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Well, it has been a very long time since my last posting on this project but I haven't been totally inactive. As weather temperature and the usual suspects permit, I've been cleaning down through an incredible amount of crud bit by bit. Here are some pictures showing the before and after...

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Here are some more of the other side.

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As far as the engine it's self goes, I've been carefully turning it through it's four cycles by hand regularly with no signs of problems. Also, even better, the valves are all opening and closing as per design and the valves themselves have no wobble or tilt in the cycle and when open there is no side to side movement which I hope means that the guides are still in good shape.

Next comes the opening of the valve cover for a look at the lifters. While I don't see any problems as per above, I still want to give them a good cleaning as well as the area while things are wide open. I'm also going to take a good look at the timing chain plus with all the oil on the outside of the engine, I think I've got some seals that need some attention.

After that, I'll order gaskets along with fuel pump and carb kits.

One thing the clean(er) engine shows is that the grey for the head is wrong in both color and gloss. There are large sections of the block still wearing the original color so while I knew the gloss was wrong, I'm glad to have the correct color to compare things to.

After the engine comes cleaning the exposed frame, steering and suspension, replacing the front end bushings plus the swapping in of the Power Steering Assembly. Once that's done I'll re-attach the front sheet metal while installing the wiring harness. With the car largely back together, I can have a good chunk of my garage back plus room to work on the interior pieces..

More later -

Not very much progress this week, mostly just thinking through what I'll need. Took a real hard look at the valves and seats as I rotated the engine by hand and felt encouraged by what I saw (or didn't see).

Found 4 examples of the valve lapping tool that Wes mentioned online at NAPA and reserved the 1 1/8 X 1 3/8 version with the textured plastic handle. It was even on sale! Will probably fire up the '55 and drive over to NAPA to pick it and some Lapping Compound up tomorrow.

I feel for you Jim, cleaning up the engine is no fun. I mostly used mechanical means, a screwdriver and putty knife first and then a wire wheel on a drill, followed last by some carb cleaner to wipe all the oil off before paint. Lots of tedious work, lots of nooks and crannies, sometimes I disassembled things (like the oil pump) just so I could clean it better.

I probably should have concentrated on making sure it ran first, then go for the beauty treatment, but I was confident it would run - heck, my brother in law had just had it running in 1975 or so. 😛

I have one of those valve lapping suction cup tools in my box at work, use them all the time on piston aircraft valves. The handle isn't long enough to reach down into the jug on those, so I added a length of rubber hose to one end to give me something to spin ot with. Just spin it with your hands like you're a boy scout trying to make a fire.