I never did get the pipe plug out of the cylinder head yesterday so I will work on that some more on another day, .... but here are a few pictures of the engine compartment

So I got the new radiator in .... not without a little adjustment .... seems the radiator is about 1/4" to wide, so I had to modify the rubber cushion so that everything could go together. Over-all not bad.
After that I started the engine but I had a couple of gas leaks. This carb is a Holley 83310 and came with the 'metering plate' in the secondary fuel bowl and I bought a Holley kit to convert it to a 'metering block' that you can change the jets in it. That's all well but I had to buy a different fuel line because the spacing is different on the fuel bowl inlets now with the metering block.
The new fuel line I bought is the problem. It was made wrong. Turned one way the lines were to narrow to fit the fuel bowl inlets and turned the other way they were to wide to fit the fuel bowl inlets. So I shortened and re-flared two ends so that the gas line was about the right spacing down from the carb and also fit to the fuel block. Guess I didn't do to good of a job - should have just sent the whole mess back.
I will have to get a new set of fuel lines and hope these fit. But why does everything need adjusting ??

If these don't fit.... they are going back

Rick had the same problem and was able to remove it as shown in this post (#525). https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthre...+yenko&page=53

If you need any pointers on that plug let me know. Have done it 3 times now ....have lots of tricks for it but it's never easy.

Tom, I took apart my 69 L78 Chevelle recently to to have it restored. I had body panel issues and the car needed to be painted.I stripped it to a shell, and have pictures if you need anything. My car is a L78, 4 speed, bench seat, no gauges, Garnet Red, Black interior. Your car has more options than mine for sure.

I'm thinking of having someone weld a short bolt onto the pipe plug in the cylinder head.
Build up the weld quite a bit to get lots of heat into the pipe plug.
But I don't know if I am better to drain the water down in the engine - maybe gets more heat into the pipe plug - or leave the water in the engine while the bolt is welded on.
Any thoughts or other ideas? This is not a restored car, nor am I restoring the car, just trying to get everything working and make it useable.

Thanks sixt9rsx33 I also saw some very nice pictures of a car I believe the427king was doing.

I do have a working oil pressure gauge now. Not without some doing since the car has headers on it.

Still got to find the orange wire (I think) that will make the 'tach' work. There is a piece of old orange wiring sticking out of the firewall. but I haven't located the wire on the new under dash wiring harness.

Tom, The tach wire should be brown and comes out of the wiring harness close to the coil.

Thanks Robert .... I did look at it and you are correct.

So what does the orange wire that comes through the firewall go to - transmission?

Now I will need to find out why the tach isn't working 'if' it is connected.

My back is hurting now - so I will go ahead and try to get the pipe plug out of the cylinder head and hopefully my back will be better.

Orange wire is trans kickdown.

Thanks L72Chevelle .... that makes sense

Maybe one of you have had experience with something like this. What would happen if a car with resistor wiring also had a coil with an internal resistor?
Still trying to figure out why car has no power.
I'm also looking at the cam as a possible problem too. I've set the valve lash a few times and the 'clicking' always comes back. I had blamed it on the crimp style adjusting nuts but last time I put on poly-locks.
Been busy on other projects so haven't been working on this as much lately

If the coil doesn't need a resistor wire (because it is internally resisted) then the combination of voltage drops may bring it down to 3-4 volts-

Pull the positive wire off the coil, attach a multimeter visible inside the car, then click the switch into the RUN position and check the voltage - if there is a resistor wire I believe the voltage should be 7-8 volts.

Poly locks will come loose if the top of the stud is not flat and square, many times the studs must be machined in order to achieve such a state.

Are you cold lashing or hot lashing the valves?
Many of us prefer to cold lash them... if you are not doing it this way here are the procedures as laid out by JohnZ and Duke Williams. PLEASE refer to your cam card or check your documentation for the appropriate clearances.

Procedure is as follows:
Bring #1 to TDC on compression stroke - adjust 8E 2I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 4E 1I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 3E 8I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 6E 4I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 5E 3I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 7E 6I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 2E 5I
- rotate the crank 90deg adjust 1E 7I

Thanks firstgenaddict

I've tried a different know good coil and had about the same results as with the coil that was on the car.

