Just wanted to post a note to say thanks
for the warm welcome, not to mention the info on tires and wheels. Thought I
would also mention an unusual problem solved in the hope that a mistake is
avoided in the future for others.
When my 402 was rebuilt, the intake was
hot tanked and, in preparation for this, the heat shield removed. When the
shield was re-installed, whoever drilled and tapped the rivet holes to accept
screws drilled through on one of the holes. Ordinarily, this is of no
consequence but, when they tried to reinstall the shield, the holes were not
exactly lined up and they put only two of the four screws in. Not even this is
an overly big deal, but as luck would have it, one of the missing screws was
the one that had been drilled through. Engine vacuum when the motor was run
sucked oil up from the crankcase resulting is a whole bunch of oil smoke. It
was a perplexing problem because it only smoked when hot. The natural thought
is cracked ring or valve seals, etc. But my mechanic found it because
cylinders 1 and 7 and 4 and 6 were very wet with oil while the others looked
almost (but not quite) normal. Dual plane manifolds feed "banks" of cylinders
(1,7,4,6 and 2,8,3,5). So there you have it - re-installed the shield by
enlarging the screw holes to mate to the tapped holes, plugged the holes with
a dose of RTV and screws. Engine now runs flawlessly.
Craig
