Ford FE 390 intake Manifold Oil Baffle

use a grinder, and cut the rivets. then toss the shield.

The baffle is installed on the stock manifold when a heat riser valve is used (this is the valve on one exhaust manifold that closes when cold - sending exhaust gasses through a passage under the carburettor). The baffle is meant to act as an "insulating" zone to keep oil from splashing against the bottom of this passage (which can get very hot) and turning to hard carbon deposits.

These deposits can flake off due to thermo cycling and always have the chance to wind up in places they aren't really supposed to be. "Required"? Weeelllllllll... Cheap insurance? Yup....

i take a chisle and hammer dig under it and pry up

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Thanks for the advice. I removed the baffle and there was a large amount of deposit underneath. I cleaned the manifold and now I need to decide if I want to reinstall it.

Mike

Did you remove the drive screws to get the baffle off, or did you just pull it off over the heads of them? (IIRC, they are drive screws instead of rivets- kinda like a small nail with thread-like grooves.) Like Warman was saying, it's cheap insurance to prevent unwanted stuff from entering your cylinders. If it was me, I'd put it back on, even if it meant drilling new holes.

SC Tom

SC Tom,

I was able to remove the screws. I hit them with a chisel in a North, South, East, West pattern until they were loose enough to pry up. The pan in intact, but one of the screws is questionable for reuse now.

I do plan on putting it back on. After thinking about it, I want to keep it as original as designed as I can. If Ford put it there, I can only assume there was a reason.

Now, I need to find out where I can get more of these screws. I would doubt a hardware store will have them.

Mike

Mike,

They're called type U drive screws. If your local Lowe's or Home Depot or similar doesn't have them, they can be had on-line at McMaster.com. Unfortunately, they come in packs of 100 to 10,000.

SC Tom

mwatterson wrote in news:3865fb1b-8bae-46a7-9843- snipped-for-privacy@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:

Tap the holes to accept a common machine screw.

elaich wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

then make dam sure you locktite it. KB

I'm not too sure loc-tite would hold up under that kind of heat. . .

SC Tom

ive threaded and put screws in,then tack weld the screw head to the sheet metal so it would stay put.

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I just checked McMaster, and 100 costs less than $5. I'll check Lowe's and Home Depot first though. Thanks for all the great advice.

Mike