I had some FE heads with some pretty decent burrs on the valve tips. Instead of slowly turning the valves by hand to file the burrs off, I grabbed an old valve lapping stick and chucked it up in the drill to spin the valves. It went really quickly, and I was able to...
My small ultrasonic parts cleaner heating element burned out. Rather than scrapping it, I just dropped an electric charcoal lighter in the solution. It heats up faster than before but, there’s no thermostat, so keep an eye on it. Scott Ouellette Powerplay Engine and...
A rack out of your wife's old dishwasher can make a great new home in your parts washer. Parts can be held apart by the tines, like keeping those precious fractured rods safe from dings. The silverware basket works great for smaller items. Josh Mitchell Mitchell...
On race engine cylinder heads that have exotic seat angles, I like to leave myself notes for future reference on freshen ups. I do keep a lot of notes in my folders and build sheets, but I found it handy to scribe the valve seat angles under the cylinder heads (kind...
After assembling over 5,000 engines, I have seen just about every conceivable problem that can arise during engine assembly. One particular area of concern was the cam bearing housing bore size in all engines, particularly Ford small block and big block engines,...
Instead of using a file card/brush to clean pips & dirt from file teeth, flatten one end of a 6" to 8" length of 3/8" copper tubing. Use the copper tubing as a scraper to quickly remove debris from the file teeth. Rub chalk into the teeth after cleaning to help...