I did cold lash the valves. But...since I bought the car with the engine in it, I don't have any cam specs. So I set the lash at .024 I and .026 E.

Let me say that I had a 427 years ago with a cam going bad. If I drove the car 5 or 6 miles the valve lifters were not clicking - they were clacking.

I am just having a little clicking with this engine/cam - so if it is going bad, it is just starting. Thought I might drain the oil and see if there is anything.

Since I have tried a different distributor and now a coil - I may try a different carburetor to see if I can find where the power is.

Thanks for all the help

To adjust the lifters I had used the method from an old camshaft installation guide -

Turn engine until exhaust valve starts to open (about 1/5 of the way) then set intake valve

Turn the engine until the intake valve has opened fully and then is about 1/3 of the way closed - set the exhaust valve

The stock balancer is not marked like an aftermarket performance one is

May have found where a lot of the power this engine should have has been hiding - will take the car out again soon - but may go back through the valves again first

'


Have you confirmed the Timing Chain is correctly mounted as a tooth out would run but be low on power?:hmmm:
Best of luck, lookin' good otherwise!
:beers:
~ Pete


.

Well, I did adjust the valves and then take the car out to see if it was any better ... and it was only a little better
But when I got back home (5 miles top) there was those clicking lifters again
Cam will just have to come out

I thought I heard there was both a grooved or plain journal cam that could be mistakenly installed that could lead to problems in one of these engines (375 hp)..
Maybe I'm way off base here- but could it possibly be that yours has the incorrect type for the block you have and that could be your problem?

Well the block in the car is a 1969 according to the numbers on it .... so it shouldn't need a grooved rear cam journal
I think the cam and lifters are just gone - maybe never broke-in right

My 72 y/o back is bothering me so I might be a little slower now - for a while - getting to some of this.
But I am hoping to start getting the fluids out of the engine so I can start taking things apart before to long.

Well the cam is gone. i think that is what has been wrong with this car since it has been here. It wasn't the carb or distributor, etc. like I hoped.
Hopefully the cam will come out without having to pull the engine - has anyone here pulled the cam from a 69 Chevelle with a big block engine and know for sure? I tried to do some measuring and it looks close.

I'm no engine expert, but in my experience when a cam goes bad the engine needs to be disassembled and cleaned out. I helped my brother with his LS6 after it had a cam go down and we just pulled the cam and replaced it. About 30 minutes after installing the new cam it was down again. The oil passages had filled with metal from the first cam and it caused the new cam to go bad quickly. The next time we disassembled the engine and completely cleaned the block. It didn't have any more cam failures after that.

I concur with the above, although I've done it in the past and had success only because I caught it real early while lashing the valves and noticed that I had gained lash on one valve and the lock nut hadn't loosened up. Inspection of the cam lobe upon removal and it was minor and the lifter was flat, so I rolled the dice and installed a new cam and lifters and didn't have any problems, also I opened up the oil filter and it was clean.

On others that have ran on a rounded lobe and concaved the lifter the engine was full of metal, and you will usually find most of it on the knurls of the piston skirts.

Nowadays I wouldn't chance it, pull it and go through the engine, and while the engines at the machine shop that will give you plenty of time to clean and detail the engine compartment which usually snowballs to other things if you're not careful....

Well, I was wrong. The cam and lifters are fine. After more disassembly and looking closer, with my glasses on, taking pic's with my cell phone I could enlarge, having others look and taking some pieces to the machinist to look at - everything is fine.
So I will re-set the valve adjustment using the method given on here, I took the time to mark the damper.
But then it will be back to the hunt for why the car has so little power.
I may need to try and see if there is still a lobe on the cam for the fuel pump - but there was/is no fine metal in the engine at all - so I doubt the fuel pump lobe is gone but will try to see.

Maybe I missed it but where are you located?

I'm near Knoxville, Tenn

Tom, I thought if you were close I'd take a look. Knoxville is a bit of a poke for me.

