276 stroker from 35 years of parts

[38 coupe]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

Not sure whether to test for pressure, volume or distance. Gonna be like an old time 'pissin' contest'. May the best pump win.

You made me laugh with that one. Thanks for sharing the good work.

[tubman]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

Denny I suppose with digging up 5 pumps, I'm doing this primarily to decide which of the five might be best and also to rule out any poor performer. Should know more tomorrow. In searches about oil pumps, many here seem to feel a good ford pump is once again, superior to today's aftermarket.

Ain't that the truth. I installed a new Speedway pump in my last build, and was disappointed with the resulting pressure, to say the least. I had a couple of original pumps that I sent to "flatjack9" who was able to test them. They both came back as "good", and each had it's bypass opening pressure clearly noted on an attached tag. I installed one of them and, "presto" oil pressure was up to factory specifications'. Perhaps Jack will step in with a tip or two.

If you missed my thread on this, it's here : https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showt...light=speedway.

[KiWinUS]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

Wow! Thank you so much! PM sent.

2 sets of bolts on the way. You should have Monday. You will need a cam bolt lock plate. I am out at the moment and I won’t use previously used.
Cheers.

[GB SISSON]

Originally Posted by KiWinUS

2 sets of bolts on the way. You should have Monday. You will need a cam bolt lock plate. I am out at the moment and I won’t use previously used.
Cheers.

Dang, you made my morning! As fate would have it, I have two lock plates here. Maybe I can find tabs that haven't been used yet. Or maybe treat the metal with heat like annealing or something. I know little of such things.

[flatjack9]

On my pump test stand, I have a valve to shut off flow and test relief valve pressure. I restrict the flow to 40 psi back pressure and check flow rate. Typically 1.5 gpm.

[GB SISSON]

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Originally Posted by flatjack9

On my pump test stand, I have a valve to shut off flow and test relief valve pressure. I restrict the flow to 40 psi back pressure and check flow rate. Typically 1.5 gpm.

Thanks for these details. Sounds perfect to me! Both pressure and volume. Tempted to use the worst one in the sump of my sioux valve surfacer as it's stock pump and a submersible electric pump that came with it are both inoperable.

[Bored&Stroked]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

Thanks for these details. Sounds perfect to me! Both pressure and volume. Tempted to use the worst one in the sump of my sioux valve surfacer as it's stock pump and a submersible electric pump that came with it are both inoperable.

Heck, that might work! The pump on my grinder works . . . otherwise, I'd be tempted to try it as well.

[GB SISSON]

Dale, the reason I'd use the worst one is that the oil must become quite laden with grit from the stones. I have taken the bottom plates off the 5 pumps and graded them with a 1 through 5 star rating for wear on the plate. Least wear is the one I tried yesterday with the correct pickup for my truck pan. I gave that a 5, along with another. There's a 4 and two 3s. Two issues are the one marked 'melling M-19' has a stripped hole at pickup tube flange and one of the 5 short body pumps has straight cut gears instead of bevel, making it sort of a mongrel..I went through my pipe fittings and came up with the needed parts for a 'Flatjack style' of tester.

[GB SISSON]

My tester worked well and I found some variations among the pumps as expected. Two of the bevel gear pumps showed 57 with valve closed, one showed 63 and another 75. The two best ones (both original ford)showed 40 with valve fully open which is a through a 3/16" orafice. The melling had an angled wear pattern on it's base plate. Any wear on ford plates was flat, but the pumps with wear on the plates clearly showed worse in the open valve position. The melling also dropped of considerably in the open position. The winner at 75/40 is that first one I tried, but the drive gear shows movement on the pin. I have driven out that pin and will be a tomorrow project as dinner was ready. I think cas3's flipping the plate idea would be quite beneficial and I forgot to mention the straight gear version of the short pump only pumped to 50 lbs closed valve and about 20 open. Had a lot of interuptions today. Maybe tomorrow I can do some flow tests. Edit: These tests were performed with hydraulic fluid in the warm sun, about 75 today. I would guess the hydraulic fluid seemed consistent with motor oil at operating temperature.

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

My tester worked well and I found some variations among the pumps as expected. Two of the bevel gear pumps showed 57 with valve closed, one showed 63 and another 75. The two best ones (both original ford)showed 40 with valve fully open which is a through a 3/16" orafice. The melling had an angled wear pattern on it's base plate. Any wear on ford plates was flat, but the pumps with wear on the plates clearly showed worse in the open valve position. The melling also dropped of considerably in the open position. The winner at 75/40 is that first one I tried, but the drive gear shows movement on the pin. I have driven out that pin and will be a tomorrow project as dinner was ready. I think cas3's flipping the plate idea would be quite beneficial and I forgot to mention the straight gear version of the short pump only pumped to 50 lbs closed valve and about 20 open. Had a lot of interuptions today. Maybe tomorrow I can do some flow tests. Edit: These tests were performed with hydraulic fluid in the warm sun, about 75 today. I would guess the hydraulic fluid seemed consistent with motor oil at operating temperature.

