if you thread some 3/8 rope into plug hole and raise piston by hand ...it will hold both valves closed so you can remove/ replace springs/seals

I have always had good experiences with the FelPro gaskets from napa, but Victor Reinz makes good stuff too.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Thank for the suggestion

I have read that if one did not plan to do any machine work that a Napa gasket might not suffice but lots of opinions.

I think it would be neat ( worst case scenario ) to use the head on it now and remove it, ( gain that experience ) clean it up as best as I can ( that experience as well ) and then get it back on their properly where it did what it was intended to do.

I am trying to gain hands on experience with these slants, Ive had some with V-8s but even that was limited.

OK- understood. Get to it then! Pulling a head is a technically simple job, but it is nice to have a strong back or a friend.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yes I understand it is a simple job, I have done it before in the past ( quite a few times on various engines over the years ) buuut......Did I do it right??

Id like to do it right and by the book and then decide later on what I can get away with for shortcuts the next time I do it.

I have some questions.

1- When I loosen the head do I loosen the bolts starting center and then work outwards? I believe when I re-torque the head that is also the way it is done.

My understanding is that this is more important for an aluminum head and may not be as crucial with the iron head.

2- I have always been under the impression that it is a big no-no to re-use head bolts and yet doing a search on slant engines everyone seems to be doing it so maybe its OK for this low compression engine? ( As a sidenote I believe I have noticed that all slant head bolts are the same length/diam so I guess there is no concern as far as mixing them up. )

Would that still apply if I were to have the head shaved the 100thou or so that is recommended to bump the compression up to a decent rate ( evidently that may be approx 9.5 or so give or take.....I also plan to learn how to CC the head so that a more accurate ratio can be attained as per Dusters instructions I have saved from this site)

When I go to re-torque the head bolts should I put anything on the threads of the bolts....wont a grease coating change the torque value I want to achieve ?

3- Some say use a gasket coating....some not. Evidently it is a copper spray on coating. I have seen it and may have used it in the past on another engine. Is there an up/down to the gasket...do I spray one side or both?

4- When I remove the head and then pull the valves for cleaning I am going to guess that its not OK to mix them up, I am going to guess that even though they are constantly rotating during operation that they are still making a seat within the valve seat that is un-like another valve.

I would love to learn hands on how to lap in the valves, evidently it is done with with some prusion ( ? ) blue and the suction cup deal. I have read about this quite a few times over the years but have never attempted it.

Evidently the blue is put on the valve, inserted back into the guide and is spun with the suction cup deal until a uniform surface pattern is seen on the guide.

It is my understanding that it is a poor mans way of getting a better seal of the valves faces to their respective seats. For this engine it sounds like the perfect fix........Doesnt have to be perfect, just good enough.....for now.

When I initially go to cleaning the valves is it OK to use a standard wire brush that is on my benchgrinder or do I need to use the brass brush that I do not have yet?


I have I believe all of the specialty tools to measure the tolerances with the engine including the small inside measuring tools to measure the guides ect to check for wear..................Too be honest I would prefer to not have any machine work done to this engine, it is only something that Id like to see running again, I am using it as a tool to learn from. If the guides are worn and the valve seats ect as well that will be OK with me and I will leave it as is as long as things are not worn so badly that this thing absolutely will not run but Id like to know first hand ( hands on experience ) what is going on within the engine and how I could have corrected it if I had chose too.

5- What is the recommended procedure for inspecting the cylinders pistons once the head is off......if I had a broken ring would I definitely know it by scoring on the cylinder wall? Should I dump some oil into each cylinder and see if it stays there or time how fast it takes before it finds its way to the bottom end.

Just cause one ring is possibly broken prob. does not mean the other two are so not sure of a good way of checking all of this.

I am suggesting a broken ring only because I did fill up a small portable cylinder with air and dump it into the head, the air escaped VERY fast, within seconds......I did not feel it coming out the carb.....hard to tell if it came out the exhaust cause I had no help. I thought that I did however hear it coming up the lifter bores but that is only a guess, the portable cylinder I was using was maybe 3-5 gallons and it gave me no time to investigate thoroughly.

I plan to fire up the big compressor this weekend and stuff it with some strong continuous air before/assuming I pull the head.

I was told by the seller that his grandfather was told the mileage was accurate...... approx 60 some thousand......no dashboard any longer, no speedometer and no way of telling what it might have on it for mileage at this point but maybe its worth mentioning anyway.

At one point someone loved the truck very much....I would like to have met him, he took the time to paint it red, he had Mopar stickers all over it, he took it too many shows as can be evidenced by all the show stickers on it. My interpretation of the truck is that it was owned by someone that did not have alot of cash but loved his slant powered truck.

I have other questions about valve train inspection but they can wait

Hope all of this makes sense.

If you are going this far, it'd be worth it to get some mics and inside gauges and check the valve stems and guides, I would also do the 'wobble' test and pull the valve about 0.4" off it's seat and tug the head to one side or the other and see how far out of straight it will go...before sending my 1976 head to the machine shop the valve guides and stems had a .06+ clearance at the wear point and I could pull the valve 1/8" out of alignment...that was enough think it was time for new guides and valves...

If you are going to clean the head and have it milled for compression, check the guide and stem clearances and take to the machine shop and have them hot tank/flux, then you can have them mill it and you do a valve job (assume that the seat is not pitted or sunk and the valves are in good shape), or have them replace the guides and valves...If they are good they have a valve spring tester as well hand have them check your springs...same head above had 3 springs that were at 10 lbs of seat pressure...that's not going to work well for long....

2 cents

Thanks for the info Duster, hoping to get away with no machine work on this particular head but the info will prove useful later on.

