[Gregski]

turns out the truck wanted to spin the driveshaft even when the transmission was in neutral, so we had to pull it out and plug the tailshaft hole with a spray can cap and some masking tape and raise the rear end of the truck to keep the transmission fluid from dripping out ~ ROADKILL would be proud!

the only problem we had during our 25 minute camshaft break in was that the truck overheated after about 10 minutes, guess what, we had to pull the thermostat out to complete the break in so turns out Pontiac Mike was right when originally he told me not to install the thermostat until we break the cam in

that's why we ran for 25 minutes instead of 20 (varying the RPMs between 2000 and 2500) because we stopped to let it cool off to the point where we could yank that thermostat out and top it off with water, we ran water only intsead of coolant and I am so glad we did that, otherwise we would have sweet green coolant all over the engine and the garage floor, etc

we did not bolt up the power steering pump for the cam break in, there was no need plus the new water pump has a threaded hole for that bracket where as the original did not and allowed the long bolt to pass right through, I am going to see if there is a better way to mount the power steering pump than hanging it off that one exhaust manifold bolt, that is just silly

we ran the engine wiring quickly but just ugly enuff for the break in, I hope to nicely tuck it all away so that all you see is the spark plug wires

my '74 water temp sending unit was too big and would not fit in the Vortec head so I had to mount it in the intake manifold, I wonder if the Vortec sending unit will report properly to my '74 guage

we primed the engine with a drill to get oil to all the rockers

we primed the carb with gasoline so it didn't have to suck gas from the line while grinding on the cam

there were no other major problems during break in to report