Jeez, wow its it been a minute....
So in the midst of trying to get everything all figured out, we had a family emergency on top of everything and my 8 month old little girl wound up in the hospital twice, a couple weeks each time. So of course, as these things happen, truck got unfortunately back burnered and over abused. While we aren't out of the dark yet with the little girl, things are at least looking a good bit better and she gets to come home tomorrow! Hell yeah, been rough on me, my little boys (her very proud and tough big brothers), and the wife. They've been down in Seattle for the past week at the childrens hospital there and us guys have been holding down the fort, sorta.
Back to the truck though, while running people back and forth to hospitals and things the truck decides to blow a head gasket. I know, straight forward stuff, right? SO as of this afternoon I finally was able to get both heads off, talk about a mess! I'll get some pics posted here in a bit when I get them up loaded, but I definitely caught this just moments away from full blown disaster, pretty sure Im going to be able to save this without a full out rebuild at the moment. Someone has definitely had these heads off before, and did a really ****** job putting everything back.
Half my intake bolts were hand tight. Bottom of my intake manifold was scorched from fire breathing across my oil valley. Yes, I know how this happens but I still couldn't believe seeing it. None of my exhaust bolts were more than hand tight, gaskets all the way around were either completely worn out from poor sealing or just plain gone. My passenger head was the worse of the two, all that was left between cylinder 4 and 6 was the metal core of the gasket, from water jacket to water jacket. Head is still true, surprisingly, and only needs cleaned up and its going back on. Drivers side actually looked good, but since the kit comes as a full set and its just a good idea I'm placing a new set of gaskets there too.
Bought the cheap Felpro kit for now, is suffice for my means. This truck literally only has to make another 10k miles and I can start putting together a 383 for it. That is going to be fun. It seems like its only fun when you can choose to do it and don't HAVE to do it. Tomorrow after getting some clean up and some paint done tonight and early tomorrow morning, it all goes back together. Until next time...