rather learn from your mistakes than to make my own.

 

Ah, another Husker! (I'm a Native and alum, just happen live in enemy territory).

The intake and valve covers will need to come off. It's a little easier if you take the oil pan off, too. The pan gasket should be a one-piece design, and if it isn't torn or split, you should be able to reuse it. It's a good idea to get the engine into the #1 firing position before you take the distributor out, marking/noting the position of the rotor and housing for future reference.

Keep rockers and pushrods together, unless you're changing them. They form a wear pattern with each other, and switching them will force them to wear into another pattern, and can even cause failure.

You'll need a harmonic damper puller and installer. A standard pulley puller will not work. You should also change the timing set (crank and cam gears, chain) while you're at it, and you'll need a pulley puller for the crank gear.

I assume you're getting a cam and lifter set, as you shouldn't put old lifters on a new cam (for same reason as rockers & pushrods above). A cam handle is a handy tool to have to pull the old cam and put in the new one, as you want to support the cam as it passes by the bearings so the lobes don't scrape them. If not, one or two 4" long 5/16" bolts in the cam gear bolt holes will do as well.

The cam should come with installation lube, but if not, go get a bottle/tube of it. Coat the journals, lobes, and bottoms of the lifters before assembly. Install the new crank gear, align the dots on the crank gear and cam gear w/o the chain, then put the chain on the cam gear and install, making sure the dots still align.

For initial adjustment, the slickest trick I've heard yet (haven't tried it myself yet) goes like this: with the engine sitting where you installed the cam, go through all the lifters and adjust any that are loose (should be all of them) - take out all the slack (but don't depress the lifter plunger), then give it another 1/2 turn. Turn the engine over 180 degrees, go through all the rockers again adjusting any that are loose. Turn it another 180 degrees and adjust until you've done this 4 time (there should be fewer each time).

Since you'll have the oil pan off (well, you don't have to, but might as well), you might as well replace the oil pump while your'e at it. Put it all back together, prime the oil pump before you put the distributor back in. Oh, put the engine in the #1 firing position by watching the #1 rockers as you turn the damper pointer towards TDC - neither rocker should move for the last 180 degrees as #1 comes up the compression stroke. When you drop the distributor back in, turn it counter-clockwise one-gear-tooth's-worth from the #1 position, then drop it in. You may have to tweek the position of the oil pump rod, or turn the engine over until the distributor drops into the oil pump rod slot.

If you get into trouble, just give my brother on N 68th a call - he's done this several times.

 

no need to yank the whole engine, you can do a can and flywheel in the car,

 

thanks for all the tips. That's funny.......I live on N. 45th right off of Ames. That's only a few miles away.

 

how about making sure you have the right springs, and most importantly when you first start the engine make sure you break the cam in right,,,I have pesonally smoked 2 cams by not doing the break in procedure..
hope i helped
project=t/a

 

Ouch, that sucks......any tips on how to do it the right way though? besides what the directions say do you have any extra tips?

 

That's one slick trick five7kid =p

 

That is a neat trick - heard it here, forget whose idea it was.

I'd pull the engine to do a cam and flywheel before I'd try it with the engine in. Especially if you decide to pull the oil pan.

 

I'm pretty slick when it comes to adjusting valves. Is that a good clue?

 

I got the motor pulled, cleaned everything out, new cam, new timing chain, all that fun stuff. Now the part that I'm not good at. I'm trying to tighten down the rockers just right so that I don't mess anything up, but I don't know if I'm doing it right. I tightened them down the way that I thought I was supposed to do it, but my dad says that they are still too loose. How am I supposed to know that they are just right, so that when I put the motor back in and start it up, I'm not going to have to take everything back off to fix them? I just don't want to screw up another cam by having them to tight......

 

Spin the pushrod in your finger as you tighten the rocker arms down, when it stops spinning easily you should only go about half of a turn more. The thing is, you have to do this when the lifter is on the flat part of the cam lobe, which is typically about 70% of the lobe. This means that if you tighten all of the lifters like this at one time, you'll have a good portion of them correct, and some will still be loose. You can then rotate the engine and see which pushrods still spin, then tighten these until they no longer spin and go another half turn. After this rotate the engine a few times, each time checking each valve, just to make sure. This is a fail safe way which makes it unneccesary to memorize which valves can be tightened at which engine positions. Good luck.

 

Put a rag in the distributor hole, and some rags or paper towels down into the ports where the manifold comes off, not sure of the name of them

 

Rezinn: I used the trick that five7kid said, but the rocker arms still move side to side when I move them by hand. I didn't think that that mattered......since they will only be moving in the up and down motion when the motor is running.....but my dad said that they were still loose. Do you think that the pushrod spinning method will stop them from moving side to side? Or is this normal.....now I hope I said this right....I don't mean that they spin off of the spring/pushrod,,,but they move side to side...hope this makes sense.

 

i adjusted my rockers by starting the motor and tightening till tapping went away then went another half turn........easiest way if ya ask me

 

I've got the motor on a stand though. Would it be safe to hook up the radiator and starter and all that stuff, then start the motor on the stand? Seems a little risky to me......

 

As long as the rocker arm has no play up and down, and the pushrod doesn't spin. Make sure you've got either self aligning rocker arms or guideplates with non-self aligning.

Just crank the engine over by hand, you needn't hook anything up.