Starting my engine build

[Mrturner1]

Pic

[Mrturner1]

Ok so I'm tightening head bolts, I'm doing it in sequence and going through all of them 3 times so I don't just torque them down on pass 1. I just finished the second pass, and it seems like I tightened them down HARD and the torque wrench hasn't clicked yet. How hard is it to turn at 65lbs? My torque wrench is a Performance Tool Click Type

[Mrturner1]

I just looked at my torque wrench and it's Inch Pounds, not Foot Pounds....gotta wait until tomorrow now and get a wrench

Mine says 50-250 inch lbs, and 65 FT lbs is 780 INCH lbs. I don't get how those bolts need to be that tight, I torqued em pretty hard and no click

[cadillac_al]

I'll save my rant about clicker torque wrench's. I'm old school and like the old beam type. I have read lots of stories over the years about people breaking bolts and studs and stripping bolts waiting for that click. It happened to me once years ago and I said "never again". That won't happen with your Chevy head bolts though. They are plenty tough. Torquing a set of Chevy heads to 65-75 ft lbs is still quite a little work out for the arms. They should feel plenty tight. Now that I'm over the hill I would probably need 2 hands to torque something to 100 ft lbs. Good luck.

PS your inch/lb torque wrench should have clicked if you were cranking on it that hard. See how ****ty they are? Your lucky that wasn't a motorcycle head. Don't forget the sealer for your headbolts too. FWIW I always paint my engines with the heads on it. That Chevy Orange looks killer as usual.

[slotard]

Torque wrenches can go out of calibration over time, especially if abused. One of the advantages of beam types is that, as long as you zero them, it's extraordinarily unlikely that they'll be out of calibration.

If you cranked on them that hard and didn't get a 65 inch pound click I would NOT trust your torque wrench to be anything other than a breaker bar at this point.

If your torque wrench is 1' long (from where the socket mounts to the center of your hand), 65 ft*lb requires 65lb of force. If it's 18" long, it's around 43lb force.

Tightening head bolts is a significant amount of work, but it sounds to me like you have some other problem going on.

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by cadillac_al

I'll save my rant about clicker torque wrench's. I'm old school and like the old beam type. I have read lots of stories over the years about people breaking bolts and studs and stripping bolts waiting for that click. It happened to me once years ago and I said "never again". That won't happen with your Chevy head bolts though. They are plenty tough. Torquing a set of Chevy heads to 65-75 ft lbs is still quite a little work out for the arms. They should feel plenty tight. Now that I'm over the hill I would probably need 2 hands to torque something to 100 ft lbs. Good luck.

PS your inch/lb torque wrench should have clicked if you were cranking on it that hard. See how ****ty they are? Your lucky that wasn't a motorcycle head. Don't forget the sealer for your headbolts too. FWIW I always paint my engines with the heads on it. That Chevy Orange looks killer as usual.

I think I'll return this thing tomorrow. Even if I needed one for inch pounds, for things like timing cover bolts, this wrench obviously doesn't work and it's bran new.

I love the orange too I was so torn on whether to paint the heads or not. I've looked at hundreds of engine paint combos and I'm leaning towards leaving the heads unpainted. Not for sure yet but the heads being painted is almost to much orange. The thing about my heads is they are iron, so they didn't shine up like aluminum. I looked for some kind of engine paint that would make the heads look a little brighter but only found some VHT "aluminum" colored paint and I'm not sure I trust it. We'll see how it goes though.

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by slotard

Torque wrenches can go out of calibration over time, especially if abused. One of the advantages of beam types is that, as long as you zero them, it's extraordinarily unlikely that they'll be out of calibration.

If you cranked on them that hard and didn't get a 65 inch pound click I would NOT trust your torque wrench to be anything other than a breaker bar at this point.

If your torque wrench is 1' long (from where the socket mounts to the center of your hand), 65 ft*lb requires 65lb of force. If it's 18" long, it's around 43lb force.

Tightening head bolts is a significant amount of work, but it sounds to me like you have some other problem going on.

