Technical Flathead wits end!?!?!??!

He's right I was mean to him. Just call me Sluggo.

I actually was though with the thread a long time ago but I just couldn't resist poking the bear while I was trying to help him understand that he probably didn't ruin anything or the proper sealant to use on an intake gasket if you use any thing at all.

Guess I spent too much time around the old guys while I was growing up.

 

It has nothing to do with being thin skinned or not. It has to do with this being a place for collective information and respect or shit talking.


Suggesting someone doesn't know how to use a torque wrench or any other b/s is not constructive and doesn't offer anything at all to the forum.



And thanks for leaving, old man, one less negative nancy to listen to.

 

Beaner, funny how you don't have anything better to do than go back through posts you're "done with" to get in one last quick jab. I guess the old men I hung out with when I was growing up were quite different than the ones you hung out with. My mentors taught me to respect others and treat them the way you want to be treated. Wait wait, I get it, you didn't hang out with old guys while you were growing up, you just hung out with old guys. You NEVER GREW UP.

It all makes so much more sense now as to why you act like an idiot.

 

Respect is earned. You haven't earned it yet.

I don't doubt that eventually you will or you'll just give up. First step is to stop wearing your feelings on your sleeve. You will find if you ever get around the mechanics in the world you think you want to fit into is that they are not nice, they are fun, they are raucous, most are intelligent, but they are not the little old lady that taught your Kinder Garden Class. They will not cry over spilled milk but they will never let you live it down if you spill yours. They are men not boys and they are not from this touchy feely century.

You will also find that like I started out saying that they believe that respect is earned.

Coupe,
my bad friend, not the kid's. He's still tryin' to learn.

I apologize to you.

 

Keep talking beaner, without you, it would just be CL, and no one wants a car with CL. They want a car with CLASS. So that means everyone wants you around, right?

 

And beaner, forgive me for not wanting to earn the respect of an ass who treats everybody like crap until they feel like they deserve proper treatment. You're just not my cup of cat piss. I'll have something a little easier on the pallet.

 

Dun51,
You'd never make it in the old Hamb.
Relax..
You're biting the hand that feeds you.
Take it from someone who learn most things the hard way. I grew up with kids older than me and worked with old guys who taught me everything I know.
And it wasn't done gently
Mind you.
The most important thing I learned from them was respect. Even when it wasn't given to me. Some times I deserved it.

 

Pete, I don't want to eat anything from someone who's default is "be an ass first, ask questions later". If you feed me disrespect, I'm going to give it right back. It's not my taste and I dont disrespect others by default and won't tolerate people disrespecting me for no reason.



And riddle me this: how do you learn respect from someone who disrespects you? It sounds more like all of you guys learned how to be DISrespectful from all your old friends.

Look it up in the dictionary, there's a CLEAR DIFFERENCE.

 

I find hot rodders can be mean when you first enter their world because you haven't done anything to prove you aren't just another hipster who wants to be part of the look at me crowd. If you really want to learn ask a question, explore the answer, ask another and stop telling people what you know or what you've done. Be humble. Show them your abilities .

 

Ray, thanks for trying to justify their actions but honestly, I'm not new to this, although this is my first old car personally, I've experienced forum experts before. They all hide behind their computer screens while making snide remarks and talking about how "it's always been this way". When you DO see them out with their chopped '32, they tell you that the flathead in their car, running a single stock 8BA carb and loadamatic distributor is a 300hp race motor from behind their duck dynasty beard. I'm all set.

 

My dad is one of the most talented mechanics and hot rodders I know and he has a " duck dynasty beard" . Guess we disagree there.

 

Ray, I meant nothing about the beard specifically, I'm sure your dad's beard doesn't say anything specific about him and I'll bet he had it before duck dynasty. You've been to my house and seen the way I live my life. About the only thing that's not 100% committed to the ways of the past is my heating system . I'm just tired of people being a dick for the sake of being a dick. That doesn't make a person traditional or more hardcore than someone else. It just makes them a dick.

 

Truth a dick is indeed a dick.

 

So for those who are still following thread for info, I'm taking the night off and will be removing my intake to check the mounting surfaces for anomalies tomorrow after work. Will update then. If the intake is the problem, I will be simply adding a timesert to the stripped hole, and ordering an Offy 2-2bbl intake and using that to solve the intake problem, because I have a pile of deuces sitting around and might as well fix a problem with an upgrade, right?


Update soon.

 

Update 7/2/16:

SO, I removed the manifold this morning and found a big uh-oh. The bolt that I thought was stripped had actually cracked the casting. The first picture shows what it looked like when I removed the manifold. The second picture shows what it looked like after some extremely careful persuasion with a hammer. I inspected all the bolts that I have for the intake and found that the threads on the stock bolts are in much worse shape than the stainless. The reason that I broke the hole was because I was using stock length bolts with lock washers which already pulled 1/8"-3/16" bolt out of the hole, and on the one I messed up, I also had a spark plug wire bracket on it, causing that bolt to be almost a full 1/4" further out of the hole than it should have been. My solution to the damage since there is still clean threads in the bottom half of the hole is to use a stud with a metric shitload of penetrating loctite. I'm hoping that this will hold everything firm without requiring me to pull the motor and bring it to a machine shop. I'll be heading out to pick up some really good studs to install and also pick up some other things, shortly.


