1973 C10 "The Purple Truck"

[6872xtc]

I haven't found anything to prove that it the gauges are the same from '73 to '91, but my '90 Jimmy water temperature sender is 3/8" NPT. I had to use a bushing when I installed the Edelbrock heads. I want to try an older sender to see if the gauge reads properly.

 

[kennyw]

I think the Roadkill crew has proven bashing in the pipe for clearance doesn't affect your motor power...

 

[mrk5]

I've had that happen with bolts that had a thread damaged.

The worst time was when I bought a pre bent crossmember from ORD. Turns out my frame was bent from a previous crash, so I had to shorten the crossmember an inch for my lift height. I had a friend turn it on the lathe at work at the time, was about 20 years ago. Brought a tie rod end to test the fit. For the life of us we couldn't figure out why it wouldn't thread in, there wasn't a single burr on the threads and we cleaned and deburred more than once.

I finally figured out we had cut the LH threaded end off and I had only brought the right hand threaded tie rod end.

I'm having a good laugh thinking about you guys trying to thread those together! "Why won't this thread on?!"

I haven't found anything to prove that it the gauges are the same from '73 to '91, but my '90 Jimmy water temperature sender is 3/8" NPT. I had to use a bushing when I installed the Edelbrock heads. I want to try an older sender to see if the gauge reads properly.

I didn't think about looking for a late 80's sender. I was only looking at the late 90's and they are 2-wire senders. I kinda hate not hooking mine up since the gauge works which can be a rarity in a 50 year old truck.

I think the Roadkill crew has proven bashing in the pipe for clearance doesn't affect your motor power...

I did think some about smashing the pipe into an oval. I'm afraid the pipe is close enough to the collector that I would have hard time getting it matched up to the round collector.

 

[82355]

You torque header bolts?

Do you wear out torque wrenches?

Keep up the good work.

Martin

 

[mrk5]

You torque header bolts?

Do you wear out torque wrenches?

Keep up the good work.

Martin

Apparently I only torque half of them. I torque spark plugs too, at least 6 of 8. And yes, I have wore out 1 torque wrench.

You don't know how much it's bothering me I couldn't torque the bolts on the passenger header. I have visions of exhaust leaks dancing in my head.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

I torque everything. Comes from my tech training in the Marines. I think I own…5?…torque wrenches of various sizes and vintages.

 

[folkenheath]

Torque for header bolts is a good solid pull on a 3/8" or 7/16" combination wrench, or a 1/4" drive ratchet.

 

[mrk5]

Torque for header bolts is a good solid pull on a 3/8" or 7/16" combination wrench, or a 1/4" drive ratchet.

I did buy an extra long box end wrench that has both 3/8 and 7/16 box ends. I figure that's as good as I'm going to get for most of them.

I torque everything. Comes from my tech training in the Marines. I think I own…5?…torque wrenches of various sizes and vintages.

My habit comes from the nuclear navy. I have 3 torque wrenches in my main tool set in the shop. I keep one in the crew cab for re-torquing axle ubolts. And I have 1 more with my tools at home. I will look to see if there's a torque spec for any bolt I touch. About the only thing I don't torque on the engine is accessory brackets. And distributor hold down mostly due to access issues.

 

[mrk5]

Here are the compressor brackets I mentioned before. Right now the bolts are all loose until I get belts on.

This one came with the headers, one of the things I liked about Hooker. It's about $50 if you have to purchase it separately. I was a little worried if it would work because of purchasing what Hooker had listed as 75-87, but it seems to be good.




This is the tricky bracket. It ties into 3 places; header bolt, compressor bracket, and power steering pump bracket. The headers came with a spacer for this as well. I thought it was looking too tall, so I used one about an 1/8" shorter. If anything, the power steering bracket acted like it wanted an even shorter spacer, but I think it's good as is.







Right now the power steering pump is the only original accessory. I'm sure that will change in the future, but for now it's the 1 old dirty thing on the engine.

 

[folkenheath]

The only caution I have is torquing is only as good as the torque value you use and the equipment.

I have 4 torque wrenches that I use that vary from only 1 inch pound all the way up to 150 lb-ft and anything in between, all 4 USA made and NIST certified.

So back when I was building another engine 13 years ago now, I thought, I got this fancy new inch pound torque wrench I never had before (I had the 150 lb-ft first for mains, rods, head bolts, flexplate, ring gears, etc.) I had bought a smaller torque wrench for valve body bolts for trans rebuilds and shift kits not long before. So I thought, why not use it. Well, I was torqueing the oil pan bolts on the BBC and thought, interesting, I would of stopped there, but it says to go a little more so I did. I remember thinking maybe my arm calibration was off ?....

Well, guess what, that gasket leaked oil. So I tore it out to replace it shortly after. It was smashed so far there was nothing left to seal on a couple spots, then I realized, my gut feel was better than my torque value. Investigating found the torque value I looked up was for a newer 1 piece gasket with the metal inserts molded in, not the old 4 piece cork and rubber gasket, but it did not specify that.

The moral of the story is, trust your gut, if the torque doesn't feel right, make sure you have the right value, the right unit, and a good torque wrench, or stop.

At this point I only torque things like head bolts, rods, mains, flexplate or flywheel bolts, oil pump bolts, anything TTY, valve body bolts, ring gear bolts, etc. Mainly stuff that needs a uniform clamp or it may fail. Or if its buried and it comes loose, it will be catastrophic.

