Project Nailhead Log

DEERSLAYER LINKS including vendor sites for parts and tools as well as sites for old truck and hot rod organizations

TINKERING WITH DEERSLAYER chronicles the day-by-day maintenance and improvements episodes for Deerslayer, a '37 Chevy farm truck hot rod.

CRUISIN' WITH DEERSLAYER Roadtrips, cruise-in's and truck show stories and tall tales.

TONY'S DUNGEON Tony Pascarella's forum entries at OldGMCtrucks.com regarding Deerslayer, particularly the 302 GMC engine build in his farmhouse basement.

DEERSLAYER MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for Deerslayer, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PROJECT NAILHEAD Chronicles the rebuild of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster 322 nailhead engine as a future replacement for Deerslayer's Jimmy 302.

2. Cleanup and Investigation

February 3^rd 2012  On wednesday, my friends, Sam and Paul, helped me pick up the nailhead from Ed Stagmiller in Palm City, Florida. The first order of business will be to get the nailhead mounted on my engine stand for cleanup.

February 4^th 2012  Took the intake manifold and carb off the nailhead as a unit in order to get attachment locations for the engine leveler hoist apparatus. I will be able to lift the engine with the four furthermost manifold bolts.

This engine has three different paint colors on it, none of them are Buick green. We've got a generic black, Chevy orange and Poncho blue. Additionally, all the timing chain cover bolts are missing. Maybe, that area is where all the oil escaped the crankcase onto Sam Gagliano's trailer floor.

February 8^th 2012  Last nite after I got the nailhead mounted on the engine stand, I located the serial number, V546848-7. On the Buicks.net engine identification page, this indicates that the block, at least, came from a '54 Series 70 Buick (Roadmaster) and was a 322.

February 28^th 2012  I pulled the flexplate from the nailhead to compare dimensions to the new flywheel from Russ Martin. There were no problems turning the engine or getting the bolts loose. The new flywheel lined up with the flexplate. The six bolts are evenly spaced and you can install the flywheel wrongly but the flywheel and the crankshaft both have "registration" holes that you line up to get it on right.

November 26^th 2012  Cleaned up my workbench to start working on the nailhead's carburetor. Initial cleanup to find the numbers on the carb is the first task. Then I should be able to order a carb kit for it. Took the coil off the manifold and stored it with the other nailhead parts. The glass bowl fuel filter is next but the fitting is frozen so I hit it with a blast of Kroil penetrating oil and left it for the day.

March 31^st 2014  Trying to pick up the pace on Project Nailhead. I've found a source for adjustable rockers for the old engine but I will have to send in my old rocker assemblies in exchange so I pulled the valve covers to see how much gunk I was going to have to clean up for shipping. Pleasantly surprised to see how clean the existing assemblies are. Also removed the engine mount brackets.

May 5^th 2014  I've had this 1954 Buick Roadmaster engine for a few years now and all I've done with it so far is buy some vintage speed parts for the rebuild. I need to start working towards getting the block to the machine shop. Took the rocker arm assemblies off first. Loosened each bolt of the asssembly, one turn at a time, until all pressure from the valve springs was gone, then took the bolts the rest of the way out and removed the assemblies. Pulled out the pushrods next.

Removed the heads next. Each head bolt was loosened until it was a quarter inch out. Then big and small pry bars were used to break the head loose. Head bolts were removed the rest of the way and the heads were lifted off. Each head had two locating dowels in the block. The combustion chambers are almost hemispherical and the spark plug is centrally located. I believe the Buick design is considered a pent roof combustion chamber. The block condition looks okay so far.

After the heads were shelved away, the valley cover, oil pressure fitting and oil filter assembly were removed. Then the remaining oil and sludge were drained. This pan had a full load of oil when my friends, Sam Gagliano and Paul O'Keefe helped me pick it up seventy-five miles north of here in Sam's trailer. A lot of that oil puddled on the floor of Sam's trailer due, I think, to the loose timing chain cover.

There is a vertical sheet metal baffle dividing the lifter valley in two, held in place with two cap screws. It was removed and the hydraulic lifters removed. Camshaft wear does not look bad. These engines came from the factory with jagged castings around the lifter enclosures. This will be cleaned up with a die grinder before the engine goes back together.

