Big day yesterday.
While I'd love to prattle on forever about engine building minutiae, we'll spare y'all too much drivel.
Plastigauge gave great numbers. Stoked. All five the same.
End-play was perplexing. These are standard thrust bearings, but they were too thick and wouldn't go into place.
Ay other sizes are thicker.
A bunch of sanding on some 220 on the surface plate got them in, but still too tight.
It took quite a bit of humping to get numbers that made happiness.
Additionally, there's a lot of 'springiness'.
Meaning - you can pry hard with the pry bars and get some bigger numbers,
But less actual play is seen without prying.
Here we ended up sanding until we could pry a good .005-.006",
But unloaded, you'd only see about .002" difference in travel unloaded in each direction.
If that makes any sense...
After taking the bearings to size on the 220, I cleaned them up with some 800 and 1200, then finished them off with steel wool.
You don't want soft bearing material embedded with sanding grit and wearing prematurely.
Steel wool can take the bearings that final bit smooth without introducing grit.
A careful cleanup is performed of bearings between sanding rounds as well.
Cleanliness is next to godliness in engine building, and sanding bearings is dirty work!
After the main caps were torqued the block got moved to a cart for flywheel install.
Didn't know that the gasket set does not include seals, but luckily i was donated some by our man JimD.
Lesseeee here... What are all these parts and where do they all go?
Again, could go on forever with details; sealants, torques, techniques.
But hands full and life needing lived,
A few tidbits about rod/piston install:
Bits of hose on rod bolts keep crank journals from getting dinged.
ARP lube even goes on factory nuts - it adds 'tightness' relative to dry or engine oil.
I mix assembly lube and oil - put it in an old spray cap and apply with a homemade cardboard applicator.
Old crappy ring compressor works, so away we go.
Additionally, i slather mucho oil on rings and cylinder walls.
With my bare clean hand. Mucho mucho. Pump pump pump.
Too much is never a problem,
Long as you drag out the drip tray...
In the end, we got us a short block.
Since we're still pending a head, no sense in going any farther than this methinks.
Now on to nagging Jim to finish the head, staring, and making 'Vroom!' noises..!