I'm Humbled by taking apart a 304

[Tom and Amanda Lang <rustnrot@domain.elided>]

Well, I'm humbled, I can't really believe how humbled, actually.  Today I
helped a friend take off the heads on his 304 in a 1974 Pickup.  After
recently rebuilding a Chevy 350, it is amazing at how much more "Heavy-Duty
Engineered" the 304 is.  Heck, the pushrods are about 50% greater diameter,
each head has about twice as much iron, exhaust valve rotators, etc, etc.

A question for the Digest:  Each head appears to have two locating pins,
roll pins?, for locating the head on the block deck prior to inserting head
bolts.  One side block deck is missing one of these "roll pins".  They
appear to be hollow about 1/2" diameter.  Are these in fact roll pins of a
certain size, or something I need to get at the Navistar dealer?

A question for Howard:  I have worked on marine engine conversions before,
particularly Chevy marine conversions.  It appears that the I-H V-8's would
be absolutely *perfect* in a marine application; steady full output
operation for long lengths of time.  Did I-H ever market these engines to
the marine industry?  I'm particularly interested, so I can determine
whether I should search for wet exhaust manifolds, etc. for converting a
392 to marine service.   In any case, rest assured I will *someday* build a
"classic" wooden runabout with I-H power even if I have to get wet exhaust
manifolds specially cast and a bellhousing for the marine transmission
specially made.  One thing about cooling marine engines, as long as the
water pump works, you won't overhead until you've raised the temperature of
the lake you're running around on to boiling!  Let's see, the name of the
boat, how 'bout "Waterall"?