Made quite a bit of a magnesium mess tonight.
Case Plug Removal
I’m getting to be quite good and removing the original case plugs.
However, I don’t know if it is because of 45 years and countless miles on them, but the gallery plugs on the AH and AR engines came out a whole lot easier than the ones on this 0 mile new case.
I used the same methods I’ve done before and have written about, drilling into each plug, then inserting a screw deep enough that I could force them out with a slide hammer locked onto the screw head.
Most of them came out very cleanly without and substantial nicks or damage to the surrounding metal bore.
I’d say these came out the best out of the cases I’ve prepped.
I don’t know why, but the small one on the small on on the lifter passage on the 1-2 side was the biggest pain in the ass to remove. It just did not want to come out easily. There I am, with the case on the floor, holding it between my feet, vertically pulling hard on the slide hammer for what felt like minutes. It finally freed.
Above is the pulled original plugs and the NPT aluminum plugs that will replace them. You can tell by the larger size alone that the first 3 get drilled out more. Hell, that top 3/8″ NPT plug is massive compared to the original one that was removed. The next 1/4″ NPT one is also substantially larger than the original bore.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m leaving the small 1/16″ one in the front. I see no reason to pull and tap that once at this time.
Some Other Case Mods
I pulled out the Dremel and some titanium burr tips and went to work on various mods.
I opened up some of the oil flow areas as well as those areas that allow air pressure to equalize through both sides and front and back of the case.
The cam grooves on both sides were opened up as per the HVX mod instructions.
#3 cam saddle (above) is where the scariest drilling takes place. You’ll note there’s not real passage in the small bore area. It just dead ends. This is where a new key oil passage is made but is also the one that can cause you to have to throw the case away.
I started sanding down some of the case mold remnants. They are really bad in some areas, especially in a few flywheel areas of the exterior.
Tomorrow I’ll shift to my sanding attachments on the electric drill and try to smooth and polish some of that down.
The magnesium alloy case is so soft that it is very easy to remove material. However, it really does make a hell of a mess. Thankfully, they aren’t sharp like when removing material off the connecting rods for balancing.