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Very nice! Glad to see it turner out well! I like the matching vinyl. Goes good with the truck.

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Looking good. My seat is a 60/40 split vinyl bench from a early 90's suburban. I'll have to get it recovered in turquoise also. Did the seat match the original door panels and arm rests good? If so, could you get me the specs on the seat cover material?

I still need to find some arm rests in that color. Been looking for a year or 2 and haven't had any luck yet.

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Mate ya chev is the ducks guts! love the sign writing, love that old garage truck look. if that make any sense?? Any updates?

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dude love the side pipes. where'd you get them? i was kind of diggin the 4-1 collectors.

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Ratyas69,

Is the What??? ducks guts?? Ok...HAHA

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Thanks for the compliment. I think:lol: "Fair Dinkum" I think is the right response. I had fun building it.

Chad;
The pipes are Patriot, I ordered them from Jegs. The collectors would be a lot cooler if they had four working pipes.

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"four working pipes"??? as in they're not true 4-1's??

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No, not a true 4 into 1 only one functional and the other three are just dummies, Hookers are the same way. I Never really wanted the collector but they only sell them as a kit.

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Mike,

It looks good! I have not done much to mine other then drive it. I put on an new carb last night. I need to post some pics. Keep it up bro!!

Matthew
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Hey Matthew,
I would love to see update photos of the truck. What was wrong with the old carb?

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Very nice!!! Like it alot. Sweet tires.

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Just a little video of how it sounds. I need to get a better video camera, the truck is actually louder than it came out on the video but the tone is right.
http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/o...h_M4H00617.jpg

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Sounds good, but there was no tire smoke. What's up with that?

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I have heard that every revolution during a burn out uses fifty miles off the life of the tire. With as much effort as I put into these tires, I don't plan on burning out too much. LOL
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I hear that! Seems to me a good way to keep from getting an exibition of speed ticket:lol: The price of gas lately is the other one:lol:

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50 miles of thread life? I wont be burning out because my old denman tires are not available anymore. They do spin with minimal effort thou.

BTW Mike Im glad you found your problem. Now on the bright side oppportunity to clean up the engine and give some new fresh paint. Based on what you did to the suspension it's going look awsome. Did you pull the motor?

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Well I found out what happened, I did not get a chance to see what that rod did to the rest of the engine yet. I am probably going to get a different cam and lifters just because what I have been reading about the zinc content in the mortor oil now days and how the reduced amount is shortening the life of major components in the valve train. I have priced out Crower roller lifters, and camshaft as well as higher strength push rods and it seems to be in my budget to get them now while the engine is appart.

I have not pulled the engine yet, I have been busy with work so it might have to wait for a week or so.

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It is not the zinc content of the oils that was at fault, that was just a red herring. The real problem was that manufacturers changed the way that they heat treated the cam lobes to a laser method to save money. That method was flawed in the past but the kinks seem to have been ironed out. You shouldn't have any problems with standard hyd. cam or lifters IMO. Jasper is a major reseller of remanufactured engines, and they offer awesome warranties. They ship their engines with standard hyd. camshafts, and I believe that they wouldn't do so due to liability if the oil was really a problem. You can also see via Jasper's break-in procedure that the hardening process has probably improved; the procedure used to be pretty intensive and was required to be warrantied, and now the procedure is pretty lax.

BTW, what happened to your engine? I must have missed something.

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When we drove up to L.A. for the Brothers Show and Shine my engine bent a push rod as we were getting off the freeway about 4 miles from the event. Was a great show but a little bitter sweet as I spent the day contemplating the cost of towing 100 miles back home and rebuilding my GM crate motor with only 14,000 on it. I believe it was a seized valve guide that put too much pressure on the push rod, we will see.

http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_0526.jpg

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Mike sometimes we just need a lil push to go the to next level. I 'm sure by the time you fix it'll sound sic and match the appearence of the truck. I remember the lil boy asking you at the show if the truck was a race truck. Now it will look, sound, feel and run like one... Can't wait see and hear video of the with those side pipes. :metal:

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Make sure you don't have any intake bolts that are too long. I believe a few bolts can actually lock up a pushrod if they're just a scant bit longer than whats called for. Good luck, and ouch. Jim

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Well it could be worse, you can replace the pushrod by just pulling the valve cover and loosening the rocker arm. Another cause of bent pushrods could be pre-detonation, for instance if you run a too-low octane fuel. The pre-det could slam the valve closed, and the weakest link in the valvetrain at that point is the pushrod.

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ok, my favorite truck on the forum! man, thats badass. love the wheels and tires. :metal:

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That might be the cause. When I put the HEI in I never re-gapped the plugs to .45 which might have messed up the timing just enough.
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mike anymore word on engine. To handle the zinc problem every oil change i add comp cams break in oil addative which is very high in zinc. There are many oil to look at that have zinc in them. I will post some links later

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This is a great project. Not too sure how I missed it but I'm in now. Sorry to hear about the pushrod. I have been there. Never bent one that bad though. Hope you find the solution to be cheap.

