Re: Bringing an old inline eight back to life

Posted by eightinline On 2013/10/6 1:43:42

Well there has been progress on the Thunderbolt.

I cleaned out the oil filter canister, the bottom was full of hard packed sludge, kind of was wondering if it could be lead deposites. While I had that off I pulled and cleaned the external oil lines and put in a new filter.

After that I built a quick gauge panel, put some oil in it, bolted up the starter and started to crank it over.

The oil started pumping right away, the oil pressure gauge line is semi see through and it only took a few seconds or the oil to work its way into the line. I went ahead and started checking compression on each cylinder at the same time and had good numbers on all but #3. & #5. The weird thing I noticed was that the oil pressure would build to 75 lbs by cold cranking, that did not make sense. I figured I had a blockage or somewhere.

I did not want to take the head off, but I knew I had a couple of stuck valves. So I put a small piece of plastic tube on the end of a syringe and filled it with some Seafoam. I made sure the valve was up by removing the engine side cover and went through the spark plug hole to try and get some oil on the valve stem. I don't think any valves were stuck all of the way up.

Anyways, to shorten this up, I got #5 to close all of the way by getting oil on the stem. Well at least that is what it looked like. When I went back to look at #3 it was hitting great on compression. I guess the movement loosened it enough to let it seat also.

With all of that said I will move on to start it.

Does anyone know what the 1/4" pipe thread port in the side of the block just in front of the starter is for? My engine had a 2" brass nipple in there with a "T" that had one port plugged and the other was adapted for about a 5/8" hose. I pulled the nipple off and it is impacted with rust, I dug around with several things and could not get it to clear.

Next is the carb and getting some water in the block.