Thread: hello fellow grease monkeys!

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Wow i kind of found this site this morning and was very impressed. i think this is just the site i could use to ask a few questions and post photos of my progress on my ol baby (1964 t-bird) ... i bought her a few years ago and, talk about needing some TLC. well this bird needs it! i live in a suburb outside of chicago and i am thirtyone years old. though i do know some about cars, this is a hobby for me, i am a woodworker by trade, and could sure use some good advice at times on some questions i have. I have tore down the 390 V8 and am going to take it to a local machine shop to have the block rebored and the heads resurfaced. this is my first engine build and was wondering if anyone knows of any good videos on rebuilding engines? I have some good books that i have read but, i want to soak my brain with even more knowledge on this. I do not want to screw it up! well thanks for reading the post and i hope to hear from you all.... take care and lets keep them between the ditches yall!!!!

Welcome to the forum. Someone else may know of some videos, I'm sure they probably exist, but I just wanted to pass along a couple of tips:

1) You say you already tore the engine down. I hope you made detailed drawings and/or pictures of how stuff came off, because you won't remember how it all went back together if you didn't. (Don't ask me how I know )

2) Put every part you take off in something like zip lock bags with permanent marker writing on it as to contents. ie, "right side head bolts" Keep all the parts separated this way .

3) While the engine is at the machine shop you can be cleaning up bolts, brackets, etc that you are going to reuse. A wire wheel is a great tool to clean up bolts, and other stuff, and it will leave the threads clean for accurate retorquing. When these parts are all nice and clean, rebag them in clean, relabled baggies.

4) When reassembling the engine the work area must be kept extremely clean and free of dust and dirt. The slightest little spec of dirt can cause you problems if it lodges in a bearing or elsewhere.

5) Buy a decent torgue wrench and not only are you torguing things to spec, but you will be doing it incrementally. ie: if the final head torque is 80 lbs as an example, go around in sequence the first time to maybe 20 lbs, then rerun the sequence at 40, etc. You get a more even torquing this way. You usually break it up in thirds ( 20, then 40, then 60 as an example)

Have fun.


Don

Oh, and oil the h*** out of everything when you reassemble it, and prelube it with a preluber on your electric drill before you crank it the first time to preoil all the internals.

Thanks so much and I did take notes on tear down and i actually took some video of me and the progress on the tear down. all my bolts are bagged and labeled and i will now begin cleaning parts. well thanks again don and i hope i didn't dive in to deep on this project!!

Nah, sounds like you are doing fine. It might be helpful on this first rebuild to actually get someone who has done it a few times to be there when you start to reassemble the machined engine. I say this for several reasons. First of all, there is a very specific way each part has to go back in, and in a very specific sequence. Only someone who has done it will know all the little tricks to doing that properly.

Secondly, there are some very specialized tools you will need to do some of the tasks, like ring compressors and expanders. Someone who has these tools will be able to show you how to use them properly. Even if you have to pay the guy some money, it would be very worthwhile, because it is real easy to mess some little thing up when doing a rebuild.

Just a suggestion.

Don

that sounds like good advice... thanks for all your help

welcome are'nt tbirds also known as thunder chickens