Super frustrating, but a good learning moment!
Help! Have a leak after rebuild!
- Thread starter Rooster34
- Start date
Gerald Morris
Senior Member
I'm certainly grateful for you sharing your experience here. I have the Fel-Pro composite gaskets and was mulling over whether to use copper coat of some sort with them when the time comes. Now, I know better. Likewise, to mind sealing sundry exhaust manifold studs seems a good investment of material and labor.
BTW, you've done BEAUTIFUL work on that Poly! I pray it purrs along for decades to come now.
BTW, you've done BEAUTIFUL work on that Poly! I pray it purrs along for decades to come now.
Thank you! So yes I did coat the head gaskets with the copper coat and there are no leaks from the head gaskets. The leak was coming from the bottom of the header bolts which I ended up sealing with permatex "the right stuff" gasket sealer and doesn't leak anymore! The heads are milled down to give a 10:1 compression. I got her running and the timing is 32deg at 3000-3500 rpm. I gotta **** with the carb which is a stromberg ww3 2bbl. Which I am struggling with to get right and smooth running. Ill eventually put a holly 500 2 bbl on but want to see if I can get the stromberg good enough to run.
Gerald Morris
Senior Member
Hey, I got a WW3 on my 383 and Mathilda just PURRRRS with that one. Found an octogenarian carb expert to build it for me, for a pittance, God bless him. If you're not going to spin that Poly up much over 3500 rpm, then I'd advise you to stick with the Stromberg. Even the old leaky one I had on my plant before the rebuilt one ran that engine just fine. I just didn't like the petrol puddle that worsened after 3 years to a dangerous degree.
WW3s are SIMPLE, though prone to an issue with the air horn warping up, creating a nasty leak twixt it and the throttle body, just like Holly! I'm tempted to put the big Holly 500 cfm on Mathilda's NEXT engine, a 400 I'm planning to build with a forged 383 crank and 915 heads. I like high compression, closed chamber heads for lots of low end torque too. With a 2:76 rear end, this makes an excellent drive train, so long as you're not pulling down sequoias, trailers or drag racing.
Thanks for the advice! I feel like the tach i bought is way off. I hooked up a dwell tach and I was getting about 750 compared to 1300 on the new tach I bought. Ill mess around with it today and see if I can get her good, its a fairly new remanded one that I bought with the car and I also have the original carb that came on it from factory.
Gerald Morris
Senior Member
Tachs often have sundry DIP switches, rotary selectors, jumpers or such. I suspect your tach is set for a 4 or 6 cylinder engine. Re-manufacture often screws up more than what was wrong at first! People can't read, follow simple schematics or think anymore! Those of us who CAN are unemployable. We make the stupids feel uncomfortable, especially management. I'm blackballed from several tech professions!
Hey there, I think I misled on the reman, I was talking about a remanded carburetor, the tach is new and is off about 600 rpm. The dwell tach i bought is correct and confirmed with a digital timing light. I think I got everything squared away this weekend as far as the carburetor goes and getting it to run smooth, I think I had some shitty gas in there that was making it sputter u der light acceleration. However, dumb dumb me forgot to put rtv around the Welch plug in the back and I should have sealed the oil gallery plugs, so I have a small drip of oil coming from between the bell housing and flex plate cover. Should I be concerned or just keep an eye on the oil level? I would really hate to pull the engine again and take the cam out to pop the Welch plug and seal it
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