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I wish I could say that I had it all back together and it runs better than before. But business travel and life's responsibilities have gotten in the way and it still sits in the garage in a bunch of pieces while I decide what to do with it. To be honest I am still trying to decide. I was really hoping to find a smoking gun, but there was none other than the bent rod. Since it is all apart I would like to install a new cam but I still don't know if I should rebuild the heads or not. I am going to take the heads down to Crower to see what they think of the evidence. One of the reasons that I want to upgrade the cam and heads is so that i dont have to worry about the zinc content.

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I think I might be zeroing in on the cause of the damaged push rod. I was talking to an engine guy today and he said that the rocker nut was either installed with too much slop or it loosened up and allowed the rocker to slip sideways and kick the rod out of its pocket. He said look at the stud and there will probably be some scuffing. Well sure enough there was a couple of large ding in the stud.
So here is the next phase. Have any of you ever removed a rocker stud? He said I just need a nut and a bunch of flat washers to pull the stud out. which is all good but how do I get the new one back it with out dinging it again? Is there any sealer I need to put in there first or how does it lock in place?

http://i361.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/DSC01024.jpg

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You should be able to pull it out with the washer stack up and your impact gun. You might want to consider putting a threaded replacement stud in there to replace the press style. Just ream it out and hand tap the heads.
Good luck!

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Have you thought about running a set of rod guides with hardend pushrods after you change out the Rocker Studs? You might also want to change out all the Rocker Studs if you have the heads off the engine and in a good place to work on them. Maybe step up to a set of Roller Rockers? You have a great looking truck and I know it sucks putting all that work into it and then it sets in the garage because of a bent pushrod. Hope you get it back up and running soon.

JRBECK64

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Unless the stud is bent or loose, why remove it? Those little dings shouldn't be a problem with integrity of the stud and have nothing to do with the motion of the rocker. I'd just get a new nut and pushrod, install it and call it a day.

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I guess I thought that it would cause the rocker to be able to wiggle a bit more than normal. I am not real experienced with rebuilding heads so it sounded logical. I am not sure if this is a regular fix or if this is unusual to have to replace a stud. I have thought about the suggestion of purchasing rockers with deeper push rod pockets to reduce the chance that one might slip out.

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You might be over thinking it. I understand wanting to prevent it ever happening again, but this seems more like a freak incident. A loosened nut or a nut that had poor thread locking. Like I said, unless the stud is bent or loose, there is no reason to pull it. The stud is not there as a guide and the rocker should never touch it. The slot is wider than the stud diameter. I would do like one of the other guys said and put a guide plate on it as insurance.

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Went down to Crower the other day and bought some one piece push rods and some heavier valve springs. Here is what I think happened from talking to the tech down at Crower. The month before the bent rod, I romped on the gas and floated the valve, that was the beginning of the end right there. I guess I found the threshhold of red lind for the engine.

What my cam shaft was doing was dribbling the valves like a basket ball instead of steadily pushing up and down. The springs I have now will not allow the valves to float under the revs that I can put on this mostly stock engine.
The springs are not so strong that they will flatten the cam but are stronger than stock. The rods are a step up from the stock push rods that failed, so I should not have any more issues anymore.
I was hopping to put a nice cam in it with roller rockers and lifters but I just cannot afford the extra grand right now. I am still going to pull the engine and paint it nice but will not be doing much more than just fixing the broken parts for now.
Although the 700r4 will be going in at the same time which will be a great improvement.

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That should work. What about push rod guides?

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From what I have been reading on the subject, if the has self-aligning rockers it does not require guides. if it has rockers with a flat face and no self alignment tabs then it requires guides. My engine already has the self-aligning rockers so I decided not to go through the task of pulling all of the studs to put guides in.
And with the stronger spring in the valve train I don't think it will be a problem floating valves anymore.

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Hi Mike, glad to hear you might have figured out what happend and why. Sucks but at least you're moving forward.

From what I am reading, you picked up stiffer valve springs, correct? I think you are going to run into another common problem. With press in rocker studs, they are not really designed for stiffer than stock springs and given time, you are likely running the risk of pulling the studs out of the heads. They won't pull all the way out but will pull out enough to throw the valve adjustment out.

If you're not going to swap heads, I would pull these and have them machined for screw in studs. This will allow you to run most whatever spring rate and not have any problems down the road.

My .02 worth based on my knowledge.

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I have seen people drill into the sides of the stud base and tap in roll-pins for a home-brewed solution to that problem.

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Have you done this threading yourself or would you have it done? I just wonder how much it costs vs how much of a headache it is to DIY?

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I had a machine shop do the studs in my heads. They just mill the bosses down some, then tap the holes that are there for the press in studs. The holes may need drilled out some depending on the size of the threads on the new studs. It wasn't that expensive, but you have to disassemble the heads and reassemble. Whether or not you need to go this route depends on just how much spring load there is and how hard you plan on driving it. I did mine because I bought a set of 1.6:1 roller rockers, that would not fit on the press in studs, not because of spring loads. Since I had to have machine work done anyway, I just did new screw in studs. My heads are nothing special, just old stockers, but I think they were small chamber, plus I had the deck and heads milled some, so my compression is higher than stock. The springs were stockers, I should probably upgrade those, but just don't want to throw more money at poor flowing heads. The saving grace for me is that it's a small displacement (283 bored .040") and doesn't need as much flow to reach it's potential.