The Misses got me a light bar for Christmas. its not some super expensive one but its decent quality and its bright as heck. it has adjustable mounts so it fit my brushguard perfectly. i hooked it up with a relay under the hood and a waterproof trailer plug so i can unplug it and remove it easily.
then i had my own personal second Christmas for myself.
all Felpro stuff
one piece oil pan
valve covers
thermostat
water pump
intake manifold
spring for the lower radiator hose
valve cover studs
and whats not in the pics is new radiator hoses, thermostat, ARP intake bolts, and a few other small parts
hood, horns, and light bar out of the way
oil pan and valve covers leaked oil pretty badly. i should have done the oil pan last year when i did the timing chain and gasket but live and learn. i have been wanting to do all this since last year but life and other things get in the way.
i did the oil pan first. which was pretty easily done. the hardest part was getting the trans cooler lines, engine to trans braces, and all the caked oil crud out of the way.
this was after 3 cans of degreaser and 2 rounds of scraping crud and 2 rounds of pressure washing. i felt like an archeologist when i finally uncovered all the intake bolts
found this under the intake. the gaskets had no metal plates in the crossover and the gasket was cooked and i all this crud and baked itself on. so i chiseled it off and shop vacked it out
there was formagasket everywhere. at some point in the past the passenger side valve cover had been removed and reinstalled with a reused cork gasket and formagasket sammich as an attempt to seal.
this valve cover had a plate with a hole welded onto it. the hole is for the breather so im guessing the valve covers didnt come with a factory breather hole which is odd because the other one has a factory pcv baffle/grommet. these are the covers that were on it when i got the truck and i thought maaaaybe it was a crate engine because of the covers but i couldnt be sure.
once i got the intake off i could get to the block ID and scrape all the crud off and found out it IS a 350ci crate engine from some point in the past. and when i got to the oil pan i found it to be a 4 bolt main.
almost there. using my slotted valve adjusting covers. some may disagree with adjusting the valves while the engine is running but thats to be expected.
all back together. i replaced some small things like the heater hose outlet vac lines and hose clamps and cleaned everything up real good. i didnt bother painting anything because its just a daily driver. nothing to show off under the hood.
Not a single leak! and it runs amazingly now that the intake is sealed, valves are adjusted, and the timing is advanced from 8* to 12*.
it actually idles properly and no more driving with 2 feet for the first 10 minutes
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