Tappets to antennas:

Today I stopped in to a local Radio Shack and looked at their CB antennas. Almost all were the type with the coil at the base, but they did have one with a coil at the base and an inductor choke coil in the middle intended for a "glass mount" (rear I suppose) and that design probably puts out the full figure-eight wave since the simple coil in the middle would separate the top and bottom to some extent electrically and the kit was only $43. Still as Screamer says a power coil in the middle would be better, although probably more expensive. Regarding tappets, I torqued the 882 heads on my short block 350 today and lubed the cam with the special stuff followed by liberal dollops of STP on the cam and in the lifter bores. I used new lifters and I was surprised how tight the lifter bores were, although the block only had about 80,000 miles on it before the rebuild. I squeezed the air out of the lifters under oil so they start out filled, and ran out of time before I got to the rockers, but I slathered STP in the lifter bores and on the bottom of the lifters since it may be six months or so till I actually start the engine. Next I will be right at the step asked about in the original question of this thread where I set the rockers cold. Having once been interested in restoration as well as rodding, it occured to me that if everyone cuts holes in the old "orange SBC valve covers" in a few years restorers will be paying top dollar for "original valvecovers" while the rest of us are running aftermarket valvecovers with holed-originals hanging on our garage wall! Strange! Still I thank the folks on this forum for the trick for setting the valves hot without spraying the garage walls with oil. Regarding Streets' horizontal antenna, I see the horizontal space-saving part, but I am still trying to understand grounding to the frame which depends on the insulation of the tires. Streets do you remember if the radio worked better or worse in the rain when there would be less insulation by wet tires? I have heard of amateur Ham radio people shooting arrows through the trees with a fine wire attached to the arrow and then using that extended wire as an antenna even though it was in contact with the trees. Still the way I learned to make an antenna, starting with a crystal set, was to isolate the antenna from the ground with glass insulators so I am surprised Streets' setup worked! Sorry about the wordy description, I am depending on Streets to tell me when I do something wrong on the SBC rebuild!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder