The Captain Obvious cam oiler kit installation, a must read.

[5thhorsemann]

I finally got a chance to install the Captain Obvious cam oiler kit. I bought the kit from Bruce in stead of shipping him my bar and letting him do the work to limit my down time. So as promised here is the write-up.

I started by cranking the motor over with the stock bar in place and noting the oil flow, just to make sure the modified bar is as good as the stock stuff after the modification is completed.

[]

Here is the stock oiler as she sat, you can see its bent and not properly aligned to the cam. It did however spray oil on the cam, and provide good lubrication.

After removing the bar I did a valve adjustment, it was faster and easier to do the adjustments with the bar out of the way.

I started with the rear tube and worked my way to the front, first removing and cleaning the individual tubes from the stock blocks and fitting the tubes to the new blocks. Bruce’s directions are clear and complete, I just followed them completely and the whole job went smooth as silk.

Once the tubes were cleaned, I removed the end caps from the block side of the tube, Bruce recommended drilling them out on a lathe, I used a torch to melt the solder and popped them out with a hook pick and reamed out the residual solder.

I then turned down the outside diameter of the tube to 0.300 to within 0.040 of the first oil port as per Bruce’s direction. You could do this without a lathe if you had to, but a lathe makes the job quick and easy. It also makes the cleaning and straightening of the tubes a snap.

After the tubes were prepped and fitted I removed the tab of metal behind the oil input port on the tubes, Bruce didn’t mention this, but when I looked at the tube in the block there was a bit of interference so cutting away that bit of metal would insure full flow. I slipped a drill bit down the oil passage in the block, tightened the brass fitting to final tightness and inserted the tubes over the drill bit shank to index the spray holes. I then marked the tubes and fittings, removed them from the blocks and soldered the tubes and fittings together.

After applying Blue Loctite, I installed the tubes into the blocks.

I then reamed out the center bracket to accept the long tubes and installed it on the cam tower. Then I did a test fit of the rear bar, I noticed it was tight on the center cam tower, so I removed the bar and trimmed the end down about 1/16 inch to give me extra clearance for heat expansion, this just made the end cap flush end of the tube and didn’t require any soldering or special operations, just ground the excess tubing off and inspected the solder joint. Repeat on the front bar.

Installed everything with the included gaskets and spun the motor to check for leaks and see how the oil spray pattern looks. Wow, what a difference, the straitened bar now hits the center of each lobe and I get like 25% more oil to the cam over the flow of the stock blocks. I had removed straitened and cleaned the stock bar just weeks before getting Bruce’s kit, so I know the stock bar was at full flow with no restrictions when I spun the motor before starting with the modification. You can see in the last pic the difference in the ammount of oil clinging to the cam after spinning the motor, granted the oil was hot in the before pic, but still its a big difference.

Total time spent was under 3 hours from valve cover off to valve cover on. The valve train has never been quieter and the valves were not in bad need of adjustment only two needed a slight twist.

I AM VERY IMPRESSED WITH THE RESULTS!! THANKS BRUCE!!

Edited October 29, 2012 by Arne
attach code fix