Hi All
How many times have we heard "If it works dont fix it"? Well I just couldn't
leave well enough alone. After nine years in the Arizona desert "Ole James"
was leaking oil from just about everywhere. Sooo I in my infinite lack of
wisdom decided to "Fix It". Yes it does get worse from here on. Since I was
going to have the rocker covers (Gold annodized MOROSO) and intake manifold
(origonal) off anyway I thought it a good time to dress it up a little.
Sooooo off I went to my local speed shop, and came home with new "Chrome
bocker covers origonal type" and an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold, to
go with the Performer carb I had allredy installed, and of course all the
gaskets I needed to replace. Sounds O.K. on paper. After a day of labor and
skinned knuckles I had a good looking engine, but the rockers were making
more noise than they used to. Sooooooo I ran a standard hydraulic valve
adjustment. Guess what? yes you guessed it, it had a solid cam and lifters.
After taking off the heads and having the four bent intake valves replaced,
I again put it together and it was running O.K. Untill it suddenly quit a
week later. After investigating the problem I found that the distributer was
not turning. Sooooooo I tear into the timing cover and find that I had
sheared two of the cam sprockett bolts and since there was no dowell pin in
the end of the cam the other bolt worked itself out, the crank sprockett
came out in two peices. Off to the local speed shop I go and come home with
a new Edelbrock performer cam set and timing set and "Chrome timing cover".
Now "Ole James" is running better than ever.
Now for the best part. What I discovered is that the 350 block has 4 bolt
mains, the heads were old 327 heads that had been ported, polished and
relived, with 194 intake valves and 160 exhaust valves. The more I learn
about "Ole James" the more I think that the $1,200. I gave for it wasn't
enough. But I'll never tell the P.O.
Perry Smith
58 GMC Fleetside
Phoenix Arizona
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