After the oil was drained, the engine was flipped over and the oil pan was removed along with the double pulley on the harmonic balancer. Nailhead pans came in several shapes. I'm fortunate that this is a rear sump pan and will probably not interfere with the Deerslayer's straight front axle when it comes time for this engine to go in the truck. The pan is in better shape than it appears and will not take much work to restore it for reuse.

The oil pump and pickup were unbolted next, followed by the sheet metal baffle. I put these parts aside to clean later. Notice how the main bearings reside in "bridges" between the block sides. There is no web above them. You can pass your hand thru the open space.

It's crowded in the nailhead crankcase and there is not much room for counterweights. Buick compensated for this by making the flexplate (or flywheel) and the harmonic balancer part of the counterweight system. They are indexed to the crankshaft. I have to do some research and measurin' before I take the rotating assemblies apart to give me a better idea of where I am with this engine.

September 23^rd 2020  Getting back in the saddle. Baby steps. The magneto spurred me to fiddle with the nailhead a bit. I pulled number one piston. no ridge at the top of the cylinder so it tapped out easily with the help of brass hammer and drift and wooden block. The rod bearings look like they were installed yesterday. Put the piston assembly in the parts washer oileater soup for initial cleaning. The wrist pin is semi-floating with a pinch clamp at the top of the rod. Still have to figure out how the pin retainers work.

Also picked up a set of solid lifters for the Isky Street/Strip cam from Northwestern Auto Supply Inc. They arrived today and I took a cursory look at them.

February 22^nd 2021  Took out the remaining seven piston assemblies, balancer, timing gear cover and timing gears and chain. Only problems I had was getting the timing gear off the crankshaft. I took this progress as a good omen.

On Saturday, the crankshaft and bearings were removed, along with the camshaft. The only things remaining on the block are the cam bearings, freeze plugs and oil galley plugs.

Also gave the block it's first cleaning with Oileater and rags. That got ninety percent of the dirt and grease off.

March 6^th 2021  Scraped gasket bits off the block with a razor scrapper. Sent for a specialized tool to remove the freeze plugs but that was a waste of money. The removal tool wasn't any easier than a common chisel. Some days are like that. Removed gobs of loose rust from the water jacket with a telescoping pocket magnet. Removed the drainage petcock from the driver side bank and cleaned the rust from the hole where the passenger side petcock once was, I presume.

March 7^th 2021  The jagged, sharp casting flash at the bottom of the lifter bores had never been smoothed on this nailhead block so, I used my newly rediscovered burrs with the electric die grinder to take the edges off. Nothing fancy, just enough to eliminate small bits from breaking off.

March 11^th 2021  Made the first pass at cleaning the flat machined block surfaces with scotchbrite "cookies" in the air-powered angle grinder. I know this method is controversial but I don't have the gumption to do this by hand and I'm a sucker for shiny metal.

After watching Matt on Iron Trap Garage clean sheet metal, I decided to take a pass with the Eastwood SCT Surface Conditioning Tool with the 120 grit drum (the finest grit I currently have) instead of the Scotchbrite cookies as an experiment.

The experiment was a success. Only took ten minutes for one bank, including a short time out for a gasket scraping. Advantages of the SCT drum is that it is five inches wide, runs at a slower speed and is electric. I also ordered a finer grit drum for future ops.

Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with the oil galley plugs. All I've managed, so far, is to drive two of the little buggers in deeper.

March 15^th 2021  Finished the first pass with SCT and angle grinder tools. Went on to deal with the pesky oil galley plugs that are giving me conniption fits. Concentrated on the one threaded pipe plug first. I got a 5/16" pipe plug socket last week and was able to break the plug loose with a 24" breaker bar after heating up the plug with the MAP torch and quenching with penetrating oil.

Several of the press in plugs were drilled with a small hole and pulled out with a self-tapping bolt and claw hammer. The press in plugs at the opposite ends of the galleys were tapped out from behind by placing two steel rods in the galleys and tapping from the opposite end. These rods were from my teenage days for locating the '59 Ford transmission I was changing so often.

