Rolling Thunder's Charger Restoration Thread *PICS* *UPDATE!*

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Awesome man! The videos were great and the commentary was excellent. Glad to see where you have it now & keep up the great work

I was also suprised with the lope when you started it up.

[Brass]

Very nice set up.  Congrats!

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well...    Looks like the heads will be coming off...      the Hemi has sprung a leak of sorts from the head gaskets...     

BUT!   on the plus side I got the brakes bled today, got the clutch working great, and am just about done with my center console...         Tomorrow I plan on re-torque-ing the heads and seeing if that will stop the leak.  If not the heads need to come off and the head gaskets will be replaced...    along with the head bolts (F!ck TTY Bolts)

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well - tried to retorque the head bolts this morning...    = fail.

So I'll be ordering new head gaskets and new head bolts this afternoon after class so I can pull the heads -

On the plus side - getting to the head bolts was a lot easier than I anticipated...    so I don't think I'll have too many problems swapping the head gaskets.

[66chargerkid]

Thats good man. Glad you arent going to have too much of problem. Curious as to why the headgaskets are leaking. Possibly pinched corner or bad gasket to begin with?
Q

[Rolling_Thunder]

it's all up in the air - everything looked good to me when I assembled the engine...      oh well....     I'll just chalk it up to my piss poor luck                  Oh well, so it goes....   

[thedodgeboys]

Who hoo it runs 

[RIDELIKEHELL]

Good luck man!

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well I should have gaskets and head bolts in hand by the beginning of next week...          will post pictures of the surgery.   

Also been thinking about what to hide in my center console...     thinking of a couple things - just throwing ideas around at the moment...   Will as usual post pics.

[Finn]

 

[Danny Gutierrez]

Damn Nice man!!!

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well - got the heads off today...    found no obvious problems with the gaskets - I'll chalk it up to bad luck...           

BUT

I was inspecting the heads I found a badly bent intake valve on #6...     It didn't kiss the piston or bent the pushrod...    I'm thinking possible hydraulic lock due to the head gasket leak.

[MSRacing89]

Check your rocker arm adjustment.........if that valve is bent that bad, the water you are seeing could be from a bad crack in the head.  Hope not!

I would say if there is a lot of water in the oil then maybe there was enough to hydraulic the valve, but if not.......read above.

[Rolling_Thunder]

rocker arm adjustment is fine...          it uses a hydraulic roller cam so there is no adjustment...      The valve didn't kiss the piston...    then again this was a used engine - it could have been bent when I bought it and simply didn't notice it when it went through it to replace the bearings.

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well - picked up the valves I needed today at the local dealership...   $20.97 a piece...       not bad though.  I also got a valve spring removal tool - Plan on removing the valves tomorrow and seeing if there was any damage to the seat and go from there.

[Bob T]

Hey R.T. Great thread , good clip and congrats on the conversion and the "got to the running stage"
Fine looking car  
Highway clip next eh  

[redmist]

Hope all is good with it man, I need to see this thing going down the road. I have a mental image of what it will look like, but I need the real deal!

[Rolling_Thunder]

Well after a long hiatus for the Thanksgiving holiday, waiting on parts, and simply dealing with life I got off my rump today and started reassembling the Hemi - Got the valve swapped out the other week - cleaned the mating surfaces and got the heads bolted back on today - Also removed the TTI header on the passenger side and dinged another tube where it was interfering with the T-bar...         so...    at this point I am getting her back together. Tomorrow in planned to get the headers bolted back up, intake, and wiring...    turn the key and hope for no leaks.

[autodynamics]

Ahhhhhh shit Alex........... Big pimpin

[Rolling_Thunder]

I'll be pimpin once this damn car gets on the road.     

[autodynamics]

What's your deadline?
Just think after you get it together it still will need fine tuning
So get cracking drop the books

[Rolling_Thunder]

Yeah -  but only about 2 weeks left in my last semester of college...    plenty of time to screw around after that. 

[LI_DSM]

Yeah -  but only about 2 weeks left in my last semester of college...    plenty of time to screw around after that. 

What do you study, if you don't mind my asking?

[maxwellwedge]

If you haven't put the heads back on take them to a shop and have them pressure checked etc. You don't want to go through all that again.

[Rolling_Thunder]

I lapped the new valve and it had perfect contact area - filled the port with water and no leaks overnight....       

The cause of the bent valve was a result of installing the heads, pushrods, and rocker shafts with one of the pistons at TDC - apparently it takes about 10-15 minutes for the hydraulic lifters to bleed down - so as I tightened the rocker shafts it forced the valve into the piston top = causing a bent intake valve. 

SRT-68 informed me this is somewhere in a FSB - something I did not have access to when I originally built the engine - So I made sure no pistons were at TDC and tightened the rocker shafts slowly - doesnt seem to be any issues ---     

I am just dreading bolting up the headers again - not a huge pain - just patience trying because of the access to several bolts being very difficult - I think I just need 2-3 more elbows in my right arm and it would be easy.