CLEANING KEEPERS When cleaning valve train parts it is so easy to lose the tiny keepers. We always keep any extra keepers we have in case of losing one, but there’s always that one head that you don’t have extra keepers for. We purchased a very inexpensive item on...
POLISHING ARBOR I made an arbor to polish piston pins and pilot bushings that can be chucked up in my lathe, or even in a drill chuck. First I cut off the head of a long carriage bolt. This one was 3/8” coarse and will fit in a small drill chuck. Then added a nut,...
MAKING THE SEAL ON WET HEADBOLTS & STUDS 40 to 50% of our business is hi-performance boat engines, and the head bolt/stud sealing is critical on these engines. Jet boats use “waste” water from the jet pump to cool the engine and the pressure applied to the water...
PRICE TALK The phone rings, “How much is a valve job on a pair of early 350 heads?” Sound familiar? These are generally the first words you hear from a customer and seem to reflect the fact that your prospective customer’s first concern is COST. Should you quote a...
BMW UNDER PRESSURE One of the most difficult heads to pressure test is the BMW DOHC 6 cylinder. It is nearly impossible to plug the water outlet on the side of the head, until now. A “T handle drain plug” from a boat is the perfect size, and easy to install and...
COVER YOUR GLASS To make the glass in our glass-beading machine last longer, we cover the inside with duct tape, leaving a small open port to view the work. When this gets cloudy, we remove another small piece of the tape. Our glass lasts much longer now before it...