Well… I am going to find out this weekend. I will be reassembling everything Saturday and will see if this worked.

I had trouble locating correct studs. ARP’s regular stud line is only threaded for ¾”. The hole in the head is 1” deep. I ended up using Edelbrock (ARP) 6009 Ford FE studs. They are threaded for 1” on both ends. They are about 3.6” long, which is about 1/3” longer than what Edelbrock recommends for their Mopar heads. They fit perfectly, with 3 or 4 exposed threads above the nut and have tons of valve cover clearance.

I JB Welded the stud in Monday. One mistake I made was putting adhesive in the hole first. It caused a hydro lock situation that prevented me from tightening the stud down all the way to the bottom of the hole. That means I might have caught 2 or 3 of the good remaining threads rather than all 4 or 5 of them. I didn’t discover I wasn’t at the bottom of the hole until I set the shaft in place and noticed the stud was higher than the other side.

To get the JB Weld thinned enough to be workable I had to mix a few drops of acetone with it. That extended the curing time by at least a couple of days. I have samples drying on a cardboard to verify it’s cure. Good thing I called JB Weld first. They informed me that brake cleaner leaves a residue behind that prevents JB Weld from bonding. I cleaned the holes again with acetone.

Thanks to Stanton for the idea to plug the oiling hole. The O-ring didn’t work because I wanted to leave a tail hanging out for removal and couldn’t get the stud past it. However an equivalent sized piece of wire insulation did work. It plugged the oil hole and then flattened out so I could get the stud by it. As soon as the adhesive dried enough to not run I pulled the wire insulation out flattening it between the head and the stud as it came. No adhesive got anywhere near the oil hole. I also masked the shaft journal to keep it clean.

Last, just to add insult to injury, I put new double valve springs on. They are 160 on seat and 360 at my cam’s .550 lift. This thing is either going to go or blow.