Thanks, BLACKLS5 ..... I'm a little slow but I'll get it figured out.
I'm working now on getting the intake manifold back on the engine - but give me a few days. lol

I did get the engine back together and running. But the valve lash problem is still there. Maybe a little worse this time since I went from .026 to .028 on the exhaust valves. Don't know for sure.
So since I don't know for sure what cam is in the engine, I'm thinking I will try setting the lash tighter - like a 'tight-lash' cam.
Wish me luck

Well I got the valves all re-lashed, and I set them a little tighter this time..... I @ .020 and the Exh. @ .022
After I had set the valves I turned the engine through the 90* cycles a second time - rechecking my work as I went.
It may just be what someone on here said, that the set screws just weren't contacting the tops of the rocker studs correctly and needed to be tightened a few times until they did.
Anyway - for now the valve lash seems good - so I will try and find out where the power has gone

Well, after trying all the wrong things first in my search for where the L-78's power had gone .... a different carburetor fixed the problem.
Of course now I will need to get everything adjusted and tuned - but the power is there, fish-tailing up the road proved that.
Still more to do but I'm hanging in there..... barely at times ... lol

I have taken the engine out of the car. I never could get the valve train noise stopped. I did check the valve lash the other day, doing a go - no go. Lash was right where I put it as a 0.002 larger feeler gauge wouldn't go in any of them. But still the valve train noise.
Then a whole new noise started - I feel it was something deeper in the engine. What little I ran the engine, not over 10 mins., the next 2 days the engine made the noise. Then, on the third day, the new noise went away and I was left with the valve train noise.
So the engine is out and I will start trying to figure out what the issue/issues are.
The oil has been drained - and I didn't/don't see any metal at all in it

Tom cut the oil filter open and have a look inside. Might find material stuck in the filter pleats.

I will L72Chevelle .... I am going to look in the bottom of the oil pan too when I get it off

I just had one go down on me a couple weeks ago. 1st one in over 40 years.

Tom,

This may be a silly question but can you explain what the valve train noise sounds like? Solid lifter cams are known for being noisy. I’m sorry to hear there was another noise and you had to pull the engine. I’m sure you will get to the bottom of it.

Jason

Rick, the Comp we put in my Chevelle project went bad at break in. Motor builder been doing it for 40+ years. He had another one go bad in a 350 right after that. Issue could be bad cores (cams made in China) or lifters with bad angles. I went with a Clay Smith (Made in USA) cam. Really like it.

Glad to see the posts about this , the next step for me was putting the block in a cc machine and relocate the lifter bores/bush at a ridiculous cost. But the motor ran all its life w no problem Spring pressure good. Just had two motors in a row wipe cams outdone of the motors two times in a row !!!!!!!!. Second time went with lifters w holes in bottom. run of the mill 327s. has to be bad parts. Lifters were scalloped out like nothing the shop ever saw before . Most vendors wont sell lifters wo cams due to the shortage right now .Elgin cam and comp products lifters. Junk parts. Rollers from now on. You'd think it wouldn't be parts 3 times , but it seems like everyone else is having the same problem too.

My engine builder is about 70 years old and does mostly performance engines, drag cars, pulling tractors and stuff. He has pretty much quit using non roller cams. Had several Comp failures. Lately he is using howards cams and they have billet ones that are reasonable

Testing

Well after taking the engine apart I cannot find anything wrong but I do know what's in it now. Cast nodular iron crank turned 20 on the mains and 10 on the rods. Factory rods with up graded bolts (marked with an "R" on top). From the pads on the bottom of the rods, it looks like the engine was balanced. It has what looks to be Sealed Power cast piston that are 40 over with about a 0.200 dome. And a Comp cam L/78 solid lifter cam and lifters.
I cut the oil filter open and found nothing. Oil pan has some moly in the bottom, probably from the cam break in lube.
SuperNovaSS (Jason) ask what it sounded like ... well it sounded like a lifter that was a little out of adjustment, a ticking sound. The second sound that I heard (the one that went away) was more like a rod bearing (a knock).
But all I have found is where the header gaskets were leaking on several of the exhaust ports. I'm thinking that may have been the problem or problems.
Some of my friends that heard it think that can't be right but are starting to think it is because there is just nothing wrong with the engine.
I hate to think I pulled the engine for exhaust gaskets but I can't find anything else.
I have gotten the pipe plug out of the cylinder head where the temp. sending unit go while the engine is apart - so there that.
I guess the laughs on me but I couldn't run the engine not knowing after what I thought I heard (and others heard).