Monday, December 21, 2015

Didn't get very far.

I started to assemble the bus engine as I posted earlier.  I stared cleaning the pistons and cylinder to be ready to get them installed.  I also started cleaning the heads to bolt everything together.  I cleaned the 3/4 side head and found a crack from the spark plug hole to the valve.  This is not good.  I then inspected the other head and found cracks also from the spark plug to the valve on both sides.  This make these heads trash.

I have another set of stock heads in my storage.  I inspected these and found they do not have cracks. However, they are stock.  The heads I was going to use have bigger valves and have had porting to breath better.  I will have the stock heads worked on by Audirac and have him install bigger valves and do some porting.  Unfortunately, I don't have money at this time to do these things.  Therefore, everything stops now on the bus engine.  Just when I was gaining some momentum.

However, I do have two interviews this week that look promising for once.  I have some interviews in the recent past but did not materialize into a job.  One of the interviews will be my second with the particular company.  I am sure it will narrow a field of a half a dozen or more candidates to a couple or three.  I am hoping to get into the group of 2 or 3.  The other also looks promising as I will be meeting with the owner face to face.  We have been talking for the past couple of weeks.  Either job will be a good one, I just hope that at least one makes an offer.  It would make a great Christmas present.

Well that's all for now.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone and your families.

3 comments:

Todd Norman said...

How did it go with those job interviews? Things looking good? Hope the beginning of your year has been going well.

Todd Norman
classicveedubs.blogspot.com

BJ said...

Just ran across your blog, thought you might want to hear my experience with cracked heads. No not mine, but back in the day, worked on older 650 Triumphs. It was real common then to put bigger valves (from the late 60's model) on the older ones from the late 50's and early sixties. While this did boost performance, the heads often cracked between the valve port and the spark plug hole, probably due to reduced thickness of metal there. So you may want to think about putting bigger valves on a head that's not designed to have metal removed from that area. Just sayin!

The Volkster said...

BJ, I don't believe that big valves are the culprit for the cracking heads. I believe that the tune was not correct and therefore more heat was built up in the heads than should be. This is what created the cracks. If the tune is correct, there should be no reason for the cracks. I will admit that my tune was not good in the combination. My exhaust was too small for the valve size I was running which made it very difficult if not impossible to tune the engine properly.