Episode 22: Mix and Match
Although this is being written after the 24 hour race at Buttonwillow (June 30), it covers events in the last half of May, 2012.
When we last left the engine rebuild, the '59 engine was completely torn down and ready to put back together. But I still needed to finish stripping the '64 engine to find which parts were the best to go in the rebuilt engine.
I discovered that a couple of the pistons in the '64 had broken rings (not from me trying to remove them), and most of them were frozen in their grooves. I finally got them all out without breaking any more, but it was a bitch of a job.
A ring groove cleaner didn't work for me, so I wound up using pieces of broken rings. My fingers were really sore after doing the pistons from both engines.
I now had the parts from two engines spread all over my patio, each one labeled with which engine it had come from.
Besides the broken piston described earlier (Episode 19), I found another piston from the '64 that has a small chunk missing from it. That engine sure had a hard life!
With two of the pistons in the '64 too damaged to use, and the '64 block enough different to preclude using some of the better components, I made the decision to use the original block and pistons. After that, it would be a total mix-and-match.
The crank and bearings in the '59 were an almost total loss, so those parts would come from the '64. Despite the horrible condition of the pistons, all the main and rod bearings looked beautiful.
After all my earlier problems, I was totally paranoid about lubrication. I queried you guys about the best assembly lube to use and was impressed with the reports of Royal Purple Assembly Lube. It's expensive ($18 at O'Reilly), and I used it generously on every bearing. For the cam lobes, however, I stuck with the traditional black moly assembly lube.
Both cams looked good, so I stuck with the original. The solid lifters, however, were a different story. Some of them had pitting that indicated that the case hardening had worn through or otherwise failed:
Although everyone told me that it was important to put each lifter in its original position, they also agreed that I should use the best lifters I had. I replaced the worst lifters from the '59 with the best ones from the '64 until I had the best possible set. In a perfect world, I would have searched for new compatible lifters, but I was behind schedule. Does anyone know if it is possible to buy lifters by specifying diameter and length?
With a large assortment of worn and broken piston rings, I was facing some hard choices, when suddenly a miracle occured: a set of brand new rings appeared on ebay! A few days later I was installing them. Having learned earlier how fragile rings are, it was with fear and trembling that I installed them. Richard's ring expander tool was invaluable for this.
I had cleaned up the cylinders with a ridge reamer and lightly honed them, so now the question was how well the rings fit. Before installing them on the pistons, I fitted them in each bore and measured the end gap. At the very top of the bore (where the ridge had been) the end gap was 0.009". Just below that (where the wear was maximum) it varied from 0.015" to 0.023". Nearer the bottom of the bore, it was back to 0.017". A bit over spec, but a lot better than the 0.040"+ (in some cases a lot +) that I had been seeing!
I also checked all the bearing clearances and end float, and everything was well within specs. Mains are 0.002" and rods are .001" to .0015". End float of the crank is .003", right in the middle of the specs, and the cam end float is between .003" and .004", right on spec.
The clearances were checked with Plastigage. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a precision small-diameter plastic rod that is placed between the bearing and journal, then torqued to spec and removed. The width it gets squished out to is then measured with the provided scale, giving the clearance. This photo shows using both the red (.002 to .006) and green (.001 to .003) varieties.
Running short of time, I still had not ground or even checked the valves. I decided to do a redneck check and see if I could get by without a valve job. I set the head on its side and filled the intake ports with solvent. An hour later, they were still full to the brim. Repeating with the exhaust valves gave the same result. Good enough to take a chance with.
Crazy Mike had spotted a head gasket for sale on a site in the Netherlands, but I still had to make many others. Some of them were easy, but others took a bit of work:
Even though they looked extremely clean, I disassembled, cleaned, and re-assembled the rocker arms & shafts. I'm glad I did, since one of the rockers was almost frozen to the shaft. I used a diamond file to clean up the shaft until the arm moved freely.
I had intended to finish the reassembly by Memorial Day, but didn't quite make it. However, a few evening sessions later and it was done, except for accessories like the generator and starter.
After all this, however, I am still disturbed by the letters POS stamped on the block. Whatever could this mean?
Next: The Home Stretch
"I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
IOE winner in the Super Snipe -- Buttonwillow 2012
IOE winner in Super Snipe v2.0 -- Buttonwillow 2016
"Every Super Snipe in Lemons has won an IOE!"