I have a 65 Riv GS with a dual quad setup. The motor was completely rebuilt and driven about 500 miles in 15 years. I decided to see what it would run and made 6, mile passes. Shifted at low RPM. 10 miles down the road after the last pass it spun the #1 rod bearing. I have found no apparent machining or clearance issues after disassembling the engine. --Questions-- Is there an inherent problem with nailhead oil systems? If so is it correctable? Has anyone used TAs nailhead oil pump? Opinions? Does anyone have Napa or Autozone part numbers for rebuild kits for the dual quads? Does anyone have a Dupont or PPG paint code for the Buick Green enamel engine color? Has anyone ever added a temperature gauge sensor in the plug on the drivers side head (rear)? I think if I put one there I could read temperature and still appear original. --Parts need if anyone has them to sell!-- I need two (or a complete set) 401/425 connecting rods, and maybe a 64-66 401/425 crankshaft that will turn .010/.010 (I think my crank would turn .020 on the rods but I havent inspected it closely yet). I need one head bolt (long). For some reason my engine has one oddball head bolt that is shorter than the others. Thanks D7Cook@aol.com
i went with a melling oil pump the auto zone rebuild kit for your carbs should be here http://www.autozone.com/addVehicleI...nitialN,14900183/shopping/vehicleSelected.htm i hope this helps scott ps where are you located
Thanks. I'm in Cincinnati. Luck wasn't on my side because the rod bearing spun 2 days after going to the GS Nats. Chances are all my questions could have been answered there. Have you raced your car at all with the Melling pump?
Be very careful with the headbolts. There are different bolts for A/C & Non-A/C cars. It has to do with the thickness of the brackets. Read this thread. http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=34628&highlight=nailhead+headbolt Carmen Faso I believe has replacement head bolts and many other nailhead parts. 716-693-4090 Rick
there are 5 head bolt types 1. The short ones- all the same 2. Regular length 3. regular length w/ stud 3/4" head 4. regular length +1/4" smaller head for A/C front bolt only 5. regular length +1/2" smaller head for alternator 2 front bolts only I need a #2 - regular length. The machine shop who rebuilt the engine must have lost one and used something from another engine that was close enough to get by. It was used under the valve cover so it was never noticed until I took it apart.
I have been running a melling pump in my car for 10+yrs with no trouble at all. I have had my car at the track a few times and countless nights on the street running hard. I have a crank out of a 64-up that looks reall good, might make it at .002" I also think I have 8 rods, but will have to check to make sure. I am in CT (zip 06033) so shipping might be steep. Let me know if interested. I would like to get $75 for the crank and $50 for the rods but if you take them all I would do a little better. I have been using Edelbrock kits to rebuild most of my carbs, might be easier to find??? Good luck,
D7, 1st. off it would be kinda nice to have a name. We are a friendly group here & it becomes more personal when you can answer someone using there name. With that aside & being said & out of the way let's get on to some of the questions on hand. 1st. & foremost be careful of using the Melling pumps. They are NOT bad. Because they are made of cast iron instead of the original aluminum they tend to be a little bit "Thicker". Just check your crank clearance before installing the pan. 90% of the time there's no problem, but it would be a pain to have to pull the pan after the engine has been installed in the car because it won't turn over. Next, Mike at T/A does a very good job of "Blue Printing" the oil pump for more flow & volume. One of the strong points of a "NailHead" is it's oiling system. A sign of this is that normal oil pressure is 35-40 PSI. They have a dedicated oil galley that comes from the oil pump & goes to the crank before going anywhere else. It's not that unusual to find a "Nail" in an original car with 200K + on it that's still virgin, never taken apart or rebuilt. In the left rear of the head is where I installed my mechanical water temp. gauge. This way I was also able to keep my "Idiot" light. A "Red" light will catch your attention faster than constantly looking at the gauge if your just cruising along. The engine could have been put together too "Tight" when rebuilt. After abusing it for awhile things expanded & got tighter. Were you using oil containing "Zinc"???? Even though it's been 15 years it's only gotten 500 miles put on it so in reality it's not really throughly broke in yet. Kinda soon to be thrashing on it. When I redid my "Nail" back in the early 70's with about 120K on it after measuring the crank & polishing the be Jesus out of it I still had to use .001" oversize bearings to get the clearances I wanted. Today, with over 180K on ere, in the last few years I have taken my Riv. down the 1/4 way more than 100 times since 2000, (97 in '04 alone) doing R & D on my "Rockers". Hope this & some of the other replies answered your questions.
I agree with Tom. The normal break in time for engines of that era was 1000 miles min. During this time the engine was not supposed to be driven over 50 MPH. AT 1000 mi. the oil and filter was changed and then the engine could be driven at normal speeds, unless the temp started coming up. The oil system on the nailhead is good as is. You might use one of the blue printed pumps as added ins.
The original oil pump in my '66 425 was cast iron. I'm pretty sure if you order a pump from TA it will be a Melling pump.
