You never know what kind of life an estate engine led. Singled this estate Fox 35 out of my junk pile because of the stuffer head and backplate. It was as black as the prop and cleaned up nicely with a crock pot and LA's Totally Awesome but some odd things were going on. A 1/16 hole was drilled through the venturi sides and the head was drilled and tapped for 6/32 head bolts. Then, it took two hands to pull it through TDC.
I took it on as a challenge. Stripped down, nothing was bent or worn, the shaft turned freely. The binding was between the piston and cylinder. It wasn't distorted, there was a perfectly shiny ring around the piston, but not where it was supposed to be, it was 1/3 down from the top of the piston. It would run on a prime but would stop bound up, so I decided to lap it.
The only material I had that resembled lapping compound, besides toothpaste, was Brasso. Assuming a coarse grit I gave it a 10-15 sec lap on the drill press by chucking the shaft and more hand lapping by turning the prop for about 10-12 strokes. The venturi holes were plugged with toothpicks and cyano.
Just pure luck, but I now have a stuffer/Fox 35 that starts on a couple of flips and the best part, will permanently hold compression. I'll run it a bit more and debut it at the Fly-A-Thon.
But why bung up the hemi head for 6/32 head bolts, a poor man's helicoil job? Why the holes in the venturi walls, to effectively increase the diameter?
Ara