Man, you ain't wasting any time are ya Squirrel! How did the cam look? Any bad lobes? My last Y block had a flat lobe or two and several rockers that moved around like a Chevy ball&stud rocker due to lack of oil. A used cam and rockers, valve stem seals, new gaskets and a paint job and it ran great until I sold it years later. Tough old engines, those Y blocks.
might want to remove the oil galley plugs in the block. Use a rifle bore cleaning rod and get out sludge. then flood with solvent of you choice. and install new plugs. cheap insurance. easy to do.
The cam looks beautiful. I got all the block oil plugs out except one, and that one has other access to the holes...they are not squeaky clean now, but almost. Oil will flow, and there's no loose crud. Some of them were pretty bad, especially the two that go from the center cam bearing up to the heads.
Yikes, that is nasty! This is what you get with the old straight grade engine oils with low detergency, group I base oils, no PCV, and too long of drain intervals.
Jim I realise that your going low bucks on this rebuild BUT I would suggest getting the cam bearings that have an oil relief groove on the rear side of the bearings. That way if you miss on the reinstallation of the cam bearings alignment to the oil supply orifice its not gonna matter. Oldmics
I'll check the alignment, and if it's off I'll reinstall them. It's pretty easy to see the holes. Also there is a pretty wide slot on the center bearing, where the two p***ages come off it. The oil holes are drilled tangental to the bearing hole, so they cover a long area. As for the sludge...this one is not bad at all. I seem to recall that other 292 I rebuilt a long time ago had way more sludge in the pan. This one was not even a quarter inch thick. How soon we forget the things that used to be normal.
I remember on one of the Gus Model Garage stories in poplar mechanics. There was a Y block that the rockers where dry. Gus removed the Rocker arms and tapped the oil supply hole in the heads. And used a grease gun filled with heavy oil to force the blockage backward and get the rockers oiling again. I tried that myself. and it did not work. Everyone told me the cam bearing was spun and the oil p***ages where out of alighn. And When I tore that engine down the cam bearing was exactly where it was supposed to be. It was simply sludge plugging everything up. Where the oil comes from the block & meers the heads it must make two sharp 90 degree turns and that's where the blockage occurs. Ive torn down lots of Y blocks and never ever found a spun cam bearing.
This one had a worn out cam bearing, which will let pressure bleed off above the cam, and not force the oil up. The p***ages had some crud in them, but were not blocked. The p***age in the head for the oil to make those two 90 degree turns is rather large, but if the oil gets sludge in it, then they could clog without too much effort.
you might also find Ted Eaton's method of grinding a groove in the center bearing seat (in the block). Let the oil run behind the bearing and eliminates having leas bearing surface (grooving the bearing) On eatonbalancing.com. Here' the topic link http://www.eatonbalancing.com/blog/tag/harry-hutten/
Any discussion on Y Block rebuilding or Y Block oiling to the rockers would not be complete without this. The full pressure oiling modification that our own Tim McMaster does to the rockers for his engines. He did this to the Y Block that he built for me as well. http://yblockguy.com/techtips/rocker_arm_***y.htm
I pulled the rocker shafts apart...the first side only had one that was starting to gall, the other had all of them but one galling. I filed off the high spots, and polished the shafts in the lathe. Should be ok, since they'll be getting oil again because of the new cam bearings. Of course I'll check the oiling when I get it running. I also got the heads all ready to go...cleaned up in the solvent tank, new seals, valve stems oiled, valves and seats check to make sure nothing bad was happening. Pistons are cleaned up too, and the rod bearings are ready to go back in. Waiting for some new parts to show up in the mail over the next few days.
You really should check out the rocker oiling mod for full pressure. Tim explains it and it looks relatively simple to do. And you have the rockers apart now.
I dunno about full pressure oiling the rockers. You don't need a great lot of oil or oil pressure to lube the rockers. sending more oil to the top will likely reduce pressure on the mains and rod bearings. Especially with used worn rocker arms & shafts. they used to sell these overhead oiler kits. The kits had a fitting that screwed in where the oil sender unit is located. and copper lines where routed externally to the rockers. And the did indeed oil the rocker arms. The oil would flood out around the worn rockers. And the oil light would stay on during idle. So then we would try flattening the copper lines to reduce flow. and those flattened copper lines then clogged up. So I just installed a alemete fitting to the rockers on non oiling Y blocks . and pumped them full of 90 weight when they started squeaking. For some reason Y blocks all seemed to have a good bit of blow by. and the road draft down low and near the front of the engine didn't evacuate as well as the chevys with the road draft tube at the top rear of the engine. Why In trying to say is they just by design make excessive sludge. and the poor oils of the day wherent the best also. My Opinion a Y block or any engine would greatly benefit to have a PCV retrofitted. In 63 & 64 the Y blocks in trucks did have a PCV. If the OP engine where mine I would likely do the exact thing he is doing. clean it up and new rings & bearings. Just what it took to get it running.
Full pressure oiling of the rockers works really well and doesn't starve oil anywhere else in the system. Tim runs his engines at Bonneville and also in his FED. Also on the street with a healthy Y Block in his A sedan. And yes, PCV systems are used as well.
and he likely has new prefect fitting rocker,s . Old worn shafts and worn rockers and you will lose oil pressure. Over Fifty years ago I started out with Y blocks. And found the best fix for me was to pull the boat anchors out and swap in a FE. Now I would put a Y block into something like a T bird that swapping engines & making it not original would hurt the resale of.
This whole Edsel project is NOT about making it into a nice car...it's about making it into a car that will barely make a long trip. Perfection is not allowed.
I rebuilt a 289 ford with a buddy in high school in about 77. Rebuilt it like you are doing here. Low budget, cleaning and scrubbing it down, honed the cylinders, new rings, gaskets, new timing chain and gears,etc. Ran very strong with a Holley 500 carb.
Just a note for others,doing rockers full PSI actully helps better oil all over the motor,it cuts bleed off that would be open from rocker tube other wises,so it a very good mod. I been doing "Y"s a long time.
I fixed engines for a car dealer back in the day. And He only had me fix just what it needed to sell it. If it had a burnt piston replace the one bad piston with a used one new rings on just that cyl. He had lots of partial ring sets gaskets ect. He had me install just rings and gaskets lots of times. He always had me pull the engine and clean and detail the engine and compartment. Stated that made the car worth a $100 more. Every car he sold had a quart of STP on a new oil change. And the throttle linkage adjusted to where it only opened the throttle plates about two thirds.
I'm the same old guy.... One thing that seems to make me different from most car guys, is that my engineer training makes me kind of practical. I like to figure out what the requirements are for the car, before I start working on it. Some of them need to look nice, some need to go fast, some need to just be interesting. If a part or technique is needed for the car to meet the project requirements, then I use it. If it's not needed, I don't. This car needs to be a LeMon. And it also has to complete a 5000 mile trip through the desert in August. And it has to be fun...my brother is counting on it. It doesn't need to look nice. Everything doesn't need to work. It should look like a typical old ****py car, as we knew them in the 1970s. It's a fun thing to work on.
Great post, it's fun to see your thought process explained and adhered to. Keep avoiding the creeping elegance and give the common project a chance for success. That 5000 mile trim sounds fun, especially if some weird noises creep up here and there. He could rent a Camry if he didn't want any surprises.
Google 24 hours of LeMons...It looks like a real hooch. You will understand better what Jim is doing.
Are you going to trailer it out there to the race and then donate it at the end of the event or or going to drive that thing there and back after competing?? Looks like a ton of fun.
I will check it out, thanks. I knew there was a reason for his madness... at least this time around...
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