Spent the last little bit cleaning things up and getting the head gaskets scraped up and parts ready to be painted, brackets etc. The headers I ordered are due in on Monday and I'm thinking of waiting to get the headers in the engine bay before I reinstall the heads for the extra clearance. . Any thoughts ?
My son got all the brackets/accessories all cleaned and painted up. Headers are due in today, so we can begin putting it back together. Can't wait to hear it run !
You are both making great progress! A couple of those pictures remind me of a younger version of myself back in the day, working on Mavericks and Comets with my Dad! Keep up the good work!!
Got the heads back on and torqued down, got the cam, lifters, pushrods and rockers in last night. Hoping tonight we can get the rest of the engine buttoned up.
I was hoping to get the motor all buttoned up last night, but a "slight issue" with getting the timing cover crank seal in to the cover was an epic fail. New seal enroute We got the timing chain installed and dialed in, then moved onto getting the headers in. As I'm sure many have experienced, clearance is a little tight. Had to "massage" a couple spots with a hammer to get the passenger side in, but after multiple attempts to get the proper clearance, we got that side in and buttoned up.
This weekend, we spent some time getting it all buttoned up and ready to fire off. Got the valve covers painted and polished, got the drivers side header in which was a pain to say the least!!! Got it all ready but the superbowl was starting so we opted to wait. So, I'm going home at noon to see if she will light off Need to re-route the plug wires and do some other small finishing touches to make it look Purdy.
My dad and I are pretty much doing the same thing as you guys. I've got a 1974 maverick. Swapping out the straight 6 for a 302 from my other 72 Maverick. Pulled the Motor last night, just waiting on the B&M starshifter. what headers did you go with? you guys are moving fast good luck
Thanks Jonathan. Project is moving along. Need to get the shifter installed so we can hot lap it. We went with the Hooker 6901 headers per the research I found here. They are a tight fit and took a little persuading to get them in. We spent $30 and got a good set of Felpro header gaskets cause we didn't want any leaks!!! Money well spent cause I only want to do it once
I'm surprised you had trouble with the hooker 6901s. Mine went in from the bottom without a hitch. You might want to consider replacing that points distributor with an electronic system.
When I was doing my research on the headers, some had problems and some said they just fit right in. I had a couple tubes that were touching the shock towers on both sides so we had to pound a little relief into them. On the drivers side, the end of the header where the collector bolts up was tight up against the frame rail. Tight enough we could barely get the power steering drop-down bracket in.
The P/S dropdown bracket was somewhat of an issue for me. That was just another reason I dumped the P/S.
Here's a link of the first start-up after breaking in the cam. Needed some timing adjustments and some carb tuning at the time and has since been done. Open headers RULE
