Due to the idiocy and inattentiveness of person or persons un-named there was one of the 10/32 screws from a carb dropped into the intake manifold. I didn’t notice til I started it...then I did. Anyway, I have to take the head off and since I’m not young anymore, and itd in a pickup truck, it’s kind of an awkward lift. So, how much does the head without manifolds weigh? Is it a one man job? Wouldn’t have given it a thought 30 years ago..

Do youself a favor. Borrow or rent a cherry picker/engine hoist and pull the head and manifolds as a unit. If all you are doing is fishing out a screw, you willbe time and money ahead by leaving the manifolds attached to the head.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

If the head is one of the newer ones, without the spark plug tubes, you are looking at about 80 pounds. An iron intake/exhaust assembly will be another 40 pounds. These are ball park figures. An early head, with the spark plug tubes will come in at around 67-70 pounds.
Light, they ain't.

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-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

so exactly why are you pulling the head?

there is a lot of clearance over the piston,
do you think the screw is still in there?
If you think it is in a cylinder I would do some probing with a magnet on the end of a flex extension and borescope inspection through the spark plug holes first.
You could turn the engine over manually to get the each piston up near TDC, then do the inspection pre tear down.

If you do choose to pull the head thinking the screw is still in the engine, I would definitely remove the intake, debris taken in can move from cylinder to cylinder via the intake while the engine is running, I would hate to think that screw is still somewhere in the intake and get back in when the motor is started after the tear down - re assembly.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

There's a chance that screw is already in the muffler...
And could have gone out without hurting anything.

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--> Check out my FI Turbo build <--
--> And the race truck build project <--
--> The Diesel Corvette <--

THIS! Related story; Back in the 80's, myself and a friend had put together a slant powered dart to race at the local strip. We had it garaged at a third party's place, and was working some bugs out of it. Suddenly, it started dropping #5 spark plug. Pull plug, electrode is bent over. Replace, wind it above 2000 a couple times, and #5 would drop out again. Went through three plugs, and decided to do some fishing with a magnet. No success, so did have to pull the head. Found an 1/8" piece of brass brazing rod in it, bouncing around and killing the plug at higher RPM. No problems after that, and moved the car post-haste. (We suspected sabotage.)

Roger

1968 head

Where are you in pittsburgh?

If you really need help pulling it I can probably be available this week as long as We are allowed to travel to Allegheny Co.


Also you can use a pipe about the same diameter as the rocker shaft and bolt it to the rocker stands to use as a handle. The assembly with the manifolds attached would be very cumbersome to remove with 1 person.

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

FWIW, when my head seized a valve in the fresh guide, I pulled the head and manifolds off in one piece. I also reinstalled it all in one piece, so as to accommodate my inherent laziness. There's a point of balance where it all stays pretty flat in all the right directions. I seem to recall I used the two threaded holes on top of the head and chose the link of chain that gave the best result. But I did use a cherry picker hoist to lift it due to my already mentioned laziness and newly mentioned weakness.

My only worry with not pulling the head would be that the screw had either damaged a piston to where it may pinch the ring, or that it may have been caught in the valve seat and damaged that. Or worse, that it may have bent the valve stem a bit and would eventually (by continued flexing) cause the valve head to break off when running. If thats a realistic thought. As it is, the engine was never above idle. It was making a weird intermittent pinging after replacing the carb. I was even looking with a flashlight down in the fan area to see if I dropped a wrench and the fan was hitting it. (Thats roughly what it sounded like)

If a valve was bent even a tiny bit you would have little or no compression on one cylinder. A valve would never break from being slightly bent.

I'd fish around in each cylinder with a boroscope before deciding to remove the head. Boroscopes are cheap these days. $15 for one that plugs into a smartphone.

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--> Check out my FI Turbo build <--
--> And the race truck build project <--
--> The Diesel Corvette <--

Use an inspection camera

might take the carb off and run the end of the borescope down each runner while youre at it, before pulling head. and no you won't "pinch a ring" but there is possibility of other types of piston damage.... I rebuilt a 10hp cast iron Tecumseh once while in high school and had a similar thing to what you fear might have happened, happen to me. I pulled the head and the whole piston top was all dimpled up. Brand new piston, back then I took a flat file and cleaned up the high points, ( on the head too), put it back together and it ran ok without the weird extra noise. but we didn't have some of the tools available in the early 80s like we do now....

I wouldn't worry too much about mild piston damage. Check out the pictures in this thread. After fishing out the "magic" carb nut and throwing a new head gasket in it, we did another three races on that engine.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

What Frank said... YMMV....

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser