'54 322 Blow-by

J

james92

Member
Hi folks,

So I got some concerns about my old nailhead.
It has some serious blow-by issues from all openings: breather, valve cover bolts, dipstick,...you name it and it blows. :/
It doesn't burn any oil, but manages to lose about 1qt every 200-ish miles.
So my guess is it's time for a rebuild. It has 96000+ miles on the odometer but my guess would be more 196000+...

The plan for now is to pull one of the heads and see how bad the wear is and go from there.

Now since I am in Belgium parts are not that readily available, so I want to get everything right from the first time.
Is there anything special to consider for a basic rebuild? I would guess: new rings, new gaskets, leave the crank in place,...
(from googling I would think centerville-auto is a good place to order everything?)
How badly will a '54 nailhead usually be worn out after such mileage?
If the block has to be bored will I need new pistons for sure?

It already has a new cam, lifters, pushrod, and rockers.

I think I might be too optimistic on how this is going to go, so any and all opinions, suggestion, ideas,... are welcome!



Grtz from Belgium,
James
:shield:
 
Blow by

James,


Sounds like you you have a pressure problem .
Back in the 70s someone came up with an idea to remove smog from our cities. It entailed adding about a 5 dollar part called the PCV valve,!!!!
I can help you. The first thing I would do is remove the smog tube from the back of your engine and install a PCV valve with a vacuum line to your engine.

This should save you a lot of headaches, especially since you are talking about removing heads!
 
50s car with 100,000 miles are almost certainly worn out. I would expect you will want to purchase new pistons. I would also rebearing the crank and change the cam bearings.
 
Interceptor 55 said:
James,


Sounds like you you have a pressure problem .
Back in the 70s someone came up with an idea to remove smog from our cities. It entailed adding about a 5 dollar part called the PCV valve,!!!!
I can help you. The first thing I would do is remove the smog tube from the back of your engine and install a PCV valve with a vacuum line to your engine.

This should save you a lot of headaches, especially since you are talking about removing heads!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight, I've been reading on PCV-systems for a bit and think it's worth a try before I do anything else.

So basically I should run the vent tube that goes to the underside of the car through a PCV-valve and send it through the engine controlling it with vacuum...2 questions:
1. Does it matter where I run the vacuum line from?
2. Do I need to put a different cap on the filler up front?



Thanx,
James
:shield:
 
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