Illinois 116
Round Barn museum Rochester Indiana. Not many of these left.
Bontager's surplus in Michigan. They were well stocked with stuff for RV's
Sturgis Michigan Walmart with hitching posts for your horses.
Indiana county road 400
GMCES rally Elkhart Indiana. Met new folks here and joined. Good times.
On the way home we saw this custom van at the I-80 truck stop Walcott Iowa
October 10 first snow. It didn't last
First night in Devils Lake ND. We didn't get underway until 10 AM and this is a far as we got before nightfall.
Construction on US 2 was a dirt path with a pilot car. Don't know how it would be if it had rained!
Us 2 "Big sky highway" Montana.
Five Corvettes were in a group that passed us traveling just north of the border at Sweetgrass.
Canada 22 Alberta
Canada 40 Alberta
Municipal campground in Canmore. No services of any kind.
Banff
Alberta 93
Alberta 93
Lake Moraine
Lake Moraine
Lake Louise
Jonas Creek campground
Athabasca Falls
We rode up on the glacier in these machines
Sue on a glacier
Two GMC's parked along the street in Jasper. Left a card on the closest one.
Edmonton
Edmonton mall supposed to be the largest in the world. It was big.
Downtown Calgary
Parking in Calgary here was $5 per hour. There was a box deal on the corner that took credit cards to pay. You put in the area number and the license plate number and then how long you were going to be parked. No receipt or anything to show it charged your card. It must have worked as we didn't get a ticket or towed.
Here is most of our track going from Omaha and back home. Streets and Trips was doing its balky Micro$oft thing and parts of the track are not shown. 3,734 miles and 9 nights on the trip. Click on the map and it will expand.
Grabbed a set of G heads off a 1971 Toronado for spares. These had valve rotators. The intake stems were dry so the guides are not completely shot. The valves have a good margin and are not recessed so there is some life left.
The bottom clean cover is what came on my 1975 455 and it has a short baffle. The top dirty cover has the long baffle and was on the 71 Toro. Wonder what year they changed?
Emily Philbin turns 16 and Sue made up this flag we put up so it could be seen from the highway.
Bob Drewes clued me in to the gap that needs to be taken up with a washer on the rear AC compressor mount. The compressor is a Delco reman that is kind of a universal fit all. It can be used with a superheat switch or not and comes with a plug for the switch. I watched the original as it was unbolted and don't remember a gap like this. Gap was about .075". Maybe the difference is in the rear head of the compressor.
Lifting a head out. Made a fixture that holds the head at the correct angle.
Measuring a lifter all the way collapsed to see what the travel really is.
Measuring a lifter at full extension. The lifters have a range of .220. The preload is .050 less than full extension with the stems ground to .032 less than standard. These heads have been milled .040 and the difference after the Felpro gasket I guessed at .020. The rocker ratio is 1.6 so 1.6 x .020 is .032.
Working in the hole.
While the the intake was off it was a good time to thread a hole for the Inlet Air Temperature sensor. Forgot to do that before. The injector bungs are plugged while I'm still running the carburetor. Megasquirt injection is next.
K line positive seal with protector sleeve on stem and install driver. Basically you just tap it down on the guide. Guide tops had been machined to .530" for positive seals previously. These were used as original equipment on some Harley motorcycles. The stems were lubed so no dry startup. I had already shimmed the spring pockets for 1.670" spring height.
Stock style Felpro umbrella seals on the exhaust valves. These will ride up on the stem and stay after startup.
I had these seal types to select from. On the exhaust seals the stock type Felpro umbrella are the way to go. The intakes were a different deal. CompCams teflon and the Felpro positive might keep to much oil out of my new guides. After much reading I decided to use the steel shell K-Line KL1405 seals. They are supposed to meter some oil down the stem to lubricate the guides. Some things I read claimed that this is best for a "street" engine for longer guide life. Using K-Line guides and seals makes sense.
I made a poor man's stem height gage for Oldsmobile heads. The spec is 1.220 + - .005 for the top of the stem above the valve cover rail.
Setting the gage at 1.220. The bolt has a bevel and lines up with the center of the stem. The bevel there because the valves are not perpendicular to the cover surface.
Stem grinding on the valve grinder
Gage in use. The Olds 455 does not have an adjustable valve train so this height has to be right.
Ground the valve seats in my open sky shop. Intake width .060 exhaust .080. Tried to get the intake pattern towards the outside of the valve face and exhausts in the middle.
Stem clearance checking. This is the best I've got to use. A magnetic mount and dial indicator set on the stem as close to the guide bore as possible and as square as possible.
One exhaust was a little tight and on inspection there was a burr in the bore. A quick trip with the hone cleaned that up. The goal was .001 on intakes and .0025 on exhaust. With his setup's limitations I think it is real close to that.