The last press in plug was a 1" dia plug at the back of the block. Its purpose was to give access to the smaller press in plug at the end of the lifter galley. I pulled and pulled without luck until I realized that I could drive it in and it would fall to the floor. I'm a little slow sometimes.

Professional mechanics deal with these plugs on a daily basis and think little of it, but  for me, this was an epic struggle. I had to go into Deep Ponder Mode after each failure and there was a lot of that but, it's behind me now. Onward.

March 22^nd 2021  Continued the nailhead block cleaning operations. Used a ball hone on a drill motor to refresh the cylinder bores and get the 45 degree cross-hatch. Marvel Mystery Oil provided lubrication.

Did a final pass of the machined surfaces with a 320 grit drum in the SCT tool. Cleaned the cylinders, lifter bores and oil passages with nylon bottle brushes, Oileater and Hoppes number 9 passes.

Chased all the bolt holes with thread straightener taps after cleaning with telescoping magnet and compressed air passes. The block is now ready for its hot soapy water cleaning.

April 8^th 2021  Started setting up a DIY hot tank for the engine cleaning. Cleaned a plastic trash can the landlord's contractor left behind when he absconded with my fourteen foot step ladder. Found a hole in the bottom which was probably the reason he left it. Ordered one off the intarweb.

Filled it with water and lowered the nailhead block into it. Placed a submersible spa pump for circulation and a submersible heating element, digital thermometer and a small amount of Dawn dishwashing soap and watched a bit to see that the suds didn't get out of control.

April 12^th 2021  Took almost thirty-five gallons to submerge the block. Had to monitor the operation closely as the heating element would have the water boiling if left alone. No switch or thermostat on it. The pump turned out to be more of an aquarium pump than a spa pump. I kept the heat between 130 and 140 degrees as I did not know how much heat the plastic tub could take. The water moved in a slow circular pattern without suds. When the nailhead was pulled from the dirty soup, it was blown dry with my electric weed blower and an air hose.

May 5^th 2021 When the engine hoist broke, I sidetracked into a lazy streak for a couple of weeks but I think I'm back on track now. Onward to the nailhead derusting ops. The water was drained and replaced with twenty gallons of Evapo-Rust for the waterjacket derusting. Since I didn't have the quantity needed to completely submerge the block, the operation has to be a two-step dance, front half first, then the rear half of the block, two days in the soup for each.

June 29^th 2021 Put tools away from the nailhead block painting and cleared the deck for the next operation - pistons and crankshaft. Disassembled piston assembly one and spent some deep ponder mode thinking on how to go about cleaning the various components.

I am at sea since I haven't done this before and was concerned about removing the wrist pin retainers because I couldn't see them. Turns out I couldn't see them because there aren't any. The wrist pin is held against movement by the connecting rod pinch clamp.

Examining the piston showed a chunk missing behind the oil ring. I could see the oil ring from inside the piston. That can't be good. I went back into ponder mode again.

June 30^th 2021 Hunted up my dial bore gauge. micrometers and dial caliper and commenced to measuring the nailhead cylinders so I can order rings and maybe new pistons.

Fumbled around for awhile as I'm new to this and my OEM eyes don't help much, but I eventfully came up with a WAG of forty thousandths oversize pistons and bore. I'm going to keep at it until I'm more comfortable with my findings and I'm going to see if my machinist friend, John, will swing by after Sunday coffee to check my measurements.

I would like to find '56 heads, pistons and rods for this build but, I've been unsuccessful in that search and I may have to live with what I have. The only certain thing is that more research is in order.

July 7^th 2021 At four inches, my biggest mic is too small for this job, so I ordered a five inch mic, one day delivery. Cleaned the number one rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in an overnite Evapo-Rust submersion and fiddled with the piston some. The rings are flush and corroded. I couldn't budge any of them.

I took the piston to the Sunday coffee cruise-in. John didn't make it but Dave Sexton told me the marks on the thrust sides of the piston were from knurling and they were still pretty fresh. I took a look at all the pistons when I got back to the BillyBob Shop and they all have the knurling.

Continued to measure the pistons with micrometer and cylinder bores with dial bore gauge and telescoping bore gauge until I had confidence in my measurements. Have decided to stay with the pistons I have.