I admire your desire to learn and do things right, but I have noticed that sometimes you overthink things. A slant six cylinder head is a big hunk of cast iron bolted (in your case) to another big hunk of cast iron. Separating the two, barring something really unusual and rare happening, is as simple as removing the fasteners.
Excellent! The factory service manual (A.K.A. "The Book") has the best instructions and diagrams you will ever see telling you how to remove the head from your engine.
Not many. Especially in a truck, there just aren't tha many extra steps involved in removing a slant six cylinder head. If you have a hoist or losts of strength you can leave the manifolds attached, but that is a good way to get a hernia. I have pulled heads with the manifolds attached a few times, but I don't recommend it.
If you are obsessively anal about things, I suppose you could reverse the torque pattern used when installing the head, but really you can just loosen them all and in any order.
I have never heard of having to replace slant head bolts except on exotic racing motors or forced induction applications running lots f cylinder pressure. Some people replace the head bolts with studs, but on a stock motor this really isn't necessary.
I know you can re-use the stock head bolts with a .0100 inch head shave (I have done it myself). Theoretically, there must be an upper limit to how much you can shave off the head before the stock head bolts will bottom out in the bore and no longer clamp the head to the block, but if you encounter that problem just slip a washer between the head of each bolt and the cylinder head. Lock washer preferably.
If you are being anal about this, you should chase the threads on each head bolt with a die and chase the threads for the head bolts in the block with a tap. Then dip each head bolt in motor oil before you put them in the block and tighten them. You want as little resistance from the threads as possible in order to ensure that you are getting a true reading of the torque required to turn the head bolts.
Every slant head gasket I have ever seen has "THIS SIDE UP" printed on it. Most also say "USE NO SEALANT" and "NO RETORQUE NECESSARY." Of course, those statements assume a stock motor, which I believe is what you are working on. Do not use any kind of extra gasket sealant or coating ont he head gasket. This isn't true for aluminum block slants where the cast ron head has a different expansion rate than the aluminum block and needs to be able to move freely as the metals heat and cool.
Mixing them up is fine, as long as you lap them in and don't put intake vales in the exhaust holes and vice versa.
CLICK ME
A regular wire wheel should be fine, just wear gloves and safety goggles.
Sounds like you shouldn't even bother taking it apart then. Just soak the sticky valve stams in the solvents mentioned earlier and try and get it running.
Look for piston damage, cylinder wall damage, and the pull the piston and look at the rings.
Pull the piston and inspect rings.
Some blowby past the rings is normal on a used engine. You won't be able to tell reall until you get the valves seated completely.
Yep. Sounds like someone drove that motor hard without much maintenance. I am fairly confident you can get the engine up and running again with little fuss. Soak the valve stems, get the valve to seat, do a compression check, and then get the engine started.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

I agreed with Reed up until he said to use lock washers under the head bolts. Head bolt washers are ground and hardened flat washers. Older engines didn't use head bolts that permanently stretch (torque-to-yield bolts stretch permanently and are one-use-only) so they can be reused if in good condition. When I had .100" taken off both the block and head of one 225 I built I used head bolt washers to ensure the bolts didn't bottom in the block.

If you pull manifolds and the valve gear including the pushrods before removing the head you're unlikely to damage anything.

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Joshua

Thank-you both for your time, I do believe you are bot slant experts and hearing one expert confirm another experts ideas/experiences is nice. Yes I am anal about things.

Here is where I am at and what I found



# 2 cylinder More to come

I do not know what caused this, looking at the valve seat where the valve sits now I can see no damage, I know the valve is constantly rotating though so I plan to remove the valve and see if I can find further damage.

At this point I am still hoping to go along with the lapping of the valves, I have plenty of extra stock valves so hoping that this will not be an issue.

What do you guys think?

Before pulling this assy I did fill all cylinders with some REAL compressed air. Cylinder # 1 moved the crank when I put air to it, that was the cylinder that was reading zero and then with some fiddling went to 30 and then I couldnt get it off 30 again. I felt a small amount of air coming out of the tailpipe which would indicate exhaust valve problems.

Cylinder # 2 was a constant heavy thrush of air coming out the exhaust, now I can see why.

With everything apart I plan to learn how the various measurements are taken to measure compression, ccing the head, deck height ect.

I admit I was guessing about the lock washers. I figured you would want a washer that wouldn't contribute to the head bolt loosening in any way, and that is what lock washers are supposed to do. I have never had to use washers under the head bolts, so I have no experience with it. If there are special head bolt washers available, by all means use them. See why I have a disclaimer at the bottom of my posts? I figure I average about an 80% signal to noise ratio.

A cracked intake valve will definitely make the cylinder loose compression. I suggest grabbing a good looking valve from a spare head and popping it in there, lapping it, and running the head.

Looks like you have a Super Six intake and carb on that head on the front of the bench.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yes that is the intake/carb assy that was on the truck, that is the same head with the bad valve. I thought that was a bad exhaust valve but I guess since you say intake I will have to double check.

I was not planning to remove the intake/exhaust manifold but I am going to imagine it will be necessary if I plan to lap in the valves.

What could have caused the valve to do this?

The cylinder filled a bit with antifreeze when I pulled the head, did not leak down so is it safe to assume chances are rings are good/not broken.

I would have guessed a bolt or something did this to this valve but again I see no cylinder damage as of yet.

Hello Nutty, here is a picture of removed spark plugs, left to right cylinder 1-6



Not sure how relevant this might be at this point but there they are, I notice that this # 2 piston top is very clean compared to others, others have some carbon build-up but this pistons carbon was removed very easily with a swipe of a paper towel, do not know what to make of that. Am going to go out and further investigate things.