I've put it off long enough

[Woobie]

I'm pulling the top of the motor off, I have the luxury of having a spare 60 352 so I'm going to liberate the heads off of it to compare which is better, then plane and replace, same with the manifolds. Is there a way to block the crossover? I'm gutting the heat riser valve of course. No point, especially now with the electric choke!

Yes, truly a luxury.
If it was recently rebuilt, then things should be fairly clean on the underside of the intake manifold and valley. On ours, a thick oil sludge was present so there was alot of cleaning involved, and then the nearly blocked oil pump pickup, scarey.

But for the exhaust crossover we recessed a piece of 3/16 aluminum with high heat epoxy. Covered with the orange exhaust permatex flush with the exhaust crossover port and then the S-3 intake manifold gaskets from Fel-Pro. The S-3's are not a perfect port match but we wanted the metal core on the gaskets.

[sidewalkman]

So, finally got it done. Heads off, looked good, did the valve stem oil seals because they were easy, quickly found the flaw in Ford's head design on the FE, all the top bolts broke with the exception of 2, bottom came out easily. left enough to get them out with a vise grip and heat. Drilled out the back portion and ground them to fit a nut and washer. Got all SS grade 8 bolts and nuts. Did find some weird stuff, each side had up to 3 gaskets shoehorned in, the manifolds I guess were loosened and then gaskets shoved down...I wonder why it leaked? Made more sense why the rear side gaskets shot out the back of the manifold since they were in pieces. Also the drivers side manifold was off a 61 or newer, had the donut gasket smashed in, there was an allowance for it on the manifold side but the flange and plate were still flat and stock!!! Lucky I had the spare sitting there. BUT that added a new wrinkle when putting it back together since the pipe was cut and welded to allow for the new flange angle on the newer manifold. I'll take some pictures since I painted the block and manifolds and inside the engine compartment. The PO must have sprayed some solvent based product in there at some point because there were spots everywhere from the caustic stuff. Looks new now, did the underside of the hood too.

While I was under there I pulled the oil pan off since the goofs at my local oil change joint stripped the drain bolt, I had the spare so I got a bolt welded on the outside to match the proper drain bolt. It won't ever be stripped again. Painted it and installed it with new SS bolts. Fixed the seepage so.. Got shiny chrome valve covers with breathers in anticipation of eventually getting an aluminum Intake manifold. That cast one is a pig to re and re!!!

[simplyconnected]

Sorry Scott, but I didn't see your post until now. My Memorial Day was wicked busy and I did an electrical job yesterday. I continue that job tomorrow.

I use simple shim stock. It comes in rolls that most tool & die or machine shops buy.

You don't need much and it doesn't need to be thick. Simply surround the gasket with a 1/4" of .020-.025" shim then bolt her down...

Thanks Dave, although I'm confused. Mostly because I haven't seen what the cross over looks like but I'd imagine it looks like a small port on the intake? Can you describe what you mean by surrounding the gasket with shim stock?

Here is my Edelbrock FE aluminum intake manifold (upside down) with a FelPro gasket. Notice, the gasket has a hole for the crossover port but the manifold is blank under that hole.



As a side note, FE intake manifolds only have water ports at the front but the heads are interchangeable so they must have water ports on both ends. Therefore, the gaskets have coolant holes on both ends even though only the front is used for coolant flow.



Also notice, these Edelbrock heads do NOT have the exhaust manifold crossover port. There is no need to block off these Edelbrock parts because it's already done.

I couldn't get an aluminum intake for my Y-block overhaul so I blocked-off that hole by cutting a piece of brass shim stock that surrounded the crossover port by 1/4" on all sides. This info may be more useful when you get your aluminum FE intake manifold. - Dave

[sidewalkman]

Cars running and for the first time has no exhaust leaks. Thanks Dave, turned out my intake manifold gaskets didn't have the cutout for the bypass so added a small exact fit piece of thin sheet metal to the back attached with copper silicone, worked slick! I ended up having a shop locally do the final attachment of the down pipes to the manifold. Since the wrong year manifold was on there the pipes didn't line up correctly, I tried cutting and sleeving the pipes to rotate them but there was a ton of stress and neither side sealed properly, now they're perfect and it was under 200.00 so..

Next up, re and re the trans pan and clean the screen and replace the seeping gasket. I'm going to see if I can do the seal around the shifting shaft while I'm there and adjust the bands. Question on that. It says in the manual to use a block to separate something before I do the adjustment. Anyone done it before? I imagine once I'm under it I'll figure it out but going in if someone can tell me what size block to use would be helpful!

Thanks guys,

Scott

[DKheld]

Scott - glad to hear you got your exhaust finished and no leaks.

Went through the same thing a little while back on the manifolds. I was replacing the engine with a rebuilt one - had exhaust manifold leaks etc - laid under and bent over the car trying to get the manifolds off to have them surfaced - got tired of the lack of space - believe it or not I pulled the engine back out to do my manifolds properly - AND - after all that one of them had a crack on one of the tabs - welded it and it has held for over a year so guess it's good. Wish there were headers that fit without modifications - ah well.

Installed some chrome valve covers on mine too. I put the early 312 V8 stickers on the covers just because I liked 'em. (and my replacement engine is a '64 with PCV thus the tube on the drivers side cover)



Hoping my transmission will hold out a couple more years but it drips from the shifter linkage already - not much - just a drop or two. Good luck on your tranny project..

Eric

[Derbird]

If you are going to put stainless bolts into cast, make sure to use something on the threads otherwise they may gaul up and not want to come out. Never seaze would be one option