October 12 - 19, 2002
When we took the engine apart we were very careful to keep tract of where the pistons, rods, bearing caps, etc. went, so we could put them back in the proper order.  Unfortunately, we were not so careful with all the external engine parts and pieces.  Mostly they just got tossed in a couple of plastic buckets.  On hindsight I would not recommend this procedure.  It added considerable time and frustration to the job of putting the parts and pieces back on during assembly, mainly tying to figure out which bolt went with which part.

The weekend after we finished rebuilding the bottom end of the engine I took the buckets of bolts, brackets, and other assorted pieces back to my house in Grand Island to clean them up with the wire wheel on my bench grinder.  Prior to attacking the parts with the wire wheel I used diesel fuel to remove the grease and gunk.  

During the process of cleaning up the parts I culled out those that looked like they would need replacing.  All of the exhaust bolts and water pump bolts were severely eaten up with rust and would need to be replaced.   The rest of the bolts, brackets, etc. looked to be in surprisingly good shape.  After cleaning up the parts on the wire wheel I returned them to the buckets and gave them a liberal spraying with WD-40 to keep them from flash rusting.

I brought the small parts I had cleaned back to Dave's place and then spent the next several nights and the following weekend restoring the larger engine parts.  Nothing real complicated to this work.  Mostly I just removed all the grease and gunk using diesel fuel and carburetor cleaner.  I then used wet sand paper or the wire wheel to remove any surface rust.  If the part was to be painted I wiped it down with lacquer thinner prior to applying a few coats of paint. 

For the black parts I used Rustoleum satin black.  The orange parts I painted with the same high-temp, hugger orange paint I planned to use on the engine block.  The only "repair" I had to make prior to painting was to pound out a couple of small dents in the valve covers.  

The engine hoist provided a handy place to hang the small parts while the paint dried. Dave has a fairly big shop, but it's amazing how quickly it filled up with all the various engine parts and pieces.

The sheet metal that goes on the driver's side exhaust manifold was very pitted.  However, none of the pits were rusted through and because these items are extremely hard to find I decided to paint them with a high-temp aluminum paint rather than try to find replacements.   I think they turned out well.  The pitting actually gives them a hammered look.  

The spark plug heat shields were in good shape except for a little surface rust.  I painted them with the same high-temp aluminum paint I used on the exhaust manifold sheet metal.  Hopefully the aluminum paint will hold up well, but only time will tell.

The original rubber/plastic coating that was on the sparkplug wire looms was very brittle and what little was still attached chipped off when I cleaned these parts.  To restore them  I used Rustoleum Grip Guard.  It appears to be a little more "rubberized" than the  original coating but it seems to work well.  One of the small wire looms (shown in the above photo) was missing, so I made a new one from some heavy gauge sheet metal Dave had left over from his tractor restoration project.  It was a little tedious but after painting and "rubberizing" Dave couldn't pick out the homemade one, so I guess I done good.

The only engine items remaining to restore were the exhaust manifolds.  The manifolds were in fairly good condition, but they had the typical rust and "alligator" skin from years of use.  The passenger side exhaust was the worst for wear.  A piece on one of the mounting hole ears was chipped off.  It also was not the original exhaust.  I haven't been able to tract down the casting number, but I know it's not original because it had holes for the plumbing used with smog equipment, which Maych doesn't have.  

I looked around town to try and find a good, used exhaust manifold but it seems the passenger side manifold is a rare commodity.  I found plenty of used ones for the driver's side but none for the passenger side.  One day when I was checking on the heads at the machine shop, I mentioned to the machinist the trouble I was having finding a replacement and he said why not just plug the smog holes, grind the plugs flush, weld any remaining hole shut, and paint.  He said he could also have them shot peened which would remove most of the "alligator" skin.  Sounded like a good plan so I left them with him.

When I picked up the exhaust manifolds from the machine shop they did indeed look like brand new.  They looked so good I was tempted to not paint them but after sitting around the shop for only a couple of days they had already begun to show signs of flash rust.  I painted them using a foam brush and Eastwood's Factory Gray High Temp Coating.  

They turned out looking great.  The smog holes are invisible and you cannot tell that the mounting hole has been repaired. I am still going to keep an eye out for an exhaust with the correct casting numbers but in the meantime this one looks very good.

That finishes up the restoration of the engines parts and pieces.  Next on the agenda is to clean up the engine bay.  That's a job I'm not looking forward to.  I'll let you know how it went in the next episode.

 

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