Dino - Hoodless!

[Jason Edge]

I have been replacing underhood items on my 64 Cadillac Coupe de Ville 'Dino' with freshly Cadmium plated parts and need to replace the hood hinges so I had my brother Randy come help take it off and put in our Parlor (no where else to put it righ now). I'll replace the hood hinges but also take advantage of the easy engine access and replace lifters and push rods and freshen up the engine and engine bay a bit. Here are some of the topless pics of Dino outside.

[Kim K Kaiser]

How many miles hv you been since your 12 rebuild?  Why would you be replacing rods and such.  Are you simply doing an upgrade to them or is this something I may be looking forward to as well after rebuild?  Or is it life w old engine?

[Jason Edge]

Kim, I have had a dead valve lifter on the right side near rear and need to replace the lifter. Instead of replacing just the one I am replacing all lifters and push rods. I have put 3000 to 4000K miles on the car, almost all before the lifter tick started in May 2019 (engine rebuilt May 2012). I've had too many projects to tackle this rather easy fix (hoping it doe the fix) and have limited the car to short drives.  As most of you that know me, know I generally never get in any hurry. I took 3  months to rebuild the engine block, (cylinder heads had been rebuilt way back).  With the hood off I will be pressed to start this dismantle process and while I have the top popped off will go back thru the clean up and repaint process to get it looking spic&span again! I would like to think I would have the engine ready by summer, but also have a new dining room & pantry addition started with my 1912 house.  As they say "Life is a journey, not a destination”.

[0jwg4vjmjoeif]

There was a reason dean martin was never shirtless. For gods sake dino, either turn off the lights or put some clothes on. And come back to bed.

[Jason Edge]

I'm afraid Dino will remain shirtless for some time.. probably several months. In fact the hood is now in our Parlor! I really didn't have any place to put it where there is almost no chance I might run into it other than that room.  With the hood off in the garage, there will definitely be more incentive to fix some things... to mention replace all the bolts with the new Cad stuff.  Today the hood hinges came off and are in the bin of large stuff to Cad Plate. These were nice tight hinges, and when I scroll up my Wait List when I get them back someone is going to get some really nice hood hinges!

[William R Conte]

Jason, you are probably already aware of this, but just in case.... make sure you use oil with a good amount of  ZDDP content with those new lifters. Don't take chances with that cam! Double check with someone if they need a run in or not. That might apply just to the cam, which of course you did back in '12, but I'm not positive or not if just liter replacement needs that.

My machinist gave me 5 qts of Lucas break in oil for me to use in mine for first run, but then, my whole engine was just rebuilt ground up. It can't hurt to be careful.

[Jason Edge]

My 64 has not tasted any oil other than the Valvoline VR1 high zinc/ZDDP content oil since I bought it in 1996. I'm just not a fan of chunking additives in oil, and would rather just pay an extra couple of bucks and run oil with higher levels of ZDDP already in ot.

With that said, I will add 2 things I believe true:

1) Too much ZDDP becomes corrosive. From memory it is over 2000 ppm. So dump too  much additive in your oil and it can be more harmful or helpful. So if you are using additives don't just dump a bunch of ZDDP additive to your engine oil and hope for the best. The VR1 oil has about 1200 ppm as I recall which is a good amount for older engines.

2) Unless you are constantly driving your car hard, I mean very hard, high rpm high miles the current oil with the reduced ZDDP levels is probalby not going to hurt a thing... but I am like as much preventative maintenance as the next person and feel the VR1 as right for me. I don't have to worry about too little or too much ZDDP.  Just run as you do any other oil.

[William R Conte]

Thanks for the tip on that oil! I'll try that oil when the break in period is up. I agree that if you already have oil with ZDDP, then additive should not be added. It's only the last year or two that I became aware of the ZDDP issue.

Next time I see the machinist I am going to ask him about run-in for lifters only, with an already run-in cam. I suspect that it is not necessary to run them in, but it will be good to know for sure, for future reference.

Roller cams are supposed to be nearly immune to flat tappet wear issues, but my danged 01 Corvette with 72K on the clock wiped the cam last year due to a roller lifter. Roller spun nice, but we think it wasn't hardened properly. The surface of it was nasty, and wore a nice deep track in the cam lobe. Misfire at idle was how it presented.

BTW, that plated hardware looks mighty fine in there!