The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Alright it's been a while since the last update. Carlisle came and went a few weeks ago and I picked up a Sharkstooth grille for the Duster. At the end of the day on Saturday, my friend Curt sold me the correct argent bezels for $20 I was just hanging out t his spot and looked down and saw them on his table. I offered him $5... They are in nice shape too.
There were not many Duster grilles at Carlisle except for the guy right next to my own vendor spot. One of my goals this year was actually to find a new grille. This part was staring me in the face for three days so it was almost like it was meant to be. Me and our neighbor have sold each other stuff over the last few years but I won't say he gave me much of a deal on it. It's a brand-new repro part and I saved on shipping it so it's all good.
Frankly, the old, original grille had seen better days. There were cracks all over it and stuff like mounting tabs and chunks of the fins were missing - it actually needed to be replaced. Does the Sharkstooth look right? I don't know. AFAIK, they only came on 340 Dusters and maybe some other package cars but my lowly, base-model, 318-equipped grandma putter would have never had one from the factory. Guess that's one of the fun parts of re-doing these cars 50 years later, you can choose what you want them to be.
In other news, my big fat roller cam showed up from Bullet last week so it's time to start taking apart the 416 to swap out all the old stuff for new shiny parts. I did feel a twinge of sadness having never driven the iron head combo on the street or down the track. A few people had assured me it would have gone in the 10s but I was skeptical. The fact that it didn't perform (on the dyno) like I had hoped had bothered me for years so I do feel somewhat justified for going through this exercise again.
Frankly though, the engine needed to come apart anyway as it had been sitting for years and I could see there was surface rust in the bowls. I was dreading taking it apart because my fears of rust in the cylinders was confirmed when I saw that reddish ridge around the top of all the bores. I am mad at myself for letting it sit for so long.
So the grayish/black line is what's left of rust. At first I sprayed some WD-40 on it to loosen it up but it didn't come all the way off. I went to red Scotchbrite with ATF to get it clean. I tried real hard not to go too far down the bore with the scrubbing but some of the oxidation was tough enough to get off where it left stains and I ended up having to get pretty aggressive with it.
Here's the same bore after the Scotchbrite. I think it will be OK, I'm sure there is way worse out there running just fine. You can see some light pitting but it's above the top ring so I don't think it will affect anything. BTW, these dish pistons are getting replaced by flat tops. The new slugs will raise the compression ratio to just over 11.3:1 which should help the effort to make more power.
The next steps are to take apart the bottom end, clean everything thoroughly and then and re-do it all again degree the cam, check valve lift, time it, etc. Fortunately, the pistons are a direct swap - I don't need new rings so no need for a re-hone and I also don't need to re-balance because these pistons are within a few grams of the dished ones. I do get to fight with the Spiro Lox but that's about as tough as it will get.
Just as a note - I am contemplating changing the existing HV oil pump to a standard one. I have a rebuild kit for an older one which will make it good as new. I am pretty sure the HV pump cost a few ponies so anything I can do to free up power I'll consider.
More to come.
Alright it's been a while since the last update. Carlisle came and went a few weeks ago and I picked up a Sharkstooth grille for the Duster. At the end of the day on Saturday, my friend Curt sold me the correct argent bezels for $20 I was just hanging out t his spot and looked down and saw them on his table. I offered him $5... They are in nice shape too.
There were not many Duster grilles at Carlisle except for the guy right next to my own vendor spot. One of my goals this year was actually to find a new grille. This part was staring me in the face for three days so it was almost like it was meant to be. Me and our neighbor have sold each other stuff over the last few years but I won't say he gave me much of a deal on it. It's a brand-new repro part and I saved on shipping it so it's all good.
Frankly, the old, original grille had seen better days. There were cracks all over it and stuff like mounting tabs and chunks of the fins were missing - it actually needed to be replaced. Does the Sharkstooth look right? I don't know. AFAIK, they only came on 340 Dusters and maybe some other package cars but my lowly, base-model, 318-equipped grandma putter would have never had one from the factory. Guess that's one of the fun parts of re-doing these cars 50 years later, you can choose what you want them to be.
In other news, my big fat roller cam showed up from Bullet last week so it's time to start taking apart the 416 to swap out all the old stuff for new shiny parts. I did feel a twinge of sadness having never driven the iron head combo on the street or down the track. A few people had assured me it would have gone in the 10s but I was skeptical. The fact that it didn't perform (on the dyno) like I had hoped had bothered me for years so I do feel somewhat justified for going through this exercise again.
Frankly though, the engine needed to come apart anyway as it had been sitting for years and I could see there was surface rust in the bowls. I was dreading taking it apart because my fears of rust in the cylinders was confirmed when I saw that reddish ridge around the top of all the bores. I am mad at myself for letting it sit for so long.
So the grayish/black line is what's left of rust. At first I sprayed some WD-40 on it to loosen it up but it didn't come all the way off. I went to red Scotchbrite with ATF to get it clean. I tried real hard not to go too far down the bore with the scrubbing but some of the oxidation was tough enough to get off where it left stains and I ended up having to get pretty aggressive with it.
Here's the same bore after the Scotchbrite. I think it will be OK, I'm sure there is way worse out there running just fine. You can see some light pitting but it's above the top ring so I don't think it will affect anything. BTW, these dish pistons are getting replaced by flat tops. The new slugs will raise the compression ratio to just over 11.3:1 which should help the effort to make more power.
The next steps are to take apart the bottom end, clean everything thoroughly and then and re-do it all again degree the cam, check valve lift, time it, etc. Fortunately, the pistons are a direct swap - I don't need new rings so no need for a re-hone and I also don't need to re-balance because these pistons are within a few grams of the dished ones. I do get to fight with the Spiro Lox but that's about as tough as it will get.
Just as a note - I am contemplating changing the existing HV oil pump to a standard one. I have a rebuild kit for an older one which will make it good as new. I am pretty sure the HV pump cost a few ponies so anything I can do to free up power I'll consider.
More to come.