Any company that makes a bulletproof Clicker Torque wrench? My Dad has an old school one I could probably borrow too

[Mrturner1]

If any of you guys have some pictures of your nicely painted engine bays, feel free to post em up. I could use some good ideas. I was gonna go crazy with it and possibly take some things to get powder coated or ceramic coated, then I was thinking keep it simple. Now I'm somewhere in between haha. My long tube headers would look great if they were shiney like when they were new, but those get hot so I wouldn't know how to go about that

[Mrturner1]

Starting to look like a hot rod motor! I can't even believe it used to look like that picture I posted all dirty and grimy. Doesn't seem like the same motor

[Mrturner1]

These need some work. They will look terrible bolted to that Purdy engine. They actually might not be big enough anymore now that I think about it. I measured one of the pipes and it looked like 1 1/2" diameter and almost 3" collector. Have to do some research on different sizes and see what will work best. Exhaust is 2 1/4" right now and I'm replacing it with 2 1/2" or 3"

[Captainfab]

IMO high temp engine paint isn't really needed on the engine bay. I've typically used a good quality semi gloss black paint with good luck. If you don't want to paint your heads orange, think about cast iron colored engine paint. For those headers you will need a high temp paint. You can purchase high temp paint marketed specifically for headers, but I have always used paint marketed for wood stoves and BBQ's. The paint will adhere best if you can have the headers sandblasted. If not make sure they are very clean prior to painting them.

[Grumpy old man]

Paint those heads orange , it will look funny any other color. What intake and carb are you using ?

[cadillac_al]

I don't think orange block and heads is too much orange. If you have an aluminum intake, chrome valve covers and headers it looks just right. I am amazed that I didn't take pics of mine when I installed it last fall. I was going to post one. I may take some for my records but I'm sure google images will have hundreds.

[GASoline71]

Ain't nothing wrong with click-style TQ wrenches. Just stay away from the $50 dollar cheapie parts store brand wrenches. Seriously, a good quality click style TQ wrench is gonna run you a couple hundred bucks. Then calibrate it every year, or at least before an engine overhaul.

I've been building engines for 30 years with click style TQ wrenches and never had an issue with them ever.

Gary

[Mrturner1]

Originally Posted by Grumpy old man

Paint those heads orange , it will look funny any other color. What intake and carb are you using ?

I'm goin with an Edelbrock performer rpm and 650 AVS Thunder Series carb

[Average Joe]

I vote orange heads too. Everytime I see gray cast iron heads it makes me think someone is trying to make them look like aluminum. It just dont look right IMO. Kinda like Chrome spray paint. It just aint right. Lol.

[swamp rat]

If you don't have the performer yet consider a black one, black valve covers and air filter. Paint the heads orange it will look fine.

Something you can try is stick a random bolt in a vise it fine some bolt that you can put the torque wrench on and try different settings to see how much pull it takes

[Mrturner1]

I think if the heads were aluminum I'd like to leave them polished but being iron, they really look out of place unpainted. I would really like to leave the head bolts unpainted though so some meticulous masking is in order now.

The headers, really like the look of them being stainless but they will look terrible on that freshly painted engine. I want stainless or something similar for the headers, so I can either get mine ceramic coated, or fork out 400 bucks for new ones. There might be a good reason to get new ones but I'll need some veteran engine builders take on header sizes. Mine look to be an 1 1/2" in diameter and 3" collectors. Is that considered small compared to common sizes? The exhaust is a bolt on 2 1/4" flowmaster kit so I'm definitely upgrading that part. The headers also have a good sized dent as you can see in the picture above.

[slikside]

After all the work you're doing making that engine look purdy, you MUST paint the heads! I vote for orange, especially with that intake. It'll look killer. But if you leave the heads unpainted, they will start to rust eventually, and that will look even worse than you think it does now. Not painting would not even be an option in my book. IMHO, of course.

Keep after it, you're doing well! Glad to be along for the ride on this one.

[Mrturner1]

Ok I'm seeing it now. Had it bolted up painted and unpainted, and with the chrome valve covers the iron looked funky

[Mrturner1]

One thing I'm thinking twice about is the 15$ timing chain cover. It looks nice and I put some time into sealing it, but even just a little bit of torque on the cover bolts and it bends. So if you look at it from the side it waves in and out a bit on each bolt. I'd sure hate to have it leak after startup and replace it with the motor in the truck. I found a real nice cast aluminum one for about 65 bucks.

[GASoline71]

Some cast aluminum covers are too thick and won't fit behind the short water pump.

The old stock stamped steel covers work well. But as you've noticed any slight over tightening of fasteners and they will bend and warp easily.

I've always used Gasgacinch on the gasket and the metal parts to be assembled. Then a light touch on the wrench. Mine don't leak.

Gary

[swamp rat]

As long as you put Permatex Ultra Black or Ultra Grey sealant on both sides of the gasket it should be fine, same with the oil pan.

I like this product selector page for future reference:

http://www.permatex.com/products/product-selector
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[Mrturner1]

All progress stopped until next Friday. Had to drive to LA and get the future mother in law. On the way here I saw a really nice 67 swb c10. Guy had it painted orange with an orange KTM dirt bike in the bed

[Mrturner1]

Back at it today with a much nicer and correct torque wrench for the build. Found something in the truck today that's pretty interesting.