'75 W300 repair/mod project - Ol' Blue

I forgot to mention a little detail about the carb setup when I pulled off the intake. There is an aluminum heat shield just above the intake, which I don't have a problem with, but between that and the carb was one of those Mr Gasket multiple shim (2) & gasket (3) spacer kits. With the heat shield, gaskets and spacers all together, it was a total of about 1/2" of height over the manifold. There's way too many places for a vacuum leak to start with that setup IMHO, so I'm doing away with all of it and replacing it with a 1/2" phenolic spacer.

Here's another little gem of insight gleaned from the recent tear down process. When I was pulling the intake bolts, about half of them felt like they were under torqued.:doubt: It's a good thing I'll be going through this engine pretty thoroughly as I'm sure to find a few more fun little surprises along the way. Kinda like the "Where's Waldo" for automotive gremlins. :rolleyes:
 
do let me know on the flywheel and if possible snap a pic..ive a massive stash of wheels but no way to know for sure if any of them would be correct(pretty sure me and doc id'd them all out to not be 440)..yet...i "should" have my MH chassis home latter today

i did my small bolt crager fronts on my 67 fish at the very earliest 15 years ago..the insides had pitted out so bad no bead seal was remotely possible, while the outside actualy looked new, i used eastwoods version of por15 on the inside of the wheels, the end result was actualy so smooth and nice they are still holding nicely and have been thru 2 sets of tires with no sines of any issues
 
The carb is mostly torn down now. Surprise, surprise... more than half of the base plate screws were borderline loose. At least now I know where most of my carb fuel leak(s) were coming from.[smilie=2:
 
Uh, you might want to consider checking more critical fasteners--head bolts, suspension parts, etc. It sounds like that thing was assembled by someone who tended to wander off... like, I dunno, one of the drunks that worked at Hamtramck Assembly. :D
 
Way ahead of ya there Pierre. The gasket kit I got comes with head gaskets, and I'm most likely going to have to drill and tap at least one (probably more) exhaust stud(s), so I was already planning on pulling both heads off. I also need to do the rear main oil seal, so I'll be dropping the oil pan to do that job. That'll be a good time to check the rod and main cap torque specs while I have access to them.

Unless I find some kind of nasty surprise when I pull the heads and oil pan off, that's about as far as I'm planning to take the engine down right now (knock on wood). There were no odd engine noises and it didn't smoke when I was driving it so it's still not looking too bad at this point. Having it torn down to the short block will also make it a lot easier to paint everything while it's all apart.:2thumbs:

Since I have the FSM now, all the other torque specs are right at my fingertips. I have a few torque wrenches and plan to use them on everything that has a torque spec specified for it upon reassembly.
 
Both float bowls and the carb base plate are all cleaned up now and just waiting on the other parts to get done. After cleaning each piece, I reassembled them into individual sub-assemblies. During that process, I found the likely source of another big fuel leak. The cover for the accelerator pump was warped quite a bit, so I flattened out the sealing surface on the belt sander. I also did the same to the sealing surface on the float bowl just to be sure it will seal when I'm done with it.

It doesn't sound like much progress, but that took me all afternoon due to all the detail work required. I'm removing most of the casting flash from the big pieces and polishing up most everything else. My fingers are sore and cooked from the heated parts caused by the polishing wheel.
 
The carb is all cleaned and reassembled now except for the choke. The mechanical choke that was on there is broken, and I wanted to replace it with an electric choke anyway, so I'm looking around for a good deal on a Holley electric choke now. Used would be fine with me as long as it works and doesn't cost $60 like a new choke conversion kit does from Holley. My neighbor said he might have one, but I haven't heard back from him on it yet.

The alternator, brackets, spacers and bolts are also cleaned and the steel parts are painted semi-gloss black.

The intake valley pan front and rear hold downs and bolts are all cleaned and painted with the blue engine paint. The valley pan is just wiped off for now and is still sitting on the block.

I had to stop there due to a thunderstorm that rolled in and made the humidity too high for painting.
 
68R/T said:
Does it rain every day out there? :hmmm:
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No. It snows for several months between rainstorms. :D

You do realize the valley pan is not reusable, right Gomo? The paper facings that come with it or can be had separately are a terrible idea--they add two more potential vacuum leaks, which are a huge issue with B/RB engines. The pan itself has a crush bead on it; it's one-time-use only. Use a new pan every time, sprayed with red Permatex High-Tack gasket sealer on the head/intake surfaces... or wonder why it runs badly and seemingly-randomly burns oil. Spend the $25 or so. Those vacuum leaks can't be diagnosed with the carb-spray method, either, as the leak is usually under the pan into the block valley. I've seen a lot of guys chase their tails trying to diagnose "carb" or "spark" issues that turned out to be the intake gasket, either reused or with the paper facings installed. Invariably, they yelp about having to spend $18 on the gasket, especially if they just changed it and used those stupid paper facings. If memory serves, those facing gaskets were devised solely for the A12 cars, which were the only factory regular-production B/RB engines with a 1-piece aluminum intake. I can't remember if they were factory or a TSB, though. I've taken apart a lot of unmolested big-blocks and have never found one with the facing gaskets... only the steel pan.
 
I had always heard that the paper intake gaskets were to make up for the difference between the angled sealing surfaces after milling the heads.:hmmm: Given how little appears to have been changed/swapped/upgraded on this engine, the odds are that isn't the case here. I DO plan to get a new valley pan for it, but it'll have to wait until I have more than $5 in the bank.:doubt:

As far as the weather, we got small BB sized hail with the storm yesterday, and this morning it had settled down to just a light drizzle with some flurries thrown in. Why? Because Montana.:D
 
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I've been neglecting to take pics of my progress lately, so here's a few pics to get me caught up.

