Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

Yeah,..after that last update I looked at engine prelubers. It’s basically a empty Freon or propane tank ( or in my case,) an unused air pressure tank. I’ll simply cut a hole in one end that I can weld a gasketed filler cap on top, an drill a hole and weld a-10 fitting on the bottom with a ball type shut off valve before that. It is already threaded so that I can put a female air fitting on.
then,....fill that bitch with a gallon of 5/30, hook the hose to the inlet of my oil fitting and give it hell.

As a footnote to the HF Bauer drill failure, turns out that the battery doesn't drain and die like I'm used too on my old Nicad style drills. Usually, ill take a battery to full dead the first usage so that the battery won't take on a short charge cycle for the future.
Evidently, a Bauer drill with its Li-ion battery just sort of strokes out and intermittently stops when the battery is near dead.
Once recharged however, it appears to work normally.
Ill have to change my thinking about battery life with this drill.

One more thing that keeps me up at night...

Anybody ever just put an air hose nozzle up against the oil filter outlet ( engine inlet) and pull the trigger to see if the oil pressure gauge will record air pressure?

I did.

It won’t. You can hear air escaping past the rear main seal....

I’m hoping that all of that changes when it gets oil in it and the differences in the clearance between air and oil changes in what will, and won’t blow by when I pressurize the oil system.

Well,...that goofy assed looking thing is made. I gotta rinse the thing out with thinner to make sure that there will be no small crap floating around in the oil that I’m going to force into the engine.
I’ve been dicking around with the intake cam for three days now. I put what shims I had in, torqued the cam down and measured the clearance. Removed the cam, removed the shims, measured the shims and subtracted or added to that to get the target clearance of .006”
Then I went and ordered the shims that should’ve been the answer to this math problem...they come in thicknesses that are approximately .002” larger or smaller depending on which way you need to go.

I did that last Wednesday. Thursday I order them, they’re in Friday.....I install the shims, bolt down the cam, measure the clearance......sht still ain’t right.
On Monday,...I order 4 more shims. They come in today. I go home for lunch, remove the cam, swap out the shims, bolt the cam back down, and measure the clearance....still.......sht ain’t right.
Now it’s down to one valve...it measures at .009 with the shim that measures .116” thick. Simple math should conclude that if I want .007 valve clearance, I need a shim that’s .118” thick...

So that’s what I ordered......... again. One shim that measures .300 millimeters.....or,....in America.... .118”
That thing will be here tomorrow, and I’ll go about the process again. If it brings the clearance into line like it should, every intake valve will be w/I .001” of each other.
Despite the fact that that piece of sht machinist ground the valves off by as far as .009-.010..
That woulda been one noisy, ticking sonofabitch.

Can I say it?

Can I?

Can I please say it??

FINALLY!!


Thank you...I feel better now.