Still working on my engine rebuild as time (and garage temperatures) permit. Head is back on as well as the timing chain. Cleaning timing chain cover and oil pump pocket. Pics attached. Hope to get the engine in this weekend assuming the boss doesn't have other "more important" things to do.

 

Everyone's looking, but nobody's talking.....

Lookin good ! Love that first pic

 

I'm looking too.

 

I had no idea that was a side mounted engine. Mine was vertical, not horizontal! LOL
Seriously, nice job of keeping it clean and tidy. I'm sure it'll fire right up one you get it back in and everything plugged back in. One question. Do you have to prime the oil pump before starting it? IDK and am just wondering.

 

I always disable the fuel and crank a fresh engine until the oil light goes out. I also use a lot of assembly lube. In the old days of distributor driven oil pumps, I would prime the pump with a dummy distributor.

 

OK, I'm back on the engine rebuild tomorrow. In the mean time I'll try to flip this pictures so that it doesn't look like a horizontal engine. I can rebuild an engine but the darn computer technology outsmarts me every time .

And yes, I too am using a lot of assembly lube and oil when putting components back in but will also be cranking the engine before actually starting it to make sure I get a good flow of oil thru all the passages.

Another word of advice from the machine shop who checked my cylinder bore was to hand cycle the engine thru several complete revolutions with you finger over the spark plug holes BEFORE installing the engine back into the car to make sure you fell the compression cycle to ensure the the valves and crankshaft are synced correctly once the head is installed and the timing chain is installed.

Soo many details......

 

Good advice from the machine shop. Did you use plati-gauge to check your bearing clearances? I really liked using it back in the days I did rebuilds. And assembly lube is a good idea too. I used to use STP if I ran out of the assembly lube. That stuff was really slick!

 

I'm ashamed to say that I did not check the bearing clearances. I know I probably should have. But I inspected my bearings for any signs of undue wear and they seemed to be in good shape. So I used STD bearing replacements. That's probably the absolute wrong thing to do, but that's what I did. But if I can get another 50K or more out of this engine that already has 206K on it, I'll consider this a success. (Damn, if the engine even starts after it gets it back in the car, I'll consider that a success as well.)

I did try to re-post those pictures yesterday evening to have them in the correct orientation, but once again I've failed computers 101.

 

I wouldn't be overly concerned about the clearances. If there was any strange wear on the crank or rods, you should have noticed it by examining the wear on the old ones. Sometimes if a journal is a little out of round, it'll cause excess wear in one spot or another. I'm sure you'll probably get another 100-200,000 out of it. They're damn good engines.

 

I'm quiet because this is way beyond anything I'd try attempting. Not having a garage, jack, and decent tools kinda limits what I can do.