newbie with engine rebuild need advise

[chatham]

to make a long story short I purchased a 1973 cj5 and it is totally in pieces. I mean totally in pieces. everything is apart which is a good thing for a total restoration . seems the guy could never get around to putting it back together, sat under a tarp for over 2 years. paid $1200 which is a good thing, right? now for a great thing, I think . it came with a 304 motor which has been rebuilt, to a point. I have a short block which has been machined and assembled with crank, pistons and cam. I believe it is 40 over as this is stamped on the top of the pistons. this looks great nice and clean. I also have the stock heads which have been redone as well. so for $1200 looks like I did good, huh .

I have no experience with a amc motor but I assume it basically like most motors. so below are my questions, concerns, comments or whatever.

1. I have purchased a new intake a edelbrock performer. I have no idea what cam is in this motor perhaps its original spec. any way I can check? do you suggest a different cam. the jeep will primarily be a street vehicle with side trips up some trails but no heavy rock crawling.

2. the push rods and rocker arms are in a box that has gotten wet. the push rods are really rusted and I assume trash. i'm sure I need new ones. the rockers have a little surface rust but might be reusable once cleaned up. can I clean them and use them? best way to remove rust from them, blast? what are you thoughts on tip roller rockers?

3. I found the distributor in a plastic bin in 2" of water along with other things like the alternator and other various parts and brackets which are rusted to no end. my blast beater will be busy. I need to replace the distributor and was thinking of going with this http://www.ebay.com/itm/370692689100...84.m1438.l2649 any comments on that? are there any other ignition modifications I should make or consider?

4. I have read about making a valley oil mod for the far bearings. should I consider this?

5. what am I missing?

thank you in advance for comments and suggestions.

Bill

[tufcj]

Welcome to Bulltear!

If you're unsure about the cam, it's much easier to change it now. I had great luck and liked the Edelbrock performer 2132 cam, and it would be matched to you manifold. Keep the carb small, 600 CFM or less with vacuum secondaries. Push rods and rockers can be bead blasted as long as they're not pitted. Pits leave sharp edges that invite stress cracks down the road. If the rockers are bridged like a Ford, you can't install anything except Harland-Sharp rockers without extra machine work on the heads. If they are individual Chevy style rockers, then you can get rollers (but not Chevy, the geometry is wrong) and bolt them on using Chevy studs. If you want to post up a casting number, we can tell better.

Be very careful with the aftermarket HEI. The gear isn't always compatible with the stock AMC cam gear, and the shaft may not be the right size to install a factory AMC gear. Think about spending a little more here for the HEI that Bulltear sells.

The valley mod is mostly for extended high RPM engines. The factory engines ran 100K + miles without the mod, your rebuild will too. The last engine I built, I did without the valley line, I just used the Bulltear cam bearings with smaller oil holes. About 5000 miles and it's doing well so far.

Good luck with your build. Don't hesitate to ask more questions.

Bob
tufcj

[chatham]

Bob

thank you for the comments. i'll inspect the push rods closely but I think i'll just replace them. the head casting is 3216086. I have a box full of bridges. wasn't sure what they were never saw them before until I did some research and came across a posting with a picture. looks like they are aluminum and pretty good shape even though they were in the same box as the rockers and push rods. will definitely need new bolts for them and head bolts. head bolts aren't to bad but I'm missing one.

i'll consider the cam switch now and take a look at your HEI. I have read about the gear swap and other possible issues. took me some time to find a power steering bracket that wasn't worth its weight in gold but I found one.

[smanley820]

Take some time to read through all of the information you can find about the AMC motors on this site and the Jeepforum.com. I have done a lot of research over the last couple years since I decided to build my 401. This is just my opinion but it seems to me that all the issues seem to come with the timing cover/oil pump areas of the motor. Proper and or matched gearing with the distributor and cam gears seems to be essential. Oil pressure issues with the proper cover/oil pump gears can be set up properly with proper parts (see Bulltear parts). My opinion is that everything revolves around that timing cover.