1985 Monte Carlo SS known as Barney

[WSSix]

Thanks Lance. Yeah, the street twin clutch has always been expensive and heavy. It was the best at holding the power back in the day though.

Luk is the company that produces the pp. You might be able to find a stamping on the pp from Luk. Factory replacement units are also supposedly LT4 equivalent designs. Let me know how it drives once you get it on the road.

[Centerforce]

Making good progress! Sorry to hear the bread didnt work out for you

[SSLance]

Well, Barney moved under it's own power yesterday...twice actually... I made two ten mile easy drives just to shake it down and all systems are go, except for a somewhat nasty header leak that made it sound like a connecting rod was trying to fight it's way out of the engine.

Naturally this ruined the mood for me and I went dark for most of the weekend while I chased the problem...which I found today. Because I am running smallish oval port headers on raised D-port exhaust port heads, apparently there is very little margin for error in gasket placement. The gasket has about a 1/4" of wiggle room on the bolts where it moves around and if it is at any extreme edge of that movement, there is very little gasket material coverage of the flange. Here you can see where the gasket was stuck to the header flange and near the top you can where it blew thru as the heads heated up.



This was the other header where you can tell that the gasket was centered and there was no leaks on this side.



Once I had the new gaskets in hand, I discovered that the very same thing could happen to it if I didn't get the gasket set perfectly in place. I was standing there scratching my head, making marks on the gasket trying to figure out how I was going to line it up perfectly once the header was on the head...and Terri walked up and said, "why don't you just glue the gasket to the header?" So I did just that.



I'm letting the RTV set up now and next time I have a couple of free hours, I'll get the headers back on the car and continue on with a start up and tuning of the new mill. The new clutch feels great, no fluid leaks so far, no strange vibrations or running issues, everything else seems pretty good. Just need to do some tuning on it once I can hear if there is any detonation, which was impossible before over the header leak.

[Vegas69]

I wouldn't glue them around the ports. I know they make a high temp rtv, is that what you used?

[SSLance]

I didn't have the High temp RTV on hand so I just used a few dabs of grey RTV on the parts between the ports. I did not put any too close to any of the ports.

I just need it to hold the gasket in place until the bolts are snugged up. I'm sure the RTV will cook out after a few heat cycles but at this point if that is the worst of the evils I'm dealing with, I'm okay with it.

[WSSix]

Congrats, Lance! Glad to hear the car moved again under its own power.

[SSLance]

Thanks Trey, it was bitter sweet...wish the result would have been better so I could have enjoyed the fantastic weather in it this weekend. I'll get er all fixed up quickly though then let the tuning and breaking in commence.