1965 Clark Cortez

[PhilA]

These old Mopars put up a fight, don't they?!

The heads are simple to pull off if you need to (scope creep).

Please note that the rocker arms are handed, and stamped L and R for identification- left valve right valve. Not left head right head! They should be put on LR LR LR LR.

Phil

[glenanderson]

When you’re feeding in your bit of rope to hold the valve shut, are you (gently) bringing the piston up to compress it and hold it against the valve? The idea is to put enough rope in to fill the area between the top of the piston and the valves when the piston is at tdc, not to try and fill the entire cylinder volume when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke.

On the bright side, you now know what a failing bolt/stud feels like, so you stand a change of catching the next one before you break it. 😀👍

[crockpot]

Jan 4, 2022 19:42:57 GMT PhilA said:

These old Mopars put up a fight, don't they?!

The heads are simple to pull off if you need to (scope creep).

Please note that the rocker arms are handed, and stamped L and R for identification- left valve right valve. Not left head right head! They should be put on LR LR LR LR.

Phil

The shaft has the oil feed and also needs to be installed correctly. There's a notch which should point to the centre line of the crank.

[jmsheahan]

Great work mate! Do love the the updates on this!

Having done stem seals years ago on a Golf using the sketchy rope technique I applaud your save!

Unfortunate with the bolt!

[PhilA]

Jan 5, 2022 9:38:31 GMT crockpot said:

Jan 4, 2022 19:42:57 GMT PhilA said:

These old Mopars put up a fight, don't they?!

The heads are simple to pull off if you need to (scope creep).

Please note that the rocker arms are handed, and stamped L and R for identification- left valve right valve. Not left head right head! They should be put on LR LR LR LR.

Phil

The shaft has the oil feed and also needs to be installed correctly. There's a notch which should point to the centre line of the crank.

Which only gets oil as the engine rotates, the camshaft has an oil distributor which reduces the amount of oil getting to the top end. Ask me how I know when it didn't prime with a drill...

[crockpot]

Jan 5, 2022 13:15:30 GMT PhilA said:

Jan 5, 2022 9:38:31 GMT crockpot said:

The shaft has the oil feed and also needs to be installed correctly. There's a notch which should point to the centre line of the crank.

Which only gets oil as the engine rotates, the camshaft has an oil distributor which reduces the amount of oil getting to the top end. Ask me how I know when it didn't prime with a drill...

Ha Ha! Didn't get caught with that one.

[Tazzy]

Any chance on a youtube update?

[grizz]

Happy New Year to you and L

Hope your progress continues to proceed as expected, with less upheaval and blood.

[LAndy]

Jan 4, 2022 19:42:57 GMT PhilA said:

These old Mopars put up a fight, don't they?!

The heads are simple to pull off if you need to (scope creep).

Please note that the rocker arms are handed, and stamped L and R for identification- left valve right valve. Not left head right head! They should be put on LR LR LR LR.

Phil

They sure do! We've been lucky with this engine, especially with the state of the sump and oil pick-up pipe which we only recently cleaned out / changed.
Yep, noticed the LR information in our manual, even managed to fit it the right way. lol.

Jan 4, 2022 21:20:11 GMT glenanderson said:

When you’re feeding in your bit of rope to hold the valve shut, are you (gently) bringing the piston up to compress it and hold it against the valve? The idea is to put enough rope in to fill the area between the top of the piston and the valves when the piston is at tdc, not to try and fill the entire cylinder volume when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke.

On the bright side, you now know what a failing bolt/stud feels like, so you stand a change of catching the next one before you break it. 😀👍

Ha ha! I've experienced it before, I knew something was wrong... I just carried on like a numpty.
I wasn't rotating the engine at all - I've seen a few guides where this wasn't done. Why is it required? - Not doubting, just curious.

Jan 5, 2022 9:38:31 GMT crockpot said:

The shaft has the oil feed and also needs to be installed correctly. There's a notch which should point to the centre line of the crank.

I'll double check on this when installing it next time. If you get the rockers in the right order and have the bolt holes lined up would it be a case of just having it 180degrees out?

Jan 5, 2022 10:35:08 GMT jmsheahan said:

Great work mate! Do love the the updates on this!

