my 80 series head gasket saga

[cruisertoy]

Big thanks go out to Royal Rose from Wasatch Cruisers for comingto my rescue putting the 80 back together this weekend. I love
royal because he is so much more detail oriented than I am. He came over friday night and we installed the head, exhaust and lower intake. We were out there until 11:30 pm. Saturday morning we buttoned up the rest and got the motor running. It took me about 8 tries to get the distributor in the right alignment to finally time the thing correctly. (yes the jumper wire was installed on the firewall connector) After all was said and done I bet the first time we put the dizzy in it was fine and we just didn't wait long enough for fuel to fill the rail. I've only driven her a few miles today, but all seems to be running fine.

The only crazy thing that happened was tightening the head bolts. I've never done a head that didn't give you a final torq setting to hit. The 1fz has you torq to 29lbs then turn each bolt 90 degrees. Then turn each bolt another 90 degrees. We used the torq wrench for the 90's to get a feel for what the final torq was. Most of them ended up at 90+, but three of the bolt would hit around 70 and then not go any higher as then turned. These are torq to yield bolts and some things I've red say that is fine and other say that i should pull the three and replace them. I'll do a compression test sometime this week and make sure everything is tight. Cross your fingers.

The motor sure looks pretty with the shiny head, cleaned block and brand new hoses everywhere. I might just have to take a picture before I mess it all up again.

 

[Wheelingnoob]

Awesome work man, congrats!

I'm still plugging along with mine, should have it running this week. My 2nd job is slowing me down though and time is in shot supply. My head bolts acted strange too, very tight then would seam to loosen up on the 2nd 90* i went back and checked them later and all were over 90ft/lbs.

I hope I can finally fire mine up and get it moved a bit so the guy can come and reinstall all my glass in the truck.

Then I get to jack up the front and rebuild the axle as well as change the front crank seal and o ring then pan seals #1 and #2. Ugh I still got a long ways to go lol.

 

[cruisertoy]

Good luck finishing up yours. I too need to still do the front main. I was going to do it while I was in there, but could not get the crank Bolt off without doing the traditional wrench to the frame/starter bump thing. I've got 50 miles on her now so I need to change the oil and the coolant. Maybe I'll tackle the seal then.

 

[cruisertoy]

ALmost 1 month to the day of finishing the head gasket, the cruiser boiled over today!!!

I was towing a small trailer with 2 yards of mulch from Lindon to Draper utah up on the hill. I had the overdrive off while towing. I dropped it into second going up the hill past Chevron up to Draper Heights. When I turn her off in my dad's driveway I could hear gurgling. The temp gage was still dead middle. It was gurgling into the overflow, but I could really hear it bubbling through that little hose on the top of the radiator. There was no water in the oil and no oil in the coolant that I could see. Needless to say now I'm even more worried about the head job. My wife had commented that she thought the cruiser had less power since I put her back together. You know when my mechanical wife makes a comment like that, there's probably something to it.

 

[Shawn6589]

yikes, not good. sending some good vibes your way.

 

[cruisertoy]

Keep the good vibes coming. I do everything I can to get good karma going. I spent the last week remodeling and tiling my great Aunts bathroom for free. The toilet was falling through the floor. Something about 35 yr old carpet in the bathroom! Scary. And I even talk nice to my chickens before I steal thier eggs.

 

[Buckru]

First off, congrats on getting her back together.

Secondly would be to never trust the stock temp guage. There is a flat spot where the temp will rise and the needle doesn't move. Either do a temp guage modification or get a real temp guage.

On the overheating, my bet would be one of three things.
1. Fan clutch- The fluid inside degrades over time and thus reducing the effectiveness. Replace the fluid inside the clutch.
2. Radiator- Could be the radiator has some sludge in it built up over time and is not flowing well.
3. Could be some air trapped in the cooling system.

These are the first three things I would look at if I was in your shoes. 1 and 3 are cheap and easy, try these first.

Buck