Got the corroded, stuck rings out of piston one with MAP torch, Kroil penetrating oil, small pick and needlenose pliers hand-to-hand combat technique.

July 8^th 2021 Cleaning no. one piston assembly. Figuring out what works, what works better and in what order. When I establish a procedure, the other seven will go quicker. That's the theory anyway.

Dragged out my Dad's ancient piston ring groove cleaner and tried to intuit how to use it. This arrived on my doorstep a few years ago, addressed to "Mr Nimrod". My brother's short note that accompanied it, said it should come in handy in three or four years when I got around to BillyBob's stovebolt engine, the last engine Dad used it on in the eighties when my brother owned the truck.

Did some initial cleaning of the piston with Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel motor tool after knocking the worst carbon off the top with Scotchbrite cookies in an air angle grinder. The piston was marked with 040 on the top.

July 12^th 2021 Developed a procedure for the nailhead piston assembly cleanup: 1) Remove the rings; 2) Clean ring grooves; 3) Submerge assembly in Oileater parts washer for an hour; 4) Dissemble piston assembly; 5) Submerge piston in Chem-Dip; 6); Go over all parts that need it with the Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel tool; 7) Submerge all parts in an ultrasonic cleaner session; 8) Submerge rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in Evapo-Rust; Give all parts a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil and reassemble loosely. This procedure may need fine tuning. We'll see how it goes for now.

July 19^th 2021 Nailhead piston assembly operations continue. This is cleaned assembly two compared to untouched assembly three. Something else to observe about these two assemblies is that the "ears" just above the crankshaft end of rod three are almost ground away whereas there is still plenty of meat in the ears of rod two. Rod three also has a beefier cap than two which might account for some of this. I'll weigh things down the road to see what's what.

I've got three and a half assemblies cleaned at this point and I've modified the procedure as well. The procedure was revised to clean the piston top carbon. Scotchbrite cookies were too aggressive and Dremel buffs didn't cut it alone. A brass wire wheel in an electric die grinder did the trick. Dad's ancient groove cleaning tool tortured me more than it tortured the ring grooves. I got better results with using a broken ring as a cleaning tool. The ultrasonic cleaning session leaves aluminum dull and ferrous metal slightly rusty so the Evapo-Rust dip was moved to the last step before lightly oiling with Marvel Mystery oil. and the piston gets a shine up with wire wheel again.

August 2^nd 2021 Took longer than I thought it would to clean the eight nailhead piston assemblies but I've always been over optimistic regarding deadlines. The piston assemblies are now clean and will be set aside. Updated the procedure for the nailhead piston assembly cleanup along the way for future reference.

1) Remove the rings; 2) Disassemble piston assembly; 3) Submerge all parts in Oileater parts washer for an hour; 4) Submerge piston in Chem-Dip for thirty minutes; 5) Remove remaining carbon on piston top with brass wire wheel in electric die grinder; 6) Go over rest of piston with the Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel tool; 7) Clean ring grooves; 8) Submerge all parts in an ultrasonic cleaner session, 99 minutes 80 degrees C; 9) Submerge rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in Evapo-Rust for up to twenty-four hours; 10) Shine up the piston again with another, shorter, wire wheel and Scotchbrite buff session; 11) Give all parts a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil and reassemble loosely.

August 3^rd 2021 Crankshaft, main bearings and caps are next on the to-do list. Cleaning is first, then measuring what we have. I'm in deep ponder mode and taking some YouTube continuing education courses.

August 4^th 2021 Started with the main bearing caps, using an abbreviated procedure that I used to clean the rods. All these caps are stamped with a number and arrow so I can batch clean them without worrying about mixing them up. Segments of the rear seal were still in the sides of the rear main cap so, I have to dig that out first.

My friend, David Kerry, a professional performance engine builder and fabricator, had several concerns after viewing the pic of the crank and mains.

That crank needs micro polishing, the oil holes need chamfering please tell me you are not using those old bearings ? The wear pattern indicates the block needs line honing.

I'm gonna try to address those concerns but probably not to everybody's satisfaction, 'cept mine. Easiest first. When I got back to the shop, I located and blew the dust off my Starrett straightedge along with my thinnest feeler gauge (0.0015"). Tried to slip the feeler gauge under the straightedge in four places (both sides, front and back) of each main bearing journal, It didn't go under anywhere. I'm happy with that result.

