Putting it all together

Or, at least the pieces I can find.

So, I didn't get a lot done over the holidays. Now, I have three days off and that means truck work! Except for this cold we all came down with. That says get in bed and stay there.

Nope. 

Oh yeah,don't forget the book.

Now, let's put some pieces back on. 

The sequence for torquing down the head bolts.

 Armed with the sequence, I took the 17mm socket off of the regular ratchet and put it on the small torque wrench for the first step. The directions call for three equal steps to reach 125 ft/lbs. First step was to 42.  Life, the Universe, and Everything. I lubed up everything with the supplied pooky and went after it.

Don't be stingy with the pooky, they provided plenty.

All cleaned up and pretty.  Let's TORQUE SOME NUTS!

 Step one went fine.

Step two, 85 ft/lbs or so, worked too. 

But, when I started on round three, a problem appeared.

First bolt, around the second turn, the wrench slipped off.

That isn't good.  Not at all. The nut seemed to be fine. The socket showed a little damage.  Maybe I had it crooked.  

Nope.  Second pass at it went the same.  

Maybe it's the nut. I decided to try the number one nut on the other side. Same result. 

Shit.

Maybe it isn't the same 17mm 12 point socket.  Maybe these bolts are different.  Let's see if a 16mm fits on there better. There was a little play in it, after all.

Notice anything missing?

 Crap.  Another run to the store for a new 16mm 12 point socket. That's nearly an hour round trip. 

But hey, had to happen.

That's better.  And no guilt over Harbor Freight tools this time.

Worked like it was meant too.  Add that little nugget to my knowledge base. The ARP stud nuts are 16 mm. 

Step three torqued fine.  Then it was off to chop some firewood.  It's cold and our house has many drafts. What kind of jerk put the walls up on this place?

Today I went out and installed more stuff.

Like push rods. Fresh oil on both ends and inserted.

Forgot to put up a picture of my head bolt hole blower.  Here ya go.

 Then I put on the rocker arm assembly.  I went to look at the torque values on the sheet I printed, I don't have reception down at the garage, and it said some number in in/lbs.  Well, my wrench is only in ft/lbs. How do I convert that? 

I don't.  I go home and look it up.  And, when I got home, there was hot coffee waiting and my lovely wife and son were reading the book I wrote. 

My head cold is making me feel all weird and fuzzy headed.  I think I'll get back at it tomorrow. 

I left it like this for the night.