Question regarding 1956 T-bird damper details and timing marks

[zuburg]

It was a remanufactured long block from a company in South Carolina that came highly recommended by a friend. They have very good customer service, but they must have missed this one. As you can tell from some of my posts I am not a mechanic by any means and just use logic in asking some of my questions. I could not have gotten where I am now without help from this forum and my one local friend who has quite a bit of experience (although not with cars as old as mine and he deals mostly with GM cars). He has way more tools than I have including a hoist and everything we needed. He helped me rebuild the entire front suspension while we waited 4 years for my Fordomatic to be rebuilt.

[KULTULZ]

Nah, you seem to be doing alright. A reman long comes with the heads/valve-train installed.

You are saying you had to remove one head to change the size of the coolant temp sender bung? That would explain the bad valve adj then.

I think I have it now.

[dmsfrr]

Originally Posted by zuburg

. . . we discovered the block and heads were 1957 or later and the hole for the temp sensor was too small. So we had to remove the head to drill it out and tap the new threads. In putting the head back on, we obviously inserted the rod incorrectly. I agree with you that the rocker lashing should have been done better. Oh well. I did learn more with the experience. One, I don’t wish to have to adjust the valves again. Tedious, time consuming and not fun with cranking the engine by hand with the fan blade still installed.

Too late to tell you now but, re-threading the small '57+ Temp bushing for an earlier temp sensor can be done without pulling the head, been there done that.

Valve adjustment? You definitely need a clip-on Remote Start Switch and to watch this video.
I kept putting this task off for the first time but after doing it, it's actually pretty painless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqG-Q_kVI3s

.

[zuburg]

We only took one head off but had to adjust valves on both. We removed the entire bar of rockers as one piece and made sure we put the push rods back in the order removed so we didn’t think that would affect the valve adjustment.

[zuburg]

We thought it would be safer to remove it for fear of shavings getting somewhere they didn’t belong. I know you said you ran into the same issue. My friend just wasn’t confident enough to do it your way. I wasn’t going to argue. I already feel like I owe him a bunch of dinners but he would never take me up on it. I at least have helped him install a 700+ hp engine and a rear end (no lift) in his drag car, as well as remove another engine from his daily driver that broke a timing gear, so I’m trying to even things up.

[dmsfrr]

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Originally Posted by zuburg

. . .
I already feel like I owe him a bunch of dinners but he would never take me up on it. I at least have helped him install a 700+ hp engine and a rear end (no lift) in his drag car, as well as remove another engine from his daily driver that broke a timing gear, so I’m trying to even things up.

Trading off work is part of the way things work in the hobby. Or trading extra parts for other needed parts is good too.
I've got a distributor that one of the guys in our club wants, so in exchange he's letting me occasionally use his very well equipped shop to put my '57 Bird project in. He and his dad had the car stripped down, to prep for a repaint, one day when I wasn't paying attention. I'll owe them more than a few dinners too.