Chamfering the oil holes was under my radar. I hadn't thought about chamfering the oil holes so, I'm researching that now but polishing my crank was always part to the program. The jury's still out on the bearings, both mains and rods.

August 9^th 2021 Main bearing caps and bolts were submerged in the Oileater parts washer soup for an hour.  That revealed paint overspray and rear seal remnants still in the rear cap so they were dug out and wire wheeled with the Dremel tool, then another session in the parts washer. The bearings themselves got an hour's session in 100% Oileater, not the Oileater/water mix in the parts washer.

Then, the the caps and bolts got a session in the Ultrasonic cleaner at 80 degrees C for 99 minutes and that was followed by a dip in Evapo-Rust for the caps. No rust on the bolts and they were set aside.

The bearings also got a separate Ultrasonic cleaner session. They came out of the Ultrasonic the worse for wear, not looking as good as when they went in. I lightly buffed one of the thrust bearing halves and took it with me, along with the unbuffed half to the Sunday morning coffee cruise-in. The consensus among my fellow Senile and Surly Club members was that the bearings were serviceable, but new ones would be better if available. I lightly buffed the remaining bearings and put them aside with the main caps which got a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil.

August 10^th 2021 Went over the nailhead crankshaft with Oileater. A couple of the counterbalances had red and yellow paint marks. Found a shard on one of the counterbalances from machining that almost drew blood. Looks like both the machinist and the builder missed it. I took it off.

Decided to take the rust off the crankshaft by submerging it in Evapo-Rust so, I cleaned up my tire leak testing tub that is just the right size for this job. Required 12 gallons to submerge the crankshaft.

August 13^th 2021 Pulled the crankshaft from the Evapo-Rust dip after twenty-four hours, misted it with Marvel Mystery Oil and started setting up to polish the journals. Cut sheets of 800 and 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper into strips as wide as the journals and cannibalized my oldest pair of PF Flyers for shoestrings to provide motive power for the polishing. WD-40 to wet the paper and Blue Magic polish for the finish.

Got Dad's '59 Chilton Manual out to check the specs for main and rod journals and commenced measuring the crank journals with a 3" micrometer. I was confused by my initial readings as my precision measurement Kung Fu is not strong. I will recalibrate the mic and go again.

August 16^th 2021 Was a little bit under the weather over the weekend, probably due to barometric changes of Fred passing by and blowin' the stink off us. I relapsed into lazy for most of the weekend. I did get started with the nailhead crankshaft polishing and ran into pitting of the rear main seal surface. Spent some time pondering the best approach to fixing that problem.

August 19^th 2021 Polishing the nailhead crank journals is taking some time. Ops went a little faster once I established a rhythm. Almost finished with the first pass of 800 grit paper.

My friend, Dave Kerry, asked about run out and offered that he had the v-blocks and precision dial indicator to check it. Decided to take a timeout from the polishing tedium and do an initial check myself.

Since I don't have v-blocks to support the crankshaft, I oiled main journal one and five bearing halves and installed them in the block, then the crankshaft followed, touching only the two bearing halves. I set up my dial indicator to measure the run out at main journal three. First time I've used the dial indicator and I fumbled around a bit setting it up. It didn't come with instructions.

Measuring the journal, front and back, resulted in readings of .009 and .0085 inches between low and high points. I haven't researched run out yet and my WAG is that some of this could be due to journal out-of-round. My next step, after polishing operations are complete will be to check all main journals for run out and to mic the high and low points to check out-of-round.

August 26^th 2021 Hot August nights sapping my energy in the shop. It's a broiler, even at midnight. I slacked off for a couple of days but then got back to it before I lost my momentum. Finished the nailhead crank journal polishing with 800 grit, 1000 grit and Blue Magic passes. Cleaned the oil passages with nylon brushes, Oileater and Hoppes number 9 passes.

Decided against chamfering for this low RPM shadetree build. Now it's time to measure, measure, measure.

You can email me at  webmaster@laroke.com

Issued Wednesday February 15, 2012

Updated Thursday August 26, 2021

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