Bad news from Texas. After a distressing weekend working on the car I
had to make a decision not to take the car. I thought I had fixed a
problem that showed up after I blew a head gasket tha last time out at
TWS. After that I found that all 4 intake valves had stuck and that the
reason I was blowing head gaskets was worn out threads in the head stud
holes. After I replaced the threads with Timeserts on the 6 holes on the
top of the block I restarted the car and found it to be very noisy.
After a protracted diagnosis I found that the camshaft was bad with a
lot of excess end float. So I replaced this obviously bad part and
readied the car in other ways for the race. When I started the engine
after replacing the camshaft it sounded pretty good but was a little
noisy. The noise would go away over 2000 RPM. The next time I started
it, this past Saturday it was even noisier. I replaced the oil since it
still had some water in it but that didn't help. After pulling the head
again and rechecking all that I can check it still sounds the same. I
should have pulled a piston when I had the head off. So after all that
it looks like I had more than one problem and the camshaft wasn't the
only cause of the noise. At this point I'm thinking I damaged the
piston/wrist pin bore when it overheated at TWS. I don't have the time
left, or the parts to fix that. It is possible that it is just piston
slap which might not lead to a catotrophic failure, but I don't want to
take that chance. Net result I'm not bringing the car. I am very bummed.
I had a crew of 4 coming with me. I think there is a good chance that we
still might make the trip just to come watch. Does anyone have spare
crew passes?
Bob Kramer
Sales Manager
RDO Equipment Co.
16415 North IH 35
Pflugerville, TX 78660
512-272-4141
Fx 512-272-9365
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