Having done stem seals years ago on a Golf using the sketchy rope technique I applaud your save!

Unfortunate with the bolt!

Thanks mate! We've slowed down a lot recently but are still working away on it when we can.
The rope method seems to be going ok so far, I can't decide if using rope or trusting an air line is more risky.

Also, Glen mentioned rotating the engine when using rope - Did you do this?... As we didn't.

Jan 7, 2022 8:58:37 GMT Tazzy said:

Any chance on a youtube update?

It's coming... We're so far behind with them. They take ages to make and spending more time in front of a laptop recently hasn't been something we've been excited about.

Jan 7, 2022 11:58:15 GMT grizz said:

Happy New Year to you and L

Hope your progress continues to proceed as expected, with less upheaval and blood.

Thanks Grizz! Happy new year to you too! It wouldn't be an update without some form of injury I don't think!

[gtviva]

With the rope in the cylinder thing the idea is to feed the rope in then turn the engine to compress the rope up to the valves to hold them in place

[blackpopracing]

^^^^what he said!!!!!

It's an absolute must to compress the rope against the piston/valves!!

[LAndy]

Jan 8, 2022 10:37:51 GMT gtviva said:

With the rope in the cylinder thing the idea is to feed the rope in then turn the engine to compress the rope up to the valves to hold them in place

Jan 8, 2022 13:25:50 GMT blackpopracing said:

^^^^what he said!!!!!

It's an absolute must to compress the rope against the piston/valves!!

But why? If the rope has filled the cylinder then why do i need to further compress it?
We've done 4 cylinders and not compressed the rope in any of them and it's been fine. Again, just trying to understand why is it so crucial?

[blackpopracing]

You already know the answer, valves can drop otherwise.

The idea is you feed in about 2 or 3 feet of rope, then turn the engine to compress it against the valves. No need to jam in a whole cylinders worth of rope - which as you found out is still not enough to hold the valves securely.

[LAndy]

Jan 8, 2022 14:53:28 GMT blackpopracing said:

You already know the answer, valves can drop otherwise.

The idea is you feed in about 2 or 3 feet of rope, then turn the engine to compress it against the valves. No need to jam in a whole cylinders worth of rope - which as you found out is still not enough to hold the valves securely.

Ok, I mean either way works in the end I guess? When we put more rope in we didn't have any issue with the valves moving, just that first time we risked it.

[gtviva]

The more rope that goes in means more chance of it knotting itself up you know like Christmas tree lights! if it gets a knot its not coming out again! like wise if you havent got a bit of pressure on the valves and they drop down the rope may even get caught around the stem, not a criticism just pointing out the possible pitfalls!

[LAndy]

Jan 8, 2022 16:03:27 GMT gtviva said:

The more rope that goes in means more chance of it knotting itself up you know like Christmas tree lights! if it gets a knot its not coming out again! like wise if you havent got a bit of pressure on the valves and they drop down the rope may even get caught around the stem, not a criticism just pointing out the possible pitfalls!

Thanks gtviva, this is the sort of reason I was looking for.

[PhilA]

So you know what it looks like inside without having to pull it apart!

[glenanderson]

Others have beaten me to it. With the piston near the top of the cylinder you only need a few inches of rope to fill the gap between the piston CROWN and the head of the valve. With it near the bottom you need more than 700cc volume of rope to do the same job, and if it’s loosely packed there’s more chance of losing a valve, or getting it tangled either around itself or around the valve stem.

[blackpopracing]

Sorry, I hope my previous post dod not sound santimonious.

The rope solution is based on the idea of something put into the cylinder that can be compressed tightly against the piston & valves that can also be removable. Rope (nylon in particular) is ideal as a medium to achieve this.

The premise is based entirely on the piston/rope/valve interface rather than just filling the cylinder up. You have a fancy spring compressor but normally the job is done by a metal bar with a hole in it that hooks under the stud nut and the hole fits over the valve stem. You then lean on the bar to compress the spring (the rope then holds the valves solid to achieve this) and remove the collets. Swap seals & repeat to replace the collets.

Hope that explains it better

[LAndy]

Thanks all, I appreciate your advice and input. Please don't feel I'm disregarding your comments, this is something I've not done before so knowing why is important to me. blackpopracing, not at all, thank you!