Late 354 Perk.

i would not use a VH44 booster,because for many years the repair kits supplied by PBR have been rubbish made in Bangladesh.T he rubbish kits also for the VH 90 booster.They used a bit of cut wire in place of a proper pin for the piston link,and its not retained by the wire clip and can move out and jam the piston,effectively cutting off the brakes.The big diaphragms were also rubbish and wouldnt last 12 months.Go dual line with a couple of Jap air boosters.If you stay single line ,make sure the handbrake will pull up the truck.

Just write a heap and lost it all to the ether dammit.

I'll try again... found a coolant leak... from the head gasket?

Strange place for a leak,but certainly looks like corrosion along the join,and under the paint.new plugs are a bit of a giveaway ,too.Thats the pushrod side.Ive loaned my Dot 4 manual to someone who doesnt think I need it any more.. Anyway lifting the heads not a big deal on a Perk,and the dot4 turbos had a habit of breaking headstuds.,so worth checking all the nuts for tension.

I poked around with the plugs and decided to change them all while the engine was out. They were factory(?) steel plugs and were a bit thin, so I'm glad we did that. Of course some were what turns out to be an odd size these days... 47mm(?) wasn't dead easy to find.

I have noticed some of the head studs seem to be odd lengths, perhaps they've been mixed up? I haven't done a valve clearance check but for those outside the rocker cover, some studs have 1/2" of thread protruding from the nuts and others have little if anything poking out.

For the moment I'm keeping an eye on the coolant level. I would actually like to put a recovery tank on the cooling system because otherwise the level can be uncomfortably low if you lose a litre. I've had a sensor fitted tot he top radiator tank but not wired up the low level alarm yet. I salvaged a brass tank off a larger Dodge a few years back, so if I can get that soldered back together it'll make for lots more volume.

Can anyone confirm for me that the now metric bolt holding the injection pump down should in fact be a stud... imperial at that!?

I dunno if the stud is metric or imperial but were your bolt is I reckon they normally have a stud
I wonder if the bolt has bottomed out and isnt pulling the injector pump down tight
Or maybe the stud came loose and the O ring that would suspect that should on the base of the injector pump has worn and between that and the bolt maybe not pulling the pump down tight is were your leak is coming from
A common thing to do is if the thread has been stripped out and its imperial to retap the thread in the next size up in metric so maybe thats whats happened here

Paul

Replace the pump bolts with studs of correct length ,otherwise you will jack the adaptor off the motor.Short head studs would be from an earlier motor ,the head was about 1/2" thinner.Studs costing $27 ea,last time I checked,cheaper to salvage bits from an old motor.Some of the studs were very long for mounting things on.Owners of Perkins Accos wernt perfectionists,and generally preferred to do no repairs and offer a cash incentive for the yearly inspection certificate.