They say confession is good for the soul

[DRD57]

Man I feel stupid.

Sometimes it just takes a fresh set of eyes to see the obvious.

I've been chasing an oil leak on the front of my 327 for a while now. It got worse since I put lower gears and the lumpier cam in it because now the engine is buzzing a bit more.

A friend stopped by to pick up some junk I  bought for him at the big 3 and he pointed out that I didn't have a bolt in the hole that goes to the side of the fuel pump rod.  

I guess that would leak when the crankcase pressure is up.

Doh!!!

[Bruce Dorsi]

Don, that is a very common mistake.

I see that often when looking at SBC's at shows.

Worse yet, is when someone installs a too-long bolt into that hole, and binds up, or chews up, the fuel pump pushrod.

Also, many people don't know that the "trick" to easily install the fuel pump is to remove the short bolt, and TEMPORARILY install a longer bolt to keep the pushrod from dropping down.

[Sean]

Man I feel stupid.

Sometimes it just takes a fresh set of eyes to see the obvious.

I've been chasing an oil leak on the front of my 327 for a while now. It got worse since I put lower gears and the lumpier cam in it because now the engine is buzzing a bit more.

A friend stopped by to pick up some junk I  bought for him at the big 3 and he pointed out that I didn't have a bolt in the hole that goes to the side of the fuel pump rod.  

I guess that would leak when the crankcase pressure is up.

Doh!!!

Yep, I had a leak on the very first sbc I built. Luckily I had painted the engine Orange so I was able to find it almost immediately after seeing the puddle under the car. Green Kendall shows up pretty good on an orange background.

[Mojo]

I've left the longer bolt in, and tight before... man, what a horrible noise. It didn't break anything, but it gouged the rod a good bit...  

[Gilles]

I think most of us did big mistakes at a time that make us laughing now. My experience is not about an oil leak but it's worse!
When building the 32 châssis I didn't want to order an expensive new Vega box from the States and it was impossible to find locally an used one as vega were never imported in my country. So I tried to walk in wrecking yard looking under cars to find a steering-box that could fit. I found what I needed on a shelf inside a used-parts store and it was a  Volvo. I bought it, went to my garage and started to think how to make some brackets on the frame for it.
But I discovered after a little more reflexion that turning right the steering wheel would turn the wheels left and vice-versa! In fact the box is mounted forward the front-end on the Volvo and it wasn't any way to have it working on the cross-steer style rigid front-end I have on the 32.
I just had to go back to the used-parts store and exchange it to a Peugeot van one, which is on the car for years and works fine and was ten times cheaper than to import a vega.

Gilles

[Ohio Blue Tip]

Man I feel stupid.

Sometimes it just takes a fresh set of eyes to see the obvious.

I've been chasing an oil leak on the front of my 327 for a while now. It got worse since I put lower gears and the lumpier cam in it because now the engine is buzzing a bit more.

A friend stopped by to pick up some junk I  bought for him at the big 3 and he pointed out that I didn't have a bolt in the hole that goes to the side of the fuel pump rod.  

I guess that would leak when the crankcase pressure is up.

Doh!!!

Ah!  The old fuel pump rod bolt!  Back in the 80's I too chased that problem on my T-Bucket, no bolt just the paint.  Every time I would go past 100 (most entries to the E-way) oil would spatter on the windshield, I chased that problem all summer, changed valve cove gaskets often but never found the source until somebody said "Hay you don't have a bolt in there and It'll leak"  Ya learn and re-learn as you go along.

[purplepickup]

On my engine that hole isn't a thru hole.  I wish it was.  It would be a lot easier changing fuel pumps if I could hold the pushrod up using a longer bolt.

[Charlie Chops 1940]

You're a good man to tell on yourself. I first ran across that same thing helping a friend of mine about 25 years ago on his Duece sedan. I rode on the running board/fender down the street in front of his house until I spotted where the oil was coming from. I was lots younger, more limber and lots dumber in those days. I probably couldn't hang on hard enough now (LOL).

