MTFCA Forum

Well its that time of year again. Here in the hills of Arkansas the weather is getting cold and the wood is cut and ready to go. My T work season is black Friday till Chickasha in March. So here we go with year #6. This was supposed to be a 3 year project but it seems to take me longer to get things done these days. I really hope to finish in time for Chickasha (if we have it). My main stumbling block was the engine. I decided to use a Rajo four valve head, and it has been a up hill climb all the way. As some of you may remember I have blown 2 head gaskets on the engine. I have pulled the engine twice. Everything looked good each time. ???? I originally had the head machined at a local machine shop, so I thought it was OK. After two blown head gaskets and a lot of checking and head scratching I think the head was machined poorly by my local shop. I found several hard spots or inclusions in the cast iron head. Even though they looked perfectly smooth and I could not measure any problems, I think the hard spots caused the milling cutter to "climb" and then "dip" as it went over the hard spots. So I took a chance and had the head re-machined on a production type belt sander for modern heads. I really liked the finish it gave me. So I re-used one of the old head gaskets and then removed the pistons from the engine to be able to inspect the cylinder walls again. I made a test setup to do a pressure test of the head and water jacket to see why it was leaking at the two front head bolts and getting water into #1 cylinder. I was able to pressurize the water jacket to 60 psi and hold it overnight without any leaks. So Im hoping the re-surfacing of the head solved my problems. Im currently at the stage of putting the engine back together at this time. I am also building a "test stand" to start and run the engine on. Im tired of pulling the engine out of the speedster. The pistons are back in, and I hope to put the head on tomorrow or the next day. If the engine works out OK. The rest of the car is basically done. Just a lot of little details to wind up.

For those who are not familiar with the speedster project update Ill post a link to a thread with a lot of photos. I also have done many other threads of various details and steps in the project. If you want to see more of the project just do a google search using the words ... speedster project update Donnie Brown mtfca .... There will be more than you may want to read.

Ill be posting more pictures as I go along, and maybe another video when I get it running. Thanks for putting up with my slow progress thru the years

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1487043839


Below is a photo of my wood piles for this years work season and a few pics of the leaking head gasket. Also there is a pic of an unusual view of a model T cylinder showing the huge Rajo 4 valve intake valve.

I admire anyone that has a vision, and sticks with it to the end. Good luck

It sounds as if you have it going your way, Donnie. Hang in there!

Great to see the advancement of your great build. Looking forward to seeing more. Thanks for sharing jw

Hi
In regards to the engine test stand, here are a couple of pictures of my test stand water pipes.
Just made from some plumbing fittings and a little machining to make the hoses fit. Now I can run for 5-10 minutes without over heating!!

That's really cool Less!!!

Les, That is a good idea, I may just mount my radiator to my test stand for now, but I think I need something like what you use to add to my test stand set-up.

I was able to clean up the head and paint it yesterday. The paint dried very fast in the heated shop, so I was able to mount the head today. It sure looks nice back on the engine after sitting for several months on the work bench. So after a little detail re-painting of the engine itself Ill be able to move to the test stand. It sure feels good to be back in the shop and working on fun things again.

Notice the two head bolts in the center of the head. (the silver colored ones) They are located under the rocker towers. So it requires the removal of the rocker towers each time I re-torque. Not really that hard to do but its a pain in the butt.

Ill be posting more in the days to come ....

Thanks for all the interest and input from all of ya'll (Im from the hills of Arkansas, so ya'll is correct)