I made a couple of tools I thought I'd share. Nothing all too interesting, but I had a good time making them.

Made a deck height tool. Aluminum plate drilled some holes with a drill press for the studs to pass through, and in the center for access. Drilled and tapped a hole to mount the dial indicator (to find true TDC). Right now I have some galvanized pipe used as spacers. These need to be replaced with something a little more stout.
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This is a head stand. My friend who builds american V8 motors has something like this for his heads. The four pegs line up with the head nut seats and the threaded ends allow me to adjust the level when I'm determining combustion chamber volume.
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Here is how the head looks. Very handy to have a nice solid base to work with.
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smart & simple
I like it!

Slick...

Looks cool! Can we mod the first one to get deck ht too?

The first one is for measuring deck height (my post was a little confusing). But you need the dial indicator to find TRUE TDC, then measure deck height. So it does both. To get the deck height, measure from the top of the plate down to the piston, and then subtract the thickness of the plate.

Easier still is to lay the plate on a flat surface and set the indicator to measure zero from the bottom of the plate. Then when in use your readings are direct. Well almost direct. Unless you have a depth indicator, you will need to count backwards.

I like guys that are always thinking and trying to do something better.

Hey Mark. Just a yhought can you adjust it to measure different spots on the piston? If you have a piston with a dish or worse valve pockets you may want to measure at the edge of the piston.