Charlie

[348tripower]

I did the same thing last spring. Chased that oil leak around for quite a while. It's awfull hard to see in the front of a 37 Ford. Seems I never had one in there originally which gave me a slight leak, but remove the mechanical pump and add an electric, look out !!!!!!!! :oops:

[av8]

Man I feel stupid.

Sometimes it just takes a fresh set of eyes to see the obvious. . .

I'm guilty of not reinstalling the short bolt after removing the long one used to hold the pump pushrod in place during pump installation. Best trick I know is to keep the short bolt in the palm of your secondary hand with the the two shortest fingers throughout the procedure.  

My most embarrassing automotive moment occurred 14 years ago. I spent a half a year spec'ing and building a doorslammer for a budget NHRA class with a 12.9-second index.  I had the use of a then-new computer design-aid program, and enjoyed a great time building the car with every confidence it would do what I'd built it to do.

When the car was finished I took it to LACR for a test-and-tune day, accompanied by three pals who had been involved in the latter stages of the build. One was an ME who had been crew chief on an SCCA Great Lakes Region-winning A/Prod Corvette for several seasons, another was a well experienced  and successful circle-track and drag racer, and the third -- less mechanically experienced than the rest of us. was nonetheless a talented drag racing driver.

We had high expectations for success right from the start; the computer program indicated an uncorrected 12.9 at LACR, right off the trailer.  Collectively we had enough experience at LACR to preset jetting and timing for a reasonable baseline.  On the first pass I warmed the hides in the waterbox and continued on to dry them off. I then did a couple of dry-hops to make sure they were dry and warm, then pre-staged, rolled into the staging beam and brought the motor up to about 3700 rpm against the converter.

The lights came down, I launched, and it felt fantastic! I firewalled it looking for the 6K indicator light on the tach . . . but it didn't happen It laid down at around 5K so I shifted and the motor began to pull again until it hit something around 4.6 K before nosing over, yielding a quarter mile time of 14.6 at  97 mph. What was wrong?!

My first-ever timing slip for the car indicated it was doing what it was supposed to do at the beginning of the lap. The 60-foot time was a respectable 1.9 seconds, and the "crew" reported that the launch was hard and solid, the front tires just tip-toeing for about a hundred feet and the front end staying high to load the slicks out to about 200 feet.

We repeated this drill about a dozen time, with me inscreasing the stall speed up to 4K, and all we got for our efforts was a 60-foot time of 1.8 seconds, with the ET "improving" to about 14.2 with trap speed still under 100 mph.

We mucked around with plugs and ignition timing half the day, coming back to our original settinges when they turned out to be correct. We were about to try some jet changes after lunch when the mechanically least experienced among us (the hot-shot driver) who had his head under the hood, hollered at me,  with my butt in the seat scratching my head wondering what to do next, "Press the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor and hold it!" I did as commanded.

Hot-shot driver's face appeared from under the hood wearing an enormous grin. "I think I've found the problem!" he said with considerable pride.  In case you haven't already sussed the situatlon, we had a sloppy throttle cable, not correctly adjusted and capable of providing no more than about 60-precent throttle opening.

As often happens in thrashes with pals, things get left undone because everyone assumes that everyone else is doing his part -- even though the parts are loosely defined if at all. Lots of shared embarassment that day, but we adjusted the cable for full stroke, and the next lap was a 12.93 at 110 uncorrected, with a 1.7-second 60-foot time!

By the end of the season I had the car running low 12s (uncorrected) at 114 mph at LACR with a best-ever pass 11.90 seconds at 116.

We've only talked about the throttle-cable SNAFU among ourselves -- until now.

[Jimc]

On my first engine rebuild, a 1955 Cheby 265, I was told about the long bolt solution to the fuel pump rod falling.
My downfall was not changing the bolt. Like Mikes problem, there were more than one of us in on the startup and all missed the long bolt. We even pulled the car a couple of miles trying to start.

But, that ws not the end of my embarassing moments. It is just the only I will admit to.

Jim

[Dolly]

Carps never made such a mistake!

I'd figure only because Carps never had a SBC.        

[Jimc]

But my 55 265 was before We knew Chevy made a sbc.
And it became the direct replacement for any other engine in the hotrod, if you wanted to go fast.
Jim