Encouraging the Heart

Tech Speak begins here.  Spiritual speak begins below.
Another good day working on the motor.  When we started, the engine looked like this:

Bottom view of the engine, with pistons installed... just as we left it last week.

First thing to do was torque the rod bearings, then work on installing the front cover & water pump.

Gluing in the timing cover gasket

Timing cover and front engine mount installed

Tightening the water pump

Next step was installing the oil pump, oil pickup, and oil pan. 

Oil pump bolts on to the outside of the engine... I haven't painted it yet.  Pan is in the background.

Pan and oil pump in place.  There are 22 bolts in that oil pan, each of which must be tightened just a little at a time.

That completes assembly of the bottom of the motor.  We flipped it over to install the heads.

Mr Mechanic installs the valley cover first... since it won't fit after the heads are on.

Heads have been installed and torqued... another elaborate process.  Here you see the push rods in place.

The head bolts had to be oiled, installed, torqued (incrementally and in a prescribed sequence), loosened, and torqued again.  I have to say, it is good to see these things that I have spent so much time and effort preparing finally installed on the engine!  Next, we installed new pushrods, and the refurbished rocker arm assemblies.

Assembly lube is great stuff.  We used it almost everywhere!

Ready for the rocker assemblies.

A quick glance at the shop manual before installing the rockers, and... Uh oh!

 So, how do we know the rocker towers (shaft support brackets) are right side up?  There is no top or bottom marked.  The manual says that having them upside down could damage the engine!!  The difference in height between right side up and upside down is only .020 inch, but that's impossible to check without a depth gauge.  Once side of each tower clearly had lockwasher marks, so we could safely assume that was the top... at least the last time the engine was together.  We installed them in that orientation, with 90%+ confidence that nothing would go wrong.  I since checked on the internet (y-blocksforever.com) and found no mention of anyone ever having an issue.  Here's the motor with the rocker assemblies installed:

Later this evening I finally found the studs that fit into the outer rocker towers, so I could install the valve covers.  The finned aluminum valve covers.  That's what makes this obviously a Thunderbird engine!  They are a Y-Block icon of special significance.

Spiritual speak begins here.
Last week, my Uncle, my sons and I started to tackle the task of polishing the valve covers.  From earlier posts, you have seen what a mess they were.

Gross.  Pathetic.  A grisly shadow of their former glory.  I painted the blue and red on these valve covers when I was 16 and full of hope.  They, like me, have experienced neglect, even disappointment.  I was shocked to see their condition when I got the car last April.

During the engine machining and painting, I just wrapped them in a towel and chose not to think about them.  But, starting to assemble the motor has given me hope.  Perhaps they can be reclaimed, redeemed?  Here's what they looked like before we started working on them:

After many hours sanding with increasingly fine grades of sandpaper, and then many more hours on the buffing wheel, they are actually starting to look good!  Here's #1 Son putting in some time at the buffing wheel. The entire family has become invested in this project.

Here's what they look like tonight... on the engine!

Needless to say, I am thrilled.  No, the engine isn't perfect.  Neither am I.  But it is coming together, with a purpose.  With the valve covers on, it seems like it knows what it is...  It has an insignia, and emblem, marked and proud of it.  It evokes an emotional response, especially in me, it's restorer.

It's been a hard few months for me, with the promise of harder months ahead.  Dad seems to have started that slow decline to his own death, and I have a role to play in that saga.  Yet, I can learn something from this engine.  I can remember my insignia, my emblem, my mark.  I can remember that I was designed to evoke an emotional response in my own restorer.  My redeemer.

Somehow, that makes life much easier to take.