spark plugs

Engine Assembly

The pieces are painted, so now they all need to get back together.

I started off by grinding the gaskets off of the valve covers so the new ones would work well. This was hard to do. Old cork casket was on there pretty good. Replaced the gaskets and set it back on the block.

I found 4 thermostat housings in my box of “Stuff that make it go Vroom”. Ultimately, went with a chrome one, with o-ring gasket, and replaced the thermostat with a new one my dad had bought as well.

All the wheelies went back on, including the fan. Needed to buy new bolts, as we couldn’t find them.

Purchased new spark plugs and plug wires. Connecting them was easy. Are they in the right order? I guess we’ll find out when we try to turn it on. My cousin manually turned over the engine while I used a screwdriver to help find the position of the 1st piston, and place the first plug wire. However, there are 2 different firing orders for my 302. So we chose one, and hooked up all the rest of the wires. If it doesn’t work when we try turn it on later, we’ll repeat this step with the other firing order.