by Donnie Hurt | Oct 1, 2016 | CYLINDER HEADS
MYSTERY OIL CONSUMPTION Sometimes we get engines in the shop that have unexplained oil consumption. The rings, valve guides and seals all appear to be just fine. Valve guide replacement, spring cup modifications, heavy porting and machining rocker arm bosses are just...
by Donnie Hurt | Oct 1, 2016 | TOOLING
PVC CAN BE A WONDERFUL TOOL I have a 6 inch length of 3/4 PVC pipe I have used for maybe 25 years. I use it for pushing floater wrist pins out of pistons with no damage. I use it to bottom washers on studded heads. I have used it to carefully push head gaskets onto...
by Donnie Hurt | Sep 1, 2016 | CRANKSHAFTS & CONNECTING RODS
DOING THE LS CRANK STAND Since the new LS motors all have reluctor rings, my son and I figured out a relatively easy way to stabilize our cranks when we are installing the reluctor ring to the crank. We honed out a junk harmonic balancer to use as a stand for reluctor...
by Donnie Hurt | Sep 1, 2016 | CAMSHAFTS & VALVE TRAIN
IN SHOP CAMSHAFT ANALYSIS Our shop has had a cam analyzer for over 28 years, so I had forgotten how we checked and identified cams in the past. Recently I was asked by another shop how to verify which of three customer supplied cams to install in the customer’s...
by Donnie Hurt | Sep 1, 2016 | OTHER SHOP WORK
CAST IRON THREAD PLUGS I make my own large threaded repair bushing from tapered pipe thread oil galley plugs, with an internal hex. The material of these plugs is hard enough to tap clean threads into, and very similar to your cast iron block or head. They are...