Alternator, brackets and bolts:
DSC_4966.JPG

Intake, carb, throttle linkage brackets and valley pan hold downs:
DSC_4967.JPG
DSC_4968.JPG

This pic shows the new 1/2" phenolic carb spacer...
DSC_4969.JPG

...which replaces all of this stuff:
DSC_4970.JPG

Also visible in the spacer pic is the 4" tall 14" air filter. The old one was really dirty and only about 2.5" tall. It accidentally got blasted with the pressure washer at the car wash the other day.:toot:
 
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gomopar440 said:
I had always heard that the paper intake gaskets were to make up for the difference between the angled sealing surfaces after milling the heads.:hmmm:
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The heads on my old 440 were milled .050", with the attendant amount taken off the intake face of the heads. That was the engine that taught me to never use the facings. With those and the stock iron intake, it had manifold-flange vacuum leaks as big as your sky. I took them out, replaced the pan using the red High-Tack, and fixed it. Ah, but the facings were for aluminum manifolds... so when I switched to a TM7, I put the facings in again. Same infuriating problem. Once again, losing the facings solved the issue. I never used them again, and never had a problem again regardless of intake material or decking.

I could see where they might be necessary with a monster cut, but only if you had the intake face of the heads cut accordingly. Otherwise they'd only exacerbate the port and bolt-hole misalignments. I plan on cutting .080"-.100" off the heads on my current 440, but I still won't use 'em. Longrams don't suffer misalignment problems. :dance:
 
This engine only had the steel valley pan gasket and a messy bunch of sealant on it. That's just based on what I saw under the crud I cleaned off of it. On the other 440's I had, it was too long ago to remember how they were setup. I DO remember having a really hard time with the intake bolt alignment on at least one 440 in particular though.:huh:
 
I've lost count of how many B's & RB's i've had apart in the last 50 years. And I've used nothing but the metal valley pan/intake gasket as a one-time-use only gasket. Never a vacuum leak....EVER. Maybe that's part of the reason why I like the Mopar big blocks so much. :giggedy: You put them together right and they'll run like a banshee.
 
Today I got the radiator fluid drained so I could remove more of the parts on the front of the engine. The radiator, fan, water pump and power steering bracket are now off the truck. The PS pump was left connected to the steering gear box hoses and just moved over to sit on the frame rail. So far the water pump, water pump housing, T-stat housing and the WP mounting bolts are cleaned up and painted. Tomorrow I'll be working on cleaning and painting the rest of the parts I removed today.

I was thinking a bit more about how I was going to do the clutch job by myself. Rather than reaching through the cab with the engine hoist to support the trans and t-case, I'll just pull the engine instead when I have it down to the short block. It'll be lighter that way and also give me a good look at the motor mounts so I can check if they're still in good shape or not.

BTW: I found a local place that has some used body parts for this truck, and they don't cost an arm and a leg. The parts aren't perfect by any means, but they're a whole lot better than what I have on my truck now.
 
The spark plug wires look like a mouse chewed them up in places, and the distributor cap is showing wear at the rotor contact points, so both of those are going on the next "parts to get" list. The rotor looks like new, so I'll be reusing it. Before I pulled the distributor, I marked it's position with a punch mark on the base and on the engine block. As I pulled it from the hole in the block, I immediately saw the source of another of the oil leaks. The distributor O-ring was sheared nearly in half all the way around the last time it was installed. It definitely wasn't doing anything to keep oil from getting past it in that condition. I'm sure the crankcase breathing systems being deleted didn't help matters here either. I need to check if the gasket kit includes a distributor O-ring in it, and if it doesn't, add one to the parts list.

The distributor clamp and bolt have now been cleaned and painted blue, while the distributor body was cleaned and painted satin black. I also painted all the other bolts I had cleaned earlier with either blue or satin black, based on where they go on the engine.

Next up, the valve covers are getting pulled off to give me as much room as possible to remove the exhaust manifold nuts. If they fight me too much, I'll cut the exhaust pipes somewhere near the manifold connections. Then I can remove the heads and work on them on the bench inside the barn.
 
For a (very) short while I had thought about just getting a couple of repro fenders for this truck. Also, the bathtub style hood isn't being remade anywhere by anyone as far as I know. The place I found the parts at is wanting $20 each for the fenders (with the side marker lights) and has a straight hood for $35. He also has a solid, straight and rust free (as far as I can tell) Club Cab for $150 as long as I pull it myself. The cab is pretty much just sitting on a stripped frame, so there's not much left to remove. He's also willing to throw in the rear CC cross member with the cab for that price. Another truck in his yard has a complete set of the factory Mopar clearance lights like mine, but not all cracked and crazed over, that he wants $40 for all pieces. It's also a tiny yard, so there's not too much chance that the parts will be sold before I can get back there to get them.:dance:
 
thats a STEAL even out here where the stuff plentifull

the average wrecker here would charge
cab 150(NOTHING attatched to it and no glass)
fenders 50-75 each
50 for the xmember
hood 50
lights 50

ive litteraly squirelled away neerly 2 trucks in spares over the years and as soon as i gut the clubby i have it will make 3..problem is now ive also got "earlier" truck squirlings for the rampy.....course now im having issues finding my stash of bellhousing...and while i KNOW i have at the least 3 for a bigblock 435/445 trans....i cant find them
 
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