Benzo4gT
Operator
Well, here goes my rant. As some have seen I acquired a '63 mostly assembled short block from Ebay, I just had to torque everything down, clean up the head, gasket torque that down and thought I'd be good to go. But as we all know, building an engine to certain specs is a complicated thing, we see some goodies and add them, spot some bargains and decide to change the build to incorporate them, y'know, the usual man stuff (or woman perhaps).
I found a knife edged crank and bought it, it had been checked by Jack Bros and tested fine so I thought I'd pull my short block down to put this crank in. The block had a nice hone job and looked ok, the pistons were all spick and span as far as I could see.
Here is where it gets interesting, while I started pulling it down I decided to do the balance shaft removal, rotate the bearings 180 degrees, cut and weld the stubby shaft for the shaft that is driven off the oil pump etc. I noticed the inside of the block was grubby, like dirty black brown oil. Obviously not been tanked, and that's when the alarm bells started to ring in my head.
I have some very accurate scales from days past so decided to weigh the rods and pistons after a meticulous clean, carby cleaner, air blower, you know the drill. 3 weighed in at 1058 grams, one weighed in at 1049 grams. Second stage alarm bells ringing. I did this about 10 times with the same results.
I lifted the crank out and discovered the bearing closest to the front was scored, and I mean not useable. About this time the alarm bells in my head could be audibly heard by anyone standing near me!
I put the crank which looked perfectly cleaned and polished into my parts washer, gave it a wash down the journals, put carby cleaner down them as well then blew all the journals out with compressed air putting fingers over the holes etc. and some crap hit my finger, wtf right?, so I put a rag on down to catch the stuff from the rest of the them with these results.
The thing was rebuilt after a crankwalk episode, the gouges in the block are huge. So anyway, dirty block, crank full of tar like crap, a set of eagle rods and CP pistons with a HUGE 9 gram difference in one of them, 1 gouged bearing while all other are perfect and a honed block with 3 of the same pistons and they grabbed another to use for the rebuild (if in fact you could call it that)
My suspicion is someone has realised how much work needed to be done to CORRECTLY build it and pulled an ebay swifty. I've given it all over to Jcak Bros to put it all right, crack test everything, hot tank, balance etc Close to $2700 in parts and machining as a total so far, not including any gaskets, engine bearings, head service, cams and decking gears or any other parts to make it a long engine.
If it looks cheap on ebay, gumtree or what ever, chances are something is wrong. I feel so dirty now, I might shower myself like Ace Ventura did in pet detective.
I found a knife edged crank and bought it, it had been checked by Jack Bros and tested fine so I thought I'd pull my short block down to put this crank in. The block had a nice hone job and looked ok, the pistons were all spick and span as far as I could see.
Here is where it gets interesting, while I started pulling it down I decided to do the balance shaft removal, rotate the bearings 180 degrees, cut and weld the stubby shaft for the shaft that is driven off the oil pump etc. I noticed the inside of the block was grubby, like dirty black brown oil. Obviously not been tanked, and that's when the alarm bells started to ring in my head.
I have some very accurate scales from days past so decided to weigh the rods and pistons after a meticulous clean, carby cleaner, air blower, you know the drill. 3 weighed in at 1058 grams, one weighed in at 1049 grams. Second stage alarm bells ringing. I did this about 10 times with the same results.
I lifted the crank out and discovered the bearing closest to the front was scored, and I mean not useable. About this time the alarm bells in my head could be audibly heard by anyone standing near me!
I put the crank which looked perfectly cleaned and polished into my parts washer, gave it a wash down the journals, put carby cleaner down them as well then blew all the journals out with compressed air putting fingers over the holes etc. and some crap hit my finger, wtf right?, so I put a rag on down to catch the stuff from the rest of the them with these results.
The thing was rebuilt after a crankwalk episode, the gouges in the block are huge. So anyway, dirty block, crank full of tar like crap, a set of eagle rods and CP pistons with a HUGE 9 gram difference in one of them, 1 gouged bearing while all other are perfect and a honed block with 3 of the same pistons and they grabbed another to use for the rebuild (if in fact you could call it that)
My suspicion is someone has realised how much work needed to be done to CORRECTLY build it and pulled an ebay swifty. I've given it all over to Jcak Bros to put it all right, crack test everything, hot tank, balance etc Close to $2700 in parts and machining as a total so far, not including any gaskets, engine bearings, head service, cams and decking gears or any other parts to make it a long engine.
If it looks cheap on ebay, gumtree or what ever, chances are something is wrong. I feel so dirty now, I might shower myself like Ace Ventura did in pet detective.
