Project: Wilks

[greenmeanie]

Greg,
Acid dip the bulkhead. It is a far more gentle process than sand blasting and it cleans the rust out of all the cavities in the bulkhead too. It eats the rust and leaves you with a nice coating that doesn't flash rust and is very weldable.

Or, if you want to sneak it into school you could always run it as a science project with the Bicarb bath and battery charger trick.

Cheers
Gregor

[Gregory G. Sprock]

That is good advice. I have used the lye bath trick before and could do it again, but will have to build a tank... it might be worth it. Otherwise, I could get off my lazy tail and research about acid dips.

[greenmeanie]

Acid dip takes you from this:


To this:


Which makes it easy to do this:


It cost a couple of hundred dollar but it uncovers all the rot and makes it a whoe lot easier to work on. It also makes it nice and clean ready for galvy.

Well worth the money for the amount of time and hassle it saves you.

Cheers
Gregor

[Gregory G. Sprock]

Who did the work for you? Local welding or machine shop? Looks great, by the way.

The new parts arrived today. I just finished putting the head back on and will torque it down tomorrow. I will have to build a dial indicator holder for exhaust #1 to get the cam timing just right, but that is not a big deal.

With luck, I should have it running this weekend on the engine stand.

[greenmeanie]

Greg,
I had the acid dip done by a company called Redi Strip in Phoenix. The cutting and welding is mine. It was a long HOT weekend and a whole week of nights to get that done but I was chasing a lot of cracks that are common on the 6cyl bulkheads.

It's noce to have your work appreciated.

Cheers
Gregor

[Gregory G. Sprock]

My wife is going to go nuts when I tell her you told me to check out local strip joints...

[Gregory G. Sprock]

This is the head after degreasing, blasting, and painting. I saw the original paint was inside the cover as well, so I tried to reproduce that. I have to lap the valves now, but it should be pretty straight ahead.

The paint is the Detroit Diesel green and it looks just flat fantastic. The green is much closer to the original than the photos give credit.

J.C. - This is the original that was reported to be cracked. After a thorough cleaning, I did not find anything at all wrong and feel like that cast iron head is pretty much a bomb shelter, so I am going to give it a go. Thought you might be wondering ;-)

[01001010]

Good call...I was thinking about that a few days ago. The one that was on the truck when you got it was def the one that was cracked because when I would pump the diesel through, diesel came out of the coolant drain valve on the side of the block when I would open it.

[Gregory G. Sprock]

Hmmm - now that I know that, I feel like I should tear the second one down and check it over. Disassembly is not too hard and washing/blasting only eats up about an hour. That is a cheap price for peace of mind. I do not understand that there was diesel in the water other than a bad head gasket or cracked water jacket... time to become a detective I think.

Thanks for the heads-up. The project is coming along pretty well and I hope you get a chance to drive it someday.

[Gregory G. Sprock]

Well, today was a busy, productive day. I reground the valves and put the head on. During the process, I found damage to all eight rocker arms from the original head, so I am going to really slack the adusters until I am certain I have the cam properly timed. I was really relieved to find none of the valves were bent, but I hope the photos will show the damage to the rocker/stem seats. Ugly stuff.

With the extra work from today, it is not looking so good to get the thing running this weekend, but on the other hand, I am content the head is good and solid. There was the usual erosion on the exhaust valves and now they are really nice. I can hopefully count on them for a couple hundred thousand miles ;-)

I made my first major mistake testing the glow plugs. Did not take the time to look if they were wired in series or parallel and tested one. Wow, they burn up quickly! Although there was no damage to the engine, it was a sad and probably expensive mistake :-(

[Gregory G. Sprock]

Pictures never come out for me because I don't quit until it is too dark to see, LOL. So, here is what things look like today.

The work on the head took a lot more time than I had thought, so this motor will not run this weekend, but probably next. I still have to torque the head, time the cam, etc. before I can even turn it over.

[Funrover]

Looks like it is coming along nicly!

[Gregory G. Sprock]

It is coming along nicely, albeit slower than I want. But hey, progress is progress. Got the radiator all cleaned up and painted today and check out my new Übersexy overdrive!

[Gregory G. Sprock]

Now that school is ramping up, my free time is running out. Today was packed full of meetings, but I did get a little done at lunch and right after. Look to the bottom left of the grill and you will see where I have some metal repair to do, but this will have to wait.

The safety wire is galvanized steel as it is original and the proper gage of stainless was not available. Not the prettiest I have ever done, but it will do the job of keeping the tappets in place.

It occured to me that no task should be attempted without a reliable sidekick. Since this is a rather big job, I brought two! To the left is Austin and the other is Reva. Good dogs and excellent companions.

[01001010]

Greg...

Awesome awesome awesome... is all I can say right now!

Great work man!