My 1987 Two Door Crown Victoria AKA THE BROWN BLOB

[gadget73]

if you're taking the heads off a lopo, the best place to fix them is the scrap yard. Put something better back on, even if its just stock E7 stuff. Those you should at least put valve seals in. You can lap the valves if you want to but for it to be proper the seats likely need to be cut and the exhaust valves replaced. Not exactly worth the money you'd spend on it for what they are. For a used lopo I'd just put usable E7 heads with fresh valve seals on and call it a day.

[87gtVIC]

Just to be clear. No failure of head bolts this time around. The bad ones were weeded out/replaced after the first two times they gave way and forced me to removed the heads. This time was because of a small oil leak i had between the gasket and the head at the number 5 cylinder. You could see some smuck slowly bubble out after a run right behind the alternator above the power steering pump bracket.

My write up would be pretty flawed as I have a mish mosh of stock and aftermarket parts/hardware.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

honestly the worst aspect of the job, particularly with iron heads, is the physical access. Lots of leaning over the fenders, and hauling the heads in and out sucks ass. None of it is particularly complicated, its all just a bunch of heavy awkward shit.

This heavy awkward shit ain't nothing compared to doing diesel heads with engine still in the truck. There if one values their lower back they would be wise to pull the front fenders off (and preferably the wheels as well). Box Panther stuff is much more manageable, especially if exhaust is fairly recent.

What about doing valve guides/seats/seals??? Isn't this something one should do at that time??

It absolutely may need to be done. Last two sets of heads I took to machine shop, both needed seats recut and the last pair needed guides too, at only 50k miles at that. For what the whole shebang costs, I'm with Gadget that it's best done to nicer heads, like the GT-40s. Which coincidentally is what the aforementioned heads that needed work were...

[87gtVIC]

Seen a post on another forum reguarding adjusting rockers. Read someones response and one part of it did not jive with what I was doing all along since 2015 when I built my motor. Did more digging and research only to find I am the dummy who did not write the procedure down correctly in the first place.

All along I was rotating the motor over and looking for the exhaust valve to open signaling for one to adjust the intake valve, then waiting for the intake valve to just start closing (like fully open and just coming back down) and then adjusting the exhaust valve, all the while the proper procedure calls for one to allow the intake valve to JUST about fully close then adjust the exhaust valve.

At least I only have to adjust 8 exhaust rockers and not all exhaust AND intake. Plus the upper intake is not on yet either!

Don't know how much of a difference this will make with how she preforms but I guess it cannot hurt to correct something that was obviously done wrong all these years.

[gadget73]

doesn't matter. If the intake valve is open, the exhaust valve is not and vise-versa. Starting to open vs starting to close is splitting hairs.

[87gtVIC]

Maybe so. I just cannot let it go though and will correct so I don;t have that stuck in the back of my mind all of the time.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

The hell with going by just open vs just close, watch when the valve is fully open and count one full crank revolution from there (half a cam revolution) and you will be on the base circle of the cam 110% for sure - do this one valve at a time and you simply can't mess it up.

[gadget73]

that also works fine. Basically if it was wrong you 'd know it by now. If the motor isn't chattering away like a bunch of spray paint cans, its where it belongs.

[87gtVIC]

The hell with going by just open vs just close, watch when the valve is fully open and count one full crank revolution from there (half a cam revolution) and you will be on the base circle of the cam 110% for sure - do this one valve at a time and you simply can't mess it up.

Ive also seen a variation of this mentioned at times.

that also works fine. Basically if it was wrong you 'd know it by now. If the motor isn't chattering away like a bunch of spray paint cans, its where it belongs.

This is what I was initially thinking. Nothing was ever audibly out of the ordinary before with my settings so things couldn't have been too bad.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Ive also seen a variation of this mentioned at times.

It's practically fool-proof. Downside is that's a lot of crank turning - may wanna manually spin the oil pump a few times, just to make sure you don't run the main bearings dry.

How do you adjust your rockers anyways, are you still using the factory-style pedestals setup or do your heads have the studs with the guide plates?

[87gtVIC]

Studs with guide plates on the TFS heads.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

You're all set then, those should be wicked easy to adjust - bring them to zero lash, then IIRC half a turn more on the big nut and lock her down with the allen screw in the middle. That how you doing it?

[gadget73]

if one wants to be anal you use a dial indicator to get the preload right but in reality doing it by rotation works fine. I've done a fair number of GM engines, every one of them specified in the manual some amount of rotation past zero lash and it worked out fine. The preload range is wide enough that even without a degree wheel or a dial indicator you can get it plenty close enough.

[87gtVIC]

You're all set then, those should be wicked easy to adjust - bring them to zero lash, then IIRC half a turn more on the big nut and lock her down with the allen screw in the middle. That how you doing it?

3/4 turn pre-load for me. back her off a c hair lock down the allen and reef on the big nut to make sure things stay put.

[DerekTheGreat]

...back her off a c hair...

You a fan of AvE? LoL.