If you haven't already made something like this to work on your heads then do it NOW! This stand is a life-saver!

The first step I took was to locate the placement for the modified post.  I marked it with a rather nice large white dot.  Like so (If you notice I used layout die and a scribe to mark the edges of the combustion chamber):

I then brought a verticle line from where I wanted to locate the hole in the rocker stand through to the base of the head (it matched up with the line I marked through the bottom  of the head ):

I then used a punch to locate where I would begin my pilot hole.  This was the beginning of my stress- to locate the hole accurately.  You'll see in the next pictures why it's offset to the side slightly (to clear the intake runner just below the rocker arms:

You'll notice the sweet Puerto-Rican-lashing of a drill press we have, with a modified stand.  Real high-tech in my garage. But, I shimmed it slightly on one side (just barel not level) to add an additional angle to my pilot hole to ensure that I would miss the intake runner (Probably isn't necessary if you ensure the you drill straight down):

Here was the moment of truth.  The "I hope I don't really just %$*@#:"^<@# these heads that I've put sooo much work into" moment.  The first pilot hole:

In this next picture you can see to the right of the drill bit the outer edge of the intake runner.  The cause of all my anxiety!!!!  On the first post I drilled a little too close and had to grind the threads off the all-thread rod to get it past the runner.  From then on I added shims to offset the angle OUT from this edge and never had any trouble again:

It has also been suggested (and I did this) to bring the drill to the floor of the water chamber and "kiss" the surface to prep it for the bolt.  A better "landing" surface for the new post.  Next came the tap.  Again, I chose to use a 7/16th's tap.  But John has also said that a 1/2" will also work. 

Then I screwed in the all-thread rod to see how it came out with clearances and what not.  I went in like a charm was almost perfectly aligned with where I wanted it to be.

Because the post was a little close to the intake runner I ground off the bottom threads.  and cut it to be drilled in the whole. It looked like this right before I JB Welded it in the whole. 

With a cut-off wheel I cut a grooved into the top of the all thread rod so that I could then screw it in with a straight edge screw driver.  I mixed my JB Weld, smeared it around the top where it would adhere to the rocker stand.  Put a healthy little dab on the bottom to fuse with the bottom of the chamber. And presto!  There she goes!

The final touch was to wait 10 minutes or so for the JB weld to harden, and cut off the top.  I carefully cleaned up the top of the rocker stand.  And now I have posted heads!

Thanks for taking the time to document this as a step by step procedure.  Great ‘post’ and good information.

DAWG, you asked the questions like many but had the enthusiam to have an educated go at doing it, and also the goodness to help educate others, like ted and others said, Good job!

yyy

PO Box 1005

Ottawa, IL 61350

email: yblockmag@yahoo.com

HM phone (815) 433-1393 (07:30-08:00, Sat 08:00-09:00)

Also the port and pocket work looks very good.