I got a little bit done today but I was not feeling it. (Frankly, I’m not feeling much of anything these days.)
I put a couple of coats of paint and a satin top coat on the lower shields. This should at least prevent them from corroding prematurely.
One thing that has pissed me off was with that expensive but nice looking carb linkage I got. The damn pieces already had corrosion starting on them and they were only out of the shrink=wrapped packaging and exposed to the air for a few days. I quickly sanded them down and decided to throw a coat of the “cast iron” paint on them that I used on the upper tins.
And speaking of the tins…
I pulled the fan shroud off again in the hopes I could readjust things but things still don’t fit all that well, especially on the 1/2 side.
My biggest regret is not realizing how bad this would all fit and painting it before I had time to play with it all. I probably could have spent 8 or 9 hours just slowly putting tins on and off the long block, cutting here, crimping there, and so forth to get all of this to work better and then sanded and painted it all.
I don’t want to leave it like this but I really don’t know what else I can do to improve this.
I pulled the valve covers off and removed the rocker arms to get the lash caps off the valves and 2 of the shims on each bolt from the prior setup.
However, everything seems extremely tight now.
I didn’t adjust the valves again but I may need to add the shims back.