CK5
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Shorty the crewcab. (Been saved from the chopping block)

81 CC short bed conversion
Out with the old, temporarily in with the new. Oiled up the slide/latch mechanism too.

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So getting back on this finally. OT stopped, so I'll have time again.

I took it to the motor man across the river and had him deal with carb tuning, choke hookup, putting the dizzy in right, and check the rocker adjustment while he was at it.... He found that it had way too much valve seat pressure for my hydraulic lifters, as in the link above.

He also determined that it had more cam than I thought... It runs pretty frickin strong now, but I only bumped it twice coming home.
Next step will be changing the springs to get down to about 100# seat pressure, instead of the 170# I have now.

New front seat is way better!
 
The springs it has now are dual coil. And I found the Edelbrock set I found are also dual coil, but the 100# pressure I'm looking for.
I just have to measure to make sure I can use them.

They're the ones usually paired with the performer rpm cam. So should work ok.

Screenshot_20200102-120039.png
 
I decided I want to make my own front shaft out of what I have for now. I have 2 stock ones to work with for a temporary solution.
 
I think the valve springs may have been correct, just installed incorrectly.

They have a current installed height of about 1.8. Most all of the dual springs for a decent size cam I've found have an installed height of 1.85+. I'm not sure really what to do for springs now. So far it's the hardest part I've ever tried to look up.

I do believe the ones I showed above are not going to work though.

At this point I'm half tempted to just let the shop do it so that it's right. If I have to buy a spring height mic to measure correctly, I'll be in it for about $400 getting the springs, locks, retainers, tools, ECT.
They quoted me $600-650 to do it parts and all.
 
I installed the battery hold down that I had built for the bee.

I figured it'd be better than a bungie strap
 
What is the open pressure and lift?
I would think the open pressure would be more of a concern than the seat.
@folkenheath
Spring pressure thoughts?
 
In what I read after he told me about it, about 120-130 is the max allowable seat pressure for hydraulic lifters. He told me that with what I have it's collapsing the lifter.

I have the money to take it back and have them do it. Just have to see if they have an opening...

As much as I'd like to play with it right now, I have too much else going on. And I'm sort afraid of doing it wrong and destroying the engine lol.

At the moment I have this project, my buddies Cordoba, some house remodel stuff, some shop remodel stuff, and a garage wiring/conduit project at my grandpas all going on at once..

It was all put on standby when my dad started nearing the end.

And now the dually needs attention quick before I destroy it too. Fluid changes, clutch master cyl leaks bad, manifold to exhaust donuts are completely gone (meaning I'm sucking fumes at every stop when the heats on), and it's idling at about 1400 randomly whenever it seems to feel like it.
Can't fix any of it till I can drive this truck reliably for a while.
 
What is the open pressure and lift?
I would think the open pressure would be more of a concern than the seat.
@folkenheath
Spring pressure thoughts?
No idea on open pressure. And we have to measure the cam to find lift. I have no idea what the cam in it is. I was told it's a Lunati that is a step or 2 above an RV cam.
 
His friend is right, too high of seat pressure will collapse a lifter and lose lift because the lifter never has any "time" to recover while the valve is closed if the seat pressure is too high. They can easily withstand 300 lbs of open pressure for a short amount of open time but 170 lbs seat pressure is definitely too much for a hydraulic lifter.

As for those springs you found those will only have 128 lbs of seat pressure at 1.8 installed height, but the problem is they are designed for installed height at 1.880 with a coil bind at 1.340 which is only .540 lift If you install them at .080 shorter then the coil bind would be at .460 lift, and likely will coil bind with short lived results. Now, I see 1.15 coil bind listed in the catalog but it shows 1.34 with the whole kit so once of them must be wrong as just changing retainers and keeping the same installed height doesn't change the allowed spring travel before coil bind. In that instance I would measure to be sure.

I will attach a picture with some math from my app. You can see it just shifts the forces adding the ~30 lbs to everything. Something similar might happen to your other springs.

The way to fix it is to either bore the valve pocket deeper if possible, get longer valves, or in some instances you can get different retainers that allow more room but then you have to be careful that is doesn't hit the rocker arm, you can only go a little bit.

I seen some beehive springs that work well on big blocks with stock heads, might want to look into them.

Screenshot_20200114-153140_Gearhead Pro.jpg
 
Right now using a digital caliper I'm getting a current installed height of 1.8 and an outside diameter of 1.44. while looking for springs that fit that it seems like there isn't very many.

Taking the heads off at this point is pretty much out. So I'm going to have to try and find something that will work in place.

Which is one of the reasons I think he's getting it back to do the job lol.

I just hope I haven't already done engine damage. I'm super glad that I rarely drove the bee after I got it. I probably have maybe 400 miles on the engine since I got it. If that many even. No idea how much time it had before me though...?

When I did the swap I noticed the oil was silvery, but it looked identical to the break in oil I used in my kids blazer. Way too fine of silver stuff to even notice an individual piece. So HOPEFULLY that's what it was.
 
Springs are done. Main issue was improper installation. The springs were designed for 1.88-1.9 I stalled height. Shoved into 1.8. and the rotators were used, resulting in the inner spring setting on a ridge and adding that little bit of pressure too.

Seems to run good. Now I'm going to throw in my booty Fab front shaft for now, u til I get one made. Race shop guy told me where to go for that. I kind of wish I'd left mine alone and had them adjust it. Oh well
 
Just read though, nothing to add except that I’m in for this one :waytogo:
 
Been running this around here and there last few days... And I guess the tuning they did probably matches the cam, but it's sort of harder to drive around now. I'm going to go talk to the shop again.

If I'm just normal driving, Stop&go type crap, it falters on take off. The combination of 35", 3.73, and a new clutch probably all contribute.... But it didn't do that when I took it there lol. If I rev it up to about 2k before I start letting the clutch out it'll take off like none other... But regular driving it stumbles a second.

It did it Friday for about the 4th time that day and I was moving about 3-5 mph when I pushed the clutch back in and caught it. So I REV'd it up and let her have it..... :burnout:. And boy did it go then lol. That part was MUCH better than before.
I had both tires burning out hard for about 60-80 feet before I decided I should let up... Probably shouldn't have, but that stumble was pissin me off.
 

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