It looks like "special wagon 65" has a crank for me. Thanks Ted. Dual Quad 55. E-mail me or call 513-258-7542 about the rods. I had another source but it looks to be falling through. If you have them, I'll take them. Thanks to everyone else for the good advice. All 8 of the rod bearings were shot. No crush left at all in the bearing shells. Loss of crush is caused by heat. Most obvious is lack of oil, less obvious may be poor machine work. I have not had time to measure the rod bearing bores yet. Mains bearings and pistons were fine. The main bearing oil hole is .180. The feed hole is .320". I may drill out the bearing shell to .250" to increase oil flow some. Has anyone else done this? My crankshaft has an oil groove on the mains. Is this normal? My oil pump is aluminum. I never had a pressure gauge and without that information I'm missing a lot. The pump may be weak or the relief spring weak and unfortunately I'll never know. There was never any lifter or valve train noise indicating a lack of oil in those areas though. As far as break in goes I thought the old recommendations were almost exclusively due to the cast iron rings used at the time. New chrome moly rings provide a much quicker seal and reduced break in period. I come from more of a racing background where you break in the cam for 15 minutes and go racing. IMHO If there's an inherent problem with your assembly that will cause a rod bearing to spin a longer break in period will not correct it. The most frustrating part for me is that I can't nail down (pardon the pun) the exact reason for the rod bearings failure. Thanks again for everyones help so far and in the future.
Doug-you also might have had detonation issues that affected the rod bearings. I, like Tom T, have opened a number of nails that have never been touched-and in good shape. Some of the old Electras come to mind. The owners probably never reved them past 3k! (but sometimes oil changes were not so frequent and these could also be dirty inside) Others-not. In fact, the last two were found about as yours. They were both mid mileage engines with bearings changed way back (shell dates of the late 60s). I don't think any mochining happened (maybe even measurement) probably just fitted new parts. They were in bad shape again as I found them. I think the oils are much better today-I still haven't seen any of those aluminum pumps in my later nails-and yes the mains are grooved on these-good luck
Old fossil opinion; Nails have a good lube system, a little chamfering, de burring ect is all that is needed. On any street driven nail use a good tri clad bearing and stock bottom end clearances. With new rods they will have to be ''streched'' by ''flashing'' breifly up to 5000 rpm. before racing and during the 1000 mi. break in period. Old rods will not need this. This prevents a wear ring in the cyl that ,if the rod is streched later will hammer out the top ring and bust a piston. Cast Iron rings seat the quickest, moly next and chrome longest of all. The bottom end on a nail is heavy duty enough to stand up to 7000 rpm with out damage, the oil pump is sufficent for that rpm. If, if, if, one first decks the block parrallel to the center line of the crank, then bores the cyl. at 90 deg. to the center line of the crank and then balances the rotating assembly, one might get away with not breaking in the engine before racing it. However, most do not do this. Therefore, buick engineering said to break in the engine for 1000 miles before driving at high speeds. I agree that if a engine is not built right it wont hold up. like Jim Bell [Kennedy-Bell] told me , ''If an engine is right , 2 main bolts will hold it, if it is not right 4 bolts wont hold it''. Nails usually fail because of excess heat caused by a burst coolant hose, or a factory cast piston finally caved in or both. Bottom end failure on a nail,- look at assembly or lube oil failure or not enough break in time.
I measured everything and all the machining and clearances were correct. The rod bores were .0002 over max spec that shouldn't affect it to the degree it failed. The oil pump appeared to be in good condition with less scoring than I'm used to seeing on aluminum 455 pumps. There is no sign of detonation on the top of the pistons. I'm left with assuming that either an incorrect start up or some other event caused a lack of lubrication in the bottom end before I got the car and my 6 passes at BG finished it off.
The main bearings didn't look very good (crank was scored) but showed no sign of overheating and there was plenty of "squash" left in the bearing shells. The cam bearings look like normal wear and the cam jounals are perfectly fine. The only thing I have left to do is take off the oil filter adapter and make sure there are no blockages in the main gallerys but I think it's pretty unlikely I'll find anything.
i was at BG this yr. Was that You in the beautifull Maroon Riv.??? Nice. You said that some thing might have been done wrong ''before you got the car'. did you just buy it?? You may be on to something, because if that was you that I was watching at BG, You were not hacking the car at all. good driving skills. I bought a 70 GS stage 1 once and after the sale,I was having coffee with the guy I bought it from, and in the conversation , mentioned the engine oil. He said, ''Oh, I used the best 10 w. that money can buy '' Now in Houston Tx. in a A/C car you dont run 10w oil. not even in winter. Shure nuff, the first time I took it to the strip it spun a main.
Yes that was me. Around 1990 a friend of mines' dad retired and wanted something to restore. We found him that car and my friends dad and his friend restored it. My friends and I helped out off on on during the restoration with various things. After only driving it about 400-500 miles he decided to sell it in 2005. My brother and I jumped on it. I spent about 2 months getting everything adjusted right. It had a lot of problems from sitting. The brakes hydraulic system was totally ate up, the brake booster had failed, the carbs had dryed up, etc, etc. This year's BG was it's first real trip out. Like I have said (and you confirmed) I wasn't being real hard the car at all. It's best ET was 15.87 and I manually upshifted at a fairly low rpm. Obviously I was pretty bummed when the rods started squealing!
