Fixing The Brakes

The right front brake had been dragging after I swapped in new pads. This would have to be fixed before driving the car again so I got to work. I unbolted the caliper and took the hose off. With the parts on the table I disassembled the caliper to see what was wrong. This became apparent when pulling out the pistons. Two of them came out quite easily but two were badly stuck. I could not get them out myself but my friend welded a pipe to them and used it to twist them out.

Someone had used force to get them out before and there were large dents in the pistons. I decided to replace all four and naturally install new seals too. When the parts arrived, I also cleaned and painted the caliper.

I placed the new lip seals in the caliper bores and pushed the pistons in. I lubricated them a bit but still one of them was pretty tight. I could not find anything wrong so I pushed a bit harder. I really hope it will not be stuck again when using the brakes later... With the caliper assembled, I installed it back to the car.

I hope I'll be driving my Mustang quite a lot during summers so I also decided to upgrade the master cylinder to dual bowl model. With the original single bowl, if one of the hoses fails or one seal starts to leak, I could lose all brakes from the car. The dual bowl cylinder has separate fluid reservoirs for the front and rear so at least one should always work.

This is a really common upgrade so I could just order a new ready made pipe kit and cylinder for my car. Auto Resto Mod has also made a good video of the swap so I followed their instructions.

Installing the cylinder was simple but the pipes weren't even close. I guess they might have installed the parts in different places at the factory so I just bent the pipes until the ends were correct. Then I screwed everything in and hopefully I will have good brakes in the future. I still have to bleed them later though...

Engine Assembly: Cylinder Heads

It was time to assemble and install my cylinder heads. I gave them a final clean and got to work. I spread some assembly lube on the valve stems and pushed them in the guides. Then I dug out my spring compressor and installed the retainer and spring. Unfortunately I also found another problem later. The new springs were larger than the old so the original retainers could not be used. I had to take the springs out again and buy larger retainers. After assembling the heads a few times already, it was getting to be a routine...

I also installed new valve seals but used the original rocker arms and nuts. I thought about getting new roller rockers but those are usually so large that the original valve covers can't be used. As I was trying to keep the stock look, I settled for the standard parts.

Before installing the rocker arms, I cleaned them and lightly sanded the tips. Mostly just to get the crud off. Otherwise they seemed to be in good condition.

Then it was time to coat all contact areas with assembly lube and drop the rockers on their studs. Repeat that 16 times and I had two heads ready for installation.

My gasket set included Fel-Pro 1011-2 head gaskets. Their instructions mention that they should be installed as is without painting or doing any other modifications so I just dropped them on my block.

Both gaskets have "FRONT" stamped on one edge so I made sure to position them the correct way.

And then it was time to install the heads. I carefully positioned them on the block until the two dowel pins contacted and steered them down. I gave a light coating of oil for the bolts and screwed them in. To correctly torque them, I followed Monroes book. They must be tightened in correct order and in three steps. Steps are 50 ft-lbs, 60 ft-lbs and finally 70 ft-lbs for the 289 engine. And with that my heads were installed.

Block Party

It took a bit longer than expected but I got the block back from the machinist yesterday. I drove to Koneistamo Aaltonen in Mäntsälä and we went through the work that had been done. They had bored and honed the cylinders, cleaned the block, replaced the cam bearings, checked the head surfaces for straightness and checked the crank line for straightness. In addition to the work with the block, they inspected the connecting rods and replaced the pistons.

I also brought my new Comp Cams XE250H camshaft with me so they could check that it fit correctly. The cam was installed in the block but rotating it was harder than expected. The cam was inspected and found to be a few hundredths twisted. They straightened it and got it turning properly.

After getting all the parts to the garage, I checked the basic stuff. The block itself looked fine and just needed some paint.

The piston rings that I had bought were molybdenum faced and the cylinders had been honed appropriately. With moly rings the honing stone must be much finer as they do not need the coarse walls to hold the oil. Everything was good in that front.

Then I made sure that all the cam bearings had been installed correctly. Their surface was nice and you could see their oil hole through the main bearing channel.

Next came the pistons. I measured their weight and visually inspected all of them. I did notice that the wrist pin clips had not been installed. I'll have to make sure they are needed and then squeeze them in.

My crank had already been machined earlier. All the bearing surfaces seemed perfect. I'll just have to measure the clearances later.

After these basic checks I can start planning the actual assembly.