52 M38a1 Motor Pool Resto

No power since 7:30 last night. The world is conspiring against jeep work today....

 

That stinks! Not surprised with heavy wet snow followed by rain and back to snow again.

 

I suppose I could use your shop today Shaun, if my road weren't blocked by down trees and wires. Dead end. It will be a while before linemen are on the scene...

 

Study hall....day dreaming....

 

Relegated to micro solar to charge devices.....Trees and wires down. Sucks...

Able to heat the shop with propane....Not working on the project per se. Nice crossmember and skid plate for the shelf. Just some scraping.

Not what I wanted to be working on, but with no power....

Decided to hitch up the M-416. It hasn't rolled in at least a year. We have some trails right off the property. In a pinch, I can get out to the main road in such circumstances but we have everything that we need here without power. Wood stove allows heat and ability to cook.

Went for some trail rides with the dog. He loves that.

 

We got 14 inches west of the river, but it looks like less where you are. Haven't even seen a utility truck pass through here, since the storm. Lot of people still out. Many roads still blocked.

Hundreds of 911 calls last night. Just made a run with our Rescue to deliver O2 cylinders to a person who normally uses an oxygen machine, but he also has no heat.

I myself maintain all the necessities for off-grid living in parallel with the normal stuff. Wood heat, kerosene lamps, copper hand pump on the kitchen sink, two-holer out back. Even my fridge can switch from electric to propane. It all pays off frequently.

And Jeeps. Don't forget to have a Jeep.

 

Not fun Pete. We had 10" before it turned to rain and ice which happened about 3:00 PM yesterday. It got windy around 7:00 PM and it didn't take long for the power to go out. I feel bad for folks who cannot manage. We've had the wood stove going and had a cupboard meal this evening. Our weak link is domestic water in the house when this happens (we have a well like most folks around here).

 

Can't do much without water.

Can you hook up a generator? During multi-day outages I run a portable connected into the house main, a couple hours at a time, for taking a hot bath, charging up battery devices, activating my fiber-optic phone line for email etc. Although gasoline generators can be a pain for upkeep and tuning.

 

Quick update folks. I've had some frustrations with tool and parts vendors with regards to my valve guides. I ordered exhaust valve guides and valves were mistakenly sent. WTF...?

I've ordered .375 valve guide driver and this is what comes:

The shoulder (just beneath the caliper) is also too narrow. I fear that I'll mushroom the stem guide when I try to send it home. This is what I need (.375) which is 3/8". Actually, what I need is someone close by with a good lathe.

So hard to get support. The second response from the tool vendor after sending me a return label;
What was sent is considered a universal size for .378, .377, .376, .375, .374, .373, .372 or any other ID size 3/8” valve guide. Ours, Regis & Silver-Seal are all the same size from the same manufacturer. Goodson’s is even a little smaller in diameter for both the pilot and the shoulder. There is only one size for 3/8” guides, one size for 11/32” guides and two sizes for 5/16” guides, 5/16 being the exception because some of those guides have a different OD. If there was something else I could send you I would. But I don’t know of any other 3/8” valve guide drivers other than ours and Goodson’s.

So I'm tempted with send this engine to a machine shop, and hope they don't screw it up. I was hoping that dealing with American people with American made parts and tooling would be an advantage. I should have started this project with the engine in retrospect....

 

Good luck finding anyone without a long wait time, so I hear.

 

You could just send it as they will probably be needing some final reaming after installing.

 

This. I would imagine the ID of the guides is probably a little smaller than 3/8" anyway since reaming is expected after pressing them in.

 

I think that I have this on the run now guys. I've decided to drive the guides down in stead of pulling them as seen in the pic below. Since the cam and tappets are still in place and the guides are too long, I'll cut them with the plasma so that the tappets won't be damaged. I left about 1/4" clearance to be on the safe side.

New exhaust valve guides will be here tomorrow so it appears that this weekend will be a productive one. I have a 3/8 reamer in hand. Yes, there is some cleaning up to do in the valve chamber!

 

Exhaust valve stems showed up today from Pete DeBella. It would appear that reaming is not necessary from a quick test of one valve and valve stem. DeBella mistakenly sent me valves last week which I'll return. The NOS Eatonite valves should work fine. It's shaping up to be a productive weekend. I now have everything needed for the top end. I'm trying to convince blalp! to come over to hang out to turn some wrenches.

 

OK, plasma time. I've driven down the exhaust valve guides to just above the tappets. They are too long to drive down further, PeteL suggested cutting them with plasma. My machine is crusty but effective;

All set up;

Doing the deed;

I only cut about 1/2 way through. A few taps with a hammer and it breaks right off. The guides are cast iron, so this is easy. I drove down the remainder and success;

3 more to do. There's quite a lot of cleanup to do in the valve chamber. More later....Pete

 

I was only kidding. I didn't think you really do it.

 

Success. All four are out and I'm getting the chamber cleaned up. Pete, that was a good pro tip and I'll do it the same way next time.

There's no risk of burning through into the block. So much carbon accumulation to scrape out.

Getting the guide borings squeaky clean.

 

Driving the new valve guides....

One inch below the deck. Not exactly a precision measurement, but considering that the old valve guides were only 1/2 inch below, we'll call it good enough.

Only one (#4) of the new guides needed to be reamed. Not sure why, but I suspect that it's because of the force of being driven into the block. I'll be double checking my valve seat work before installing the new valves. We're not going anywhere today so I expect that I'll have the exhaust valves all buttoned up.

 

Greetings easter eggers (eggheads). We're home so I was able to get some things done in the shop. I wasn't satisfied that the valve seats were correct. I retraced my steps and glad that I did. This is some tooling that I bought last week to compliment the Neway vale seat cutters. Pretty slick system.

Three step process cutting the seats...I won't bore you guys and gals with the details.

After lapping. I'm very satisfied with the results. The greyish discoloration on the valve face confirms accuracy which translates into horsepower (for the little there is with these engines).

Setting up the valve springs, roto caps and keepers....

The keepers are a bit of a pain to install, beneath the roto caps...A dab of grease keeps them in place. Not that easy to see but they're there in place.

Chasing the head bolt threads. Nice and clean now.

Glad that I did. Lot's of crap was hung up in those threads.

This is the Neway setup. I think this American company does a good job with their tooling. Good support too....

I hope not to see these tools again for some time. Something old and something new. I enjoyed using them and hats off to the folks that designed them, both modern and past. I have to say that next time around, a valve job will take 1/4 of the time.

I discovered another sheared bolt. Water pump. I didn't do it, I swear...Ground it down flush, center punched and drilled out.

As usual, started with a small bit and worked my way up with predictable results. Tapping it out.

Glad to be getting this engine work behind me. All the precision is not really my thing....

 

Are you going to backcut the valves?