OldIHC

Wow, that is a bit of haul. Well who knows what could happen between now n’ then.

I used a the same trailer when I retired the old truck to Idaho , from another state,
Unloaded it a three times along the way for short jaunts along the
snake river on the way,, Best time I ever had out fishing...
U-haul U-fish and I did

The truck has been sitting idle mostly since last winter. The exhaust valves were sinking in the head faster than the titanic and bed floor was looking more and more like Swiss cheese.

I finally removed the cylinder head a few weeks ago and took
It to my machinist. The head surface was warped .006”. That explains why all 6 cylinders were showing signs of leaking. I measured the block and see between .0015”-.002” down the center of the block. Seems a bit like a troth with the edges being high. We’re going to try a fresh gasket and hylomar and hope it seals up. If not I’ll pull the engine and get the block skimmed too.

Anyway… the shop decked the head and skimmed the manifold side as well. The engine burned an exhaust valve- didn’t say which one, but there is one in the box this is sorta D shaped now. New valves don’t seem to exist for this head so he found some from an IH tractor (maybe a 508?) that had a suitable installed height and modern style keeper. There was a valve spring that was showing 40lbs at installed height- should be 85ish… wasn’t having any luck finding springs either so he installed some from a DT466. Retainers came from the same to get the valves to rotate again as the new springs wouldn’t jive with the old retainers to make the valves spin. No need for lash caps now.

I picked the head up from the machine shop this past Friday. While I was out I stopped by my favorite U-pull-it yard. I found a 1985 Chevy half ton to liberate the Saginaw 800 series (might be an 808- haven’t measured the end cap yet) steering box from and a 2004 Yukon from which I took the hydro booster, P/S pump, master cylinder and steering shaft. I also nabbed a few random steering intermediate shafts along the way back to the office.

Back story- when I was sorting the truck initially in 13-14 I “rebuilt” the steering box as best I could with what I could find. Basically just seals and sector shaft bushings from a jeep. The sector shaft is worn, the pins are worn, and the worm is unevenly worn too… I tired of the 2”s of slop in the steering wheel driving down the road. There are too many problems with this original box for me to want to try to fix it completely. It’s currently out of the truck and I’m making plans for a collapsible section steering shaft and a Saginaw box. I chose the box from the Chevy as it has 4 mounting bosses in the same horizontal plane as the sector shaft. I was thinking since I’m still tied to the original straight front axle I would do well to keep the pitman arm a straight drop down the side of the frame rail.

The devil right now is that the frame rail and the diagonal brace that supports the front engine mount aren’t flat… it’s quite annoying to look at all of the elevation changes wishing I could just lay a flat piece of 6ga plate over it and have it “bolt on”. I haven’t figured my design yet, but rest assured I will pass on the details when I do.

Oh well, enough ramblings… ‘til next time

Sounds like fun to me! Thanks for the update!

Cylinder head is back from the machine shop. I cleaned the deck and bolt holes. Coated the Murphy’s Motor Service 759S head gasket (Thanks To Kevin on here for that beauty) with Hylomar and torqued the head bolts in 3 stages to 90ft lbs.

The head looks good Jake. Be safe.

Nice progress on your truck!
Nothing like a good head job...

Keep on truckin and be safe - sm

Here’s hoping I’ve been good enough this year. My lump of coal would be having to pull the engine again to skim the block.

Merry Christmas all!

Jake, not sure I'm reading this rite, are you going to get the block decked or skimmed?
Also I missed your push pull power steering conversion. Cool. I used a different box, pretty much the same.
You and everyone here have a good Christmas.