[GB SISSON]

Thanks for illustrating all this Pete!

[GB SISSON]

With my oil pump choice taken care of I turned my attention to some cast iron. It's been a very beautiful, warm and sunny 3 day weekend, and the foyota's tailgate has been the best workbench one could ever hope for.

[petehoovie]

Originally Posted by GB SISSON

With my oil pump choice taken care of I turned my attention to some cast iron. It's been a very beautiful, warm and sunny 3 day weekend, and the foyota's tailgate has been the best workbench one could ever hope for.

[38 coupe]

I'm suspicious that someone shimmed the relief valve spring in the pump you got 75 psi from. You don't need more pressure than the factory 57 +/- setting.
If you have a truly flat surface (in the machinist sense) you can lap the worn bottom plates. Set a piece of wet/dry sand paper on top of the flat surface, add some water, and polish the plate in a figure 8 pattern. The old favorite for a flat surface was a piece of ground plate glass, you had to be careful not to drop anything near it.


The intake and heads are looking nice and clean. Highly recommend using an old head gasket and tin foil (or modeling clay, your pick) to check clearances in the combustion chamber, then surfacing the heads to achieve 0.050 +/- clearance above the pistons. I had a nice looking set of EAB heads to put on dad's engine, one turned out to be warped significantly but cleaned up well with surfacing.

[GB SISSON]

Originally Posted by 38 coupe

I'm suspicious that someone shimmed the relief valve spring in the pump you got 75 psi from. You don't need more pressure than the factory 57 +/- setting.
If you have a truly flat surface (in the machinist sense) you can lap the worn bottom plates. Set a piece of wet/dry sand paper on top of the flat surface, add some water, and polish the plate in a figure 8 pattern. The old favorite for a flat surface was a piece of ground plate glass, you had to be careful not to drop anything near it.


The intake and heads are looking nice and clean. Highly recommend using an old head gasket and tin foil (or modeling clay, your pick) to check clearances in the combustion chamber, then surfacing the heads to achieve 0.050 +/- clearance above the pistons. I had a nice looking set of EAB heads to put on dad's engine, one turned out to be warped significantly but cleaned up well with surfacing.

Thanks, and thanks again to Pete. It's amazing what clarity these phone cameras have when taken to a full page. While I have insisted I'm not a hot rodder, I have been advised by far too many experts here to ignore the benefits gained from proper valve head clearance. I'm heading off island on Saturday for the Monroe swap meet and will drop heads off for Les to surface. I should be able to do the foil routine today, maybe even ship the heads and pick them up on Saturday. I'm sure I will have questions, but I will start with searching the subject.
Hoping to get big bore head gaskets and some other parts ordered today. I have found the hydraulic fluid to be a powerful solvent, and after sitting overnight the 75 lb pump is showing 57, which I attribute to gummed up relief valve. I retested the two best with a different bucket with a wood platform inside to hold things steady. The 63 remained so and with the pump stabilized in the bucket it was much easier to view the gauge. With this more controled testing, I found that the one with 57 read at 45 lbs with the valve fully open. That one became my pick.

[cadillac512]

If you have one of those profile checking/transferring tools that is a bunch of hard wires that slide in a flat central sleeve, they are really handy for checking how a piston fits in a cylinder head dome. Rough, but handy reference data. Also, remember that as the heads are milled the dome decreases in diameter and may get close to the pistons around the perimeter depending on how far down the pistons are at TDC.

[GB SISSON]

That's kinda scary, Terry. With the extra compression will I need to run premium gass?

[Bored&Stroked]

You'll not have too much compression - just make sure you have enough piston to head clearance (squish).

You want about .040 to .045 with the gasket in place (above the piston). As long as you have that amount (and hopefully not much more), then your engine will run great.

Flatheads like a tight quench/squish area.

[GB SISSON]

I don't have a profile gauge. Does foil or clay work on pistons? And this test is done with a used head gasket and light torque?

[Bored&Stroked]

Any sort of cheap modeling clay works fine --> just make a couple 1/4" round "snakes" and place two of them on a piston crown (or in the chamber) -- one horizontally and one vertically. Putting a bit of WD40 on the crown and the head helps to make it not stick.

Obviously, you first want to ensure the piston is at TDC.

Use an old head gasket and just cinch the heads down by hand (don't need to torque them down).

Then carefully pull the head and use an XActo knife or razor blade to cut 1/2 of the clay way on each snake. Then, use a mic to measure the thickness. Depending on your brand of piston and head chamber shape, you may find more clearance in the center of the head-chamber than towards the sides.

You need a minimum of .040 over the WHOLE crown of the piston.

On my engines, I make sure I'm at .040 - and if I have to mill the head to get that number, then that is what I'll do. Having a tight quench really helps the performance of any flathead.

Here is an example - Navarro heads and Ross (consistent radius dome) pistons:

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