Pulled my Head to Look Inside the Top of the Engine

[Tom Wesenberg]

Last week I had trouble sleeping, so in the middle of the night I pulled the head on my 28 to see what I had. The cylinders are in nice shape and the pistons are stamped +.015, but the rear two pistons don't match the front two, so I'll buy a new set. Notice the rear two pistons have centering pockets, but the front two don't.

After all the overheats this engine has been through, I expected to find a head gasket ready to blow through, but it was still in good shape. I have a better engine to drop in, but want to tear this one down for an overhaul and see what was making the ticking noise. I still think it was piston slap from an overheat, but won't know until the weather warms up.

I was also curious to see how the 30 days of vinegar effected the head gasket, and I was glad to see no ill effects from it. I also wanted to see if the vinegar, and later the Evaporust had eaten away all the rust, and it looks like it did a good job.

In a recent post I mentioned how an engine that uses oil due to worn rings will wash the carbon from the outside edge of the piston tops. This engine used very little oil, but you can see how the carbon has been washed away on the front and rear pistons, which haven't been scraped clean yet.

The valves have a thin edge, so I'll probably buy 8 new valves also. Notice the color on the first valve, just barely showing in the first picture. It might have a slight seating problem.