Sometimes It's The Smallest Part

[khryslerkid]

What's the smallest part that left you sitting on the side of the road, or gave you a fit, trying to fix a problem? Or in my case, trying to finish a build.

I finished all of the machine work on my heads in order to change to a different spring. Had to wait for a back ordered set of springs. Finally I'm back to the heads and find out that I have the wrong valve stem locks for the exhaust. They are for .375 and not .372 stem diameter. It definitely makes a difference. So I'll have to find some locally tomorrow or order some from Summit. It's on hold again!

I'm wondering why there are .375 and .372 valve stems. Is the .372 factory and the .375 is used when cleaning up valve guides when rebuilding?

You can see these are correct. They have a gap.

You can see these are touching and not allowing for proper clamping that is necessary.

 

[Mike67]

My bank account!!!

 

[hangn0ut]

Back about 78 my brother and I made a mad dash from Los Angeles to Washington D C to pick up a car with my truck and trailer. Almost back,in the Arizona desert,middle of the night truck dies. Junk in the carb. Holley carb with transfer tube. Lost one of the little o rings. Lotsa wraps of teflon tape got us home however.

 

[threewood]

6p finish nail.

Buddy used one between clamp and post to tighten his pos battery clamp in an early 90s ford ranger. Came loose, grounded the post to the body or hood and burnt the truck to the ground.

 

[khryslerkid]

That's bad!
My son hooked up a new battery, backwards. Came down to the house, asking me why things were getting hot! Yeah, he burnt some wires, lucky!

 

[khryslerkid]

Ok, waited two days on another set of valve stem locks for a .372 valve stem. Installed them on a exhaust valve and they touch together before they "clamp". The valve stem spins inside them. The intake clamps just fine with a gap like it suppose to have. I even took a valve spring off of a old 413 head and they are the same.
So there might be a reason for this? It has to do with the machining of the valve stem or the locks? The grooves don't suppose to take the weight of the retainer, the locks suppose to clamp the stem just like a collet.
So I took things into my own hands and removed just a couple thousands off of each exhaust lock with my belt sander. Now they hold like they suppose to. I'm just hoping that they weren't designed to spin in the locks like I kept finding.

UPDATE: 05/19/16

Well I should have known. Doing a little reading last night, I come across this. The exhaust locks are designed to let the valve spin.
Well let's call this an experiment and I'm leaving them "as is". If I have problems with carbon build up, I'll just change them out. They have a better grip as is and we're useing a higher lift cam than stock. Now we know!

Quoted from "Big-Block Mopar Performance" by Chuck Senatore:

"Most all racing valves are a single-groove lock design for increased strength. The stock multi-groove locks are designed to allow the valve to float in the lock so that it can keep the seats free of carbon by actually spinning the valve slightly. Because of this, this setup is not as strong as a single-groove lock design."
(Page 104 / paragraph 4)

 

[jimt1971rr]

Working on my Jeep's transmission, the park rod is connected to the valve body with a small C clip. Dropped it and couldn't see it anywhere. Finally found it in a pile of leaves using a magnet.

 

[Joeyt66]

In 68 I bought a new Roadrunner. So the first thing I did was race against my buddies 67 SS 396. When I shifted into 2nd gear the return spring on the throttle broke. I pulled over but could not find the spring. But there was a chicken place on the corner, so I went in there and the guy gave me a bunch of rubber bands. Put a few on and made it home. The race had to wait for another day.

 

[kiwigtx]

2mm (2 millimeters)

Yep, that's the difference in diameter between the two standard size tow-balls here and in most other parts of the civilized world. That lil' gap prevented me for an hour or so from hitching a tandem trailer to collect my brother's car from where he broke down a few years ago. Granted it was a Ford, and we should have just set fire to it on the side of the road....but, it was for my brother.

 

[72Fourspeed]

Working on my Jeep's transmission, the park rod is connected to the valve body with a small C clip. Dropped it and couldn't see it anywhere. Finally found it in a pile of leaves using a magnet.

Ah, Yes. The ubiquitous "Jesus Clip."