Cleveland Quick Fix
It took only a week to get the heads back from the shop. Having
the extra pair gave us the ability to have the car disabled
for only a weekend. We proceeded to teardown the top end.
There's probably a purist out there somewhere who's wondering
how we could possibly trash the Motorcraft 2V. Experience
told us that life is too short and space too precious
to hoard parts like these.
It was quite nasty under the valve covers. We didn't need
any further confirmation that we had water in the oil,
but we got it anyway.
Once we got the old heads off, we discovered that having
a bad head gasket is a good way to steam clean the carbon
build-up off the tops of your pistons. These were mighty
clean for 98,000 miles.
We scrubbed the deck surfaces with "Bear" hair
pads and installed our new heads with Fel-Pro gaskets
and the original head bolts.
We dropped off the existing valve train components to
the machine shop for a good tanking and jet wash. Here
we are bringing them back.
The hot tank didn't remove all the surface rust on our
pushrods. We took a little steel wool to them to finsh
the job.
Just because they're not brand new rockers arms doesn't
mean they don't require some assembly lube. We put a dab
on all contact points for our "quasi" break-in.
We followed the shop manual for the proper adjustment
sequence of our non-adjustable valve train.
Another item that just made sense to replace while we
had it off was the cast iron intake. We added this Edelbrock
piece. See sidebar.
Even if we wanted to keep our Motorcraft carb, it wasn't
going to match our new four-barrel intake. We added the
Edelbrock 600cfm Performer series carburetor. See sidebar.
Edelbrock
Performer Intake for 351C 2V and Performer 600 cfm Carburetor Intake Manifold (Part No. 2750)
We chose the 351 2V Edelbrock Performer in place of the
stock iron intake. Some things are just too painful
to re-use after going through the effort of replacing both
head gaskets. Besides, we looked forward to a reasonable
performance boost even if we decided to leave the stock
cam in there. Another benefit, the aluminum intake is much
easier on the back during install and will save a few pounds
up front.
Carburetor (Part No. 1406)
A proven and affordable match for a stock 2V Cleveland with
Performer intake is the Edelbrock 600cfm
carb. We grabbed the one with electric choke for good measure.
After hearing a number of credible "warnings"
about them boiling over in hot weather, we planned to add
a 1-inch 4-hole phenolic spacer for insulation down the
road. But for the meantime, we went without the spacer.
Source:
Edelbrock Corporation 2700
California Street
Torrance, CA 90503 www.edelbrock.com
There's probably a purist out there somewhere who's wondering
how we could possibly trash the Motorcraft 2V. Experience
told us that life is too short and space too precious
to hoard parts like these.
It was quite nasty under the valve covers. We didn't need
any further confirmation that we had water in the oil,
but we got it anyway.
Once we got the old heads off, we discovered that having
a bad head gasket is a good way to steam clean the carbon
build-up off the tops of your pistons. These were mighty
clean for 98,000 miles.
We scrubbed the deck surfaces with "Bear" hair
pads and installed our new heads with Fel-Pro gaskets
and the original head bolts.
We dropped off the existing valve train components to
the machine shop for a good tanking and jet wash. Here
we are bringing them back.
The hot tank didn't remove all the surface rust on our
pushrods. We took a little steel wool to them to finsh
the job.
Just because they're not brand new rockers arms doesn't
mean they don't require some assembly lube. We put a dab
on all contact points for our "quasi" break-in.
We followed the shop manual for the proper adjustment
sequence of our non-adjustable valve train.
Another item that just made sense to replace while we
had it off was the cast iron intake. We added this Edelbrock
piece. See sidebar.
Even if we wanted to keep our Motorcraft carb, it wasn't
going to match our new four-barrel intake. We added the
Edelbrock 600cfm Performer series carburetor. See sidebar.
Edelbrock
Performer Intake for 351C 2V and Performer 600 cfm Carburetor
painful
to re-use after going through the effort of replacing both
head gaskets. Besides, we looked forward to a reasonable
performance boost even if we decided to leave the stock
cam in there. Another benefit, the aluminum intake is much
easier on the back during install and will save a few pounds
up front.
600cfm
carb. We grabbed the one with electric choke for good measure.
After hearing a number of credible "warnings"
about them boiling over in hot weather, we planned to add
a 1-inch 4-hole phenolic spacer for insulation down the
road. But for the meantime, we went without the spacer.