H-I-J '76 Nova re-fit.

[HP HUNTER]

Originally Posted by Nmbr1GMfan

Checked some stuff and pulled everything apart today. I honestly have more questions than answers at this point with some of the weird stocker stuff but oh well. The reason for the tear down was low oil pressure, well the two rear main bearings were the culprits as you will see. The reason? Well I'm guessing it was the valve springs, or more so how they were set up, a stack of shims and no locator, the damper (with no locator) was bashing the shims and sending metal through the engine. I'm guessing some got through the filter. Also has the wrong retainers for the springs. Springs were pretty soft but hell maybe they are setup this way to loft the valve open or something with this square cam. One thing I didn't count on were the janky cylinders in the block, almost look rusted near the top of a few of them, we'll clean them up as good as we can... we gotta race.

I like to use a L31 Vortec retainer, with a -.050 tool steel keepers, and an Engine pro 1.250 cup locator with that set up. Light weight, simple and cheap, and it won't make metal, deburr the damper and spring ends.