[GB SISSON]

'Adventures in used parts' The saga continues. I found I had a few guides that while they fit the valve nicely, the guide was somewhat loose in the block. 12 were a push through with hard thumb pressure or a few light taps, 4 would pass through with gravity. Following a youtube video by 'Bored and Stroked' I knurled the 4 loose ones in my lathe. There was a learning curve. It does not take much to get them too tight. On those I chucked them back up and with file applied gently, they were perfect. With all valves and guides tight I lapped the exhaust valves keeping the guides paired. The seats are nice and narrow, so maybe my experimental first try got lapped in an intake and an exhaust seat both. Next I found the old style Johnsons will compress down quite readily endwise in the vice to get them back to 40-60 in/lb torque. I have now done about 30 of them, but the 2nd one I did, I gave two oomph tugs on the vice handle instead of one. It was very hard to turn the wrench in fact I grabbed a longer 7/16 to crank. It just got tighter as I cranked it but figured I'd run it in and out a few times to break it in. But then a quite audible CLICK. Maybe I need to affix a 1/2" drive socket to the screw on my vice so I can crank it with my click torque wrench. I told you I overthink things. And finally, Once I got a valve assembly installed I realized I'd need a crank to rotate the cam as had been suggested. I had a galvy pipe cuttoff that was a loose fit on the gear. I slotted it two sides and shouldered it til an old muffler clamp fit. A sleeve of bicycle inner tube serves to protect that nice new cam gear and fill the gap. In retrospect the handle sould have been a few inches longer but it works well. Hoping some of these musings will help a future V8er someday.