However, I wanted to ask everyone if it looks like my block is potentially ported? The oval port, measured the long way, is about 1/4 larger than the intake manifold and it appears that it has been machined at least part of the way down. Check out the pictures and tell me what you guys think. I colored the 1/4 gradation on the ruler so it would show up on camera. I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to order a new/performance manifold or try again to reuse stock, but with the giant port mismatch, I'm thinking a performance manifold might be a good idea.



Bonus/PS. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to drill and tap a hole in between the ports nearest the damaged hole, in order to add another intake bolt for strength? Since the aftermarket manifolds have all the holes rather than the stock which has them blanked off, I figured this might make it more likely to seal. Again, any suggestions are welcome.

 

Nevrdun51,
Those manifold bolts take very little torque, and the flat sealing surfaces don't normally give people trouble. I'd just put a longer bolt to get to the good threads and be done with it.

 

Looks to me like someone screwed the wrong size bolt in those holes or overtorqued the hell out of them. In 25 years, I have never seen cracks like that. The fact that your bolts wouldn't hold torque, should have been a clue that you had a bad bolt or hole.

 

Flatjack, the reason that hole cracked is because only half the bolt was in it. It was honestly my mistake, as I didn't account for the added thickness of the lock washer and the spark plug bracket. I have already installed a stud and will be moving forward next week when I decide what parts to order. Most like to will just run my intake again, be it this time with a tiny bit of Indian head shellac on a new Fel pro gasket.


I will be honest though, I am quite surprised at the giant mismatch in the ports. I mean looking at the gasket that was on there, the intake manifold port is almost 1/8" smaller all the way around. I'm wondering if an aftermarket intake would have larger runners/ports?

 

I don't believe that the after market manifolds have substantially larger ports if larger at all.

 

Well then I guess I'll just order the parts to put the stock manifold back on. That's both the financially and diagnostically responsible decision.

 

Clean the hole very good then fill with JB weld & drill & tap to stock size. Not necessary to over engineer a repair.

 

Someone may have done some port matching in the past. Usually the intake gasket and and intake manifold ports are compared to the intake shapes in the block . If the manifold holes are larger the block intake holes are ground to match. Probably does not net much horsepower but we do it anyway.

 

I just went back and reread the whole thread and do not see anywhere a reference to checking the intake manifold mating surfaces to see if they are flat.If I missed it I apologize.Just check both sides using a long straightedge and either a light or feeler gauge stock.The stud in the half stripped hole is a good patch and will probably hold up well.From your description of your plug reading I dont think your problem was an air leak but you certainly must be sure the intake is sealing before you can do anything else._I dont know why my type font just changed_. IME an air leak bad enough to cause what you are having is going to be pretty obvious-car wont run at idle,acts generally lean and once you get on the main circuit it will run better but not right,at least a couple of plugs will show very lean.Intermittent miss that goes from bad to worse is almost always an ignition gremlin.In any case good luck.

 

Is the engine properly grounded?? Just a whim

 

Thanks for your replies guys.

#1, I did check the surfaces with a straightedge and could fit more than a thousand or two anywhere. It wasn't perfect, but as near as makes no difference as I'm concerned.


#2. The last few plug readings have looked normal-lean. I do agree that there could still be an ignition gremlin but I just don't know where to look. Everything is new. Literally, the dizzy is brand new from bubba, the cap and rotor I replaced using MSD cause it was American made, the wires are brand new Brillman sources Packard 440 wire.

#3. Before I checked the intake for leaks, when I did the cap rotor and wires, I added a ground, right from the body of the dizzy to the passenger side head.


I'm pretty stumped and at this point, really hoping that this intake leak was my problem. I'm going to order a good gasket on Tuesday and instal it with some traditional shellac on both sides, torqued to 20 ft/lbs.


Before I out the manifold back on, I'm going to check the valve springs really well visually to see if it looks like there's problems. I'm just running out of things to check here. I've even set the dwell @ 28/29 degrees.

 

Oh and yes. There's literally a 2 gauge wire straight from the battery to the drivers side head and then from the back of that head to the body with another 2 gauge wire. All connections sanded prior to assembly.

 

That was the next thing I was going to ask. I wonder if it might be cross firing(arcing) in the distributor cap? I realize the cap is new and not tracked but I have had that happen a couple of times with new caps. An old timer (I am 66 now,he probably was about that then ) I once worked for told me "the third time you go through the carb that aint your problem".