Be careful with headers, if you use a cast iron manifold bolt torque for a header flange, you could warp it.

And nice ARP bolts I see Scott!

I use regular stainless bolts on things like water pumps, valve covers, intakes, etc. But not on anything high load or high heat. Then I use either grade 8, or ARP stainless. Regular stainless is week, half of grade 8. And it can't take heat, use a 18-8 or 316 stainless on a collector and it will gall and seize, be prepared to twist it off for removal.

Or ARP on critical things like rods, mains, head bolts, flexplate to crank, etc.

 

[Fastereddie]

Yeah I always go by gut feeling. I really like to use a torque wrench when I want consistency. Just the other day I was rebuild a NP241 for a Jeep. I used my ft-lb. wrench, but started at 10 and worked my way up until I liked it. Exactly where I want it and the same all the way around.

 

[ashman]

The moral of the story is, trust your gut, if the torque doesn't feel right, make sure you have the right value, the right unit, and a good torque wrench, or stop.

I agree completely! I actually just ran into a similar problem on the pigeonrat. I was tighening to "feel" but second-guessed myself so looked up the torque value. I ended up breaking the head off of a bolt... spent a whole lot more time looking into why and found that the value I looked up was 30ftlbs too high.

 

[cheavyk10]

Interesting comparison of torque wrenches and how they vary. Honestly it made me question the accuracy of mine. Check it out if you get the chance.

 

[mrk5]

Yeah, I like to use ARP's chromoly bolts for the headers because of the heat cycling issue with stainless. I like using the stainless bolts on the accessory brackets tho. The flange head bolts on the compressor brackets are stainless. The only one I didn't have stainless bolt for was the long bolt that goes thru the double shear bracket and water pump on the p/s pump. I wouldn't go thru the trouble of using stainless in those cases if they weren't available a good bulk prices on McMaster. Specifically I wouldn't go to the hardware store and buy them on those prices.

For the collector flanges I have some steel zinc-aluminum coated bolts and top lock nuts I'm going to use. The zinc aluminum coated are about five times as corrosion resistant as zinc yellow-chromate.

I don't turn wrenches often enough to have a reliable sense of feel for the bolt tightness. I know by default I will overtighten. The most recent one was breaking a thermostat housing tighten up the bolt too far. But then on the flip side, because I know I have a tendency to over torque, a lot of times I will end up under tightening; especially when I've recently broken something. But that being said, when it comes to axle u-bolts, I know I wouldn't tighten them enough. It always gets me how much effort it takes to get 150ft-lbs.

I geek out about torque so much I will specifically search for "torque spec for one-piece oil pan gasket 350". Or "carb bolt torque aluminum intake". I try to be very specific with what I'm doing.

Typically the biggest reason I like using torque specs is to get a consistent torque across a part. Or like in the case of axle u-bolts, it's something that could have catastrophic consequences if it failed.

One good way to DIY check your torque wrenches is with a deflecting beam torque wrench. Typically the worst that happens to those is the pointer will get off zero. All you have to do is account for that and deflecting beam torque wrenches are very reliable. They are just a pain to use in a lot of cases so it's definitely not my go-to. Which reminds me, I didn't include that torque wrench in my earlier count.

I had a class in a-school about torque wrenches, and I see a lot of people using them wrong. Yeah, in the navy we had to have torque wrenches calibrated yearly and I don't do that now. It still makes me feel better that a loose bolt won't be the reason I wipe out a bus full of nuns on the way to a starving children charity drive. I figure that's most likely to happen from a 40" tire having a blow out on an 8000lbs crew cab doing 75mph on the interstate. You just have to pick your poison.

 

[mrk5]

How long would you all prime the oil system on a new motor like this? I was thinking about pulling at least 1 valve cover to watch for oil coming up that far. But then I was wondering if I should wait for oil to come up every single pushrod? Or is that even achievable?

 

[Truckman4life]

Spray some gas down the carb and let 'er rip.

 

[folkenheath]

I prime it until I see oil pressure, then rotate it 90 degrees 3 times at least, 7 times is better for the valvetrain. If you can do that while priming. If not, prime it a little each time, 5 seconds is fine.

The main thing is its "primed" which you can feel when it grabs the oil and loads the drill, and then shortly after you will see proper oil pressure. After that, the benefit dwindles the longer you do it.

I would not remove a valve cover.

If you don't see proper oil pressure, at least 30 psi, then don't start it until you figure out why.

 

[max 02]

Interesting comparison of torque wrenches and how they vary. Honestly it made me question the accuracy of mine. Check it out if you get the chance.

I tested my old off brand one on the Snap On truck two years ago… I threw it in the trash. Now I just use my kids Snap On torque wrench’s for important stuff.

 

[folkenheath]

I tested my old of brand one on the Snap On truck two years ago… I threw it in the trash. Now I just use my kids Snap On torque wrench’s for important stuff.

I only watched 30 seconds of it so far, I'll watch the rest tonight before bed, didn't realize how long it was. But I started cracking up when I saw who calbrated the first one...talk about a crappy calibration....

 

[max 02]

I only watched 30 seconds of it so far, I'll watch the rest tonight before bed, didn't realize how long it was. But I started cracking up when I saw who calbrated the first one...talk about a crappy calibration....

View attachment 405132

To be honest I skipped to the end,I have watched his videos before he does a good job on them.