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Ive had two local guys that havent screwed anything up, or charged me two arms, my first born, and a testicle for a valve job. I didnt want to send the head on the new 455 to Tennessee for a simple valve job, but apparently I should have and paid the $200 shipping.
So I get the engine running but I have to finish the headers and put gaskets in them. So I lift the passenger side front so I can get under and put a bolt in that can only go in from the bottom. As I get down to crawl under there I notice water dripping from near the steering column. I look around and the soft plug at the back of the head has water just running out of it. Wonderful. Now I am pulling the head to replace the plug and check to see if he gouged the head or something to make it leak like that. Just think if I had gotten it up to temp or had been driving when the plug said screw it and dumped the coolant on the rear tire.
So its costing me gaskets, time, and more frustration because I decided to trust the kid at CarQuest here in town. Apparently he rushed the job a bit, even though he had the heads for six months. Not only that soft plug though, there is more. There is something else.. I turned the engine over to adjust the lash I heard a distinct clicking noise, it sounded like something snapped into place, but it wasnt the pushrods clicking into the rocker arms. It was the valves sticking in the guides. I could feel it in the rocker arms as it did it. So now I wonder if the guides are so tight that it will tear something up. The valves are stainless so not much worry about them. Maybe it will be ok, maybe not. It hasnt done it since I started it, so who knows.
The other thing that is more of an annoyance but is costing me $63 and a week of waiting for it to get here, is the heater core nipple that plugs into the head behind the intake. He put a soft plug in there and blocked it off. Even in summer we need heaters up here, and this is going in my GTO which I had hoped to drive until it got really cold and threatened snow. Now it looks like I will have to just cover things up and wait till spring to drive it and find out how it does on E85. I dont know if all the parts will arrive in time for me to get it running this week like I had planned, because the truck and firewood are going to take up the rest of my time after this.
Sure people can make mistakes, they can screw up and miss things. I do it all the time. It took this kid months to cook an intake for me, the sbc intake he never did, and these heads took almost a year to get done. I like the guy, but holy smokes if its someone who is in the store all the damn time getting parts, maybe you should do a good job of it.
At least I am damn good at pulling the heads and putting them back on in the car. There is no way I am pulling the engine again, its just too much hassle getting the adapter plate in there and everything set up. At least I heard the damn thing run.
So I get the engine running but I have to finish the headers and put gaskets in them. So I lift the passenger side front so I can get under and put a bolt in that can only go in from the bottom. As I get down to crawl under there I notice water dripping from near the steering column. I look around and the soft plug at the back of the head has water just running out of it. Wonderful. Now I am pulling the head to replace the plug and check to see if he gouged the head or something to make it leak like that. Just think if I had gotten it up to temp or had been driving when the plug said screw it and dumped the coolant on the rear tire.
So its costing me gaskets, time, and more frustration because I decided to trust the kid at CarQuest here in town. Apparently he rushed the job a bit, even though he had the heads for six months. Not only that soft plug though, there is more. There is something else.. I turned the engine over to adjust the lash I heard a distinct clicking noise, it sounded like something snapped into place, but it wasnt the pushrods clicking into the rocker arms. It was the valves sticking in the guides. I could feel it in the rocker arms as it did it. So now I wonder if the guides are so tight that it will tear something up. The valves are stainless so not much worry about them. Maybe it will be ok, maybe not. It hasnt done it since I started it, so who knows.
The other thing that is more of an annoyance but is costing me $63 and a week of waiting for it to get here, is the heater core nipple that plugs into the head behind the intake. He put a soft plug in there and blocked it off. Even in summer we need heaters up here, and this is going in my GTO which I had hoped to drive until it got really cold and threatened snow. Now it looks like I will have to just cover things up and wait till spring to drive it and find out how it does on E85. I dont know if all the parts will arrive in time for me to get it running this week like I had planned, because the truck and firewood are going to take up the rest of my time after this.
Sure people can make mistakes, they can screw up and miss things. I do it all the time. It took this kid months to cook an intake for me, the sbc intake he never did, and these heads took almost a year to get done. I like the guy, but holy smokes if its someone who is in the store all the damn time getting parts, maybe you should do a good job of it.
At least I am damn good at pulling the heads and putting them back on in the car. There is no way I am pulling the engine again, its just too much hassle getting the adapter plate in there and everything set up. At least I heard the damn thing run.
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