Buick 455 build...last one i swear

No offense man, but maybe building engines isnt your thing. I really commend you for trying it yourself, but how many times are you going to go through this? Obviously something your doing is wrong.

 

I saw earlier where you had a problem with the last build with the block being gritty. I had a set of bearings wiped out in short order after a rebuild when I didn't wash out the crankshaft oil passages after the crank was reground. The crank looked clean and I made an ASSUMPTION that I won't do again. Now whenever I get any machine work done I always ask if it was cleaned/washed. Even then I clean it a bit anyway.

You are using assembly lube or at least heavy oil on the bearings when building, lubing up the cam good and then priming the oil pump before startup with a drill and then not idling for at least 15-20 minutes on first startup? How was the oil pressure after it was warmed up? Just asking. Once the bearings got chewed up, especially the mains, the oil pressure would have been around zero idling.

Bad JuJu anyway you look at it. Good luck.

 

Well, back to square one. Although, i honestly dont think the bearings show any signs of abnormal wear for a brand new motor. ALl the rod and main bearings look like the ones in the pic. All the copper material i saw in the pan was from the front portion of the thrust bearing. I don't really know what that means but the actual surface of the bearings looked fine after all and the crank journals were flawless.

The cam bearings were a different story. It took some serious effort to get each journal of the cam past the center bearing. That bearing in particular was scratched up but no copper material showing. Not sure why the cam was so hard to get out? I wiped off the bearings and journals and put it back in and it was grabby but went in and out just fine so i dont know what is going on there.

At this point, im going to hot tank the block, order new bearings all round (although im pretty sure i could reuse the main and rod bearings) and reassemble. This time ill give my cam to the machinist so they verify can verify fitment and maybe polish the journals of the cam. All in all not nearly as bad as i originally thought. Hopefully, i will have it reassembled and back in the car by the end of the weekend.

 

LOL, trust me I've had that thought many many times. But, in the end, im confident in what im doing so ill keep trying until i get it right. It's always stupid little **** that i dont foresee. But, with each failure, I learn more for next time.

 

If the starter was pushing against the front side of the flexplate enough this is what could have sent the front side of the thrust bearing out. That would have take some doing. For that side of the thrust to go out something was pushing the crank toward the rear of the car. If the converter was not installed all the way in or therer wasn't enough play the thrust would have been worn on the backside.

Did you measure your crank thrust before installing the engine? How's the crank thrust surface looking? Do you have a pic of the bad thrust bearing side? I had a main thrust cap that was so badly machined from the factory that the cap was offset front to rear with the block. You had to sand down one half of the thrust bearing to get any thrust play at all. Worked fine once you did that but looked goofy.

I would think that a good power wash should do the job not a hot tank. Then you won't need any new freeze plugs although it sounds like cam bearings may be in order.

 

With the flexplate hitting the starter and the thrust bearing issue, I'd be looking at the transmission (again). When pulling the engine, when you removed the torque converter bolts, were you able to slide the torque converter back a 1/8"-1/4" or so? At least see it wasn't pressing on the flexplate.

 

I did not measure the crank thrust before installing. I will defintiely do that this time. Good call on the power wash to preserve the freeze plugs. I'll take a pic of the thrust bearing when i go back up there on Thrusday. It was almost solid copper the enitre face of the bearing though. The back side only showed slight wear. The convertor spacing is the appropriate distance, i even had to make spacers to esure the gap was adequate. However, i think the failed trans mount may have had soemthing to do with the thrust. If the mount wasn't providing any support there couldve been way too much play in the drivetrain causing unusual fwd thrust.

 

If the wear on the thrust bearing is on the front side of the main cap(on the pulley side) then the crank was being pushed toward the rear of the car. The starter pushing the flywheel toward the rear would have fit the bill but I don't know if it would have had enough force for a long enough time.

If there was wear on the back side(converter side) of the thrust then converter clearance/trans would be a consideration. It doesn't matter what the trans was doing if there was enough clearance because then the converter is just along for the ride. A converter/trans cannot pull a crank rearward because of the slip spline coupling. An engine can be run with no converter attached and it would not damage the thrust bearing. Normally the thrust bearing will take any amount of force, forward or rearward, that the engine has as long as everything is machined correctly inside.

If you had a clutch that would be a whole 'nother story.

I had a later standard bore 75-76 block that would wear out one end of the thrust bearing after only a few thousand mile. Some later blocks are known to do that because the machine tools that were used to make them were worn out and the bores weren't exactly perpendicular to the crank causing thrust. I've actually seen a few later blocks doing this. Something like this is usually a slower process which yours wasn't.

I'm thinking a bent rod could do the same thing. Do you have any rod bearings with extra wear to one side? Something like one side of a bearing shell worn down to the copper and the other side not. That could indicate something.

 

There was slight wear on the convertor side of the thrust bearing but the pulley side of the bearing was all copper. None of the rod bearings showed any copper and the wear patterns are consistant for a fresh engine. I'll be sure to post the crank end play after i reassemble the engine.

 

was only one side of the shell worn. as in the block side shell worn on the thrust surface and the cap side not worn. if you don't set the thrust it will wear only 1 shell.

 

I'll have to check when i go to friends house tomorrow. My buddy took the block to a machinist near him to get the block hot tanked and new cam bearings in so its ready to go for assembly. He also took all the bearings and the machinist said they all looked great and i could easily reuse them if i want. I already havenew bearings n the way so ill change them out but thats a good sign i guess. I'll be sure to set the thrust though.

 

I think that block needs to go through some serious inspection and measuring before you start thinking about reassembly. Even if the main saddles checked out ok by one machinist, if it were me I'd be getting a second opinion. Now's the time to go looking for a root cause of the problem, not just putting in new bearings to see what will happen...again.

Devon

 

Got the engine back together and everything is running great! Great oil pressure, no weird noises and so far the only leak ive had is the stupid valve cover gasket which i replaced today. Carb is running REALLY rich at cruise (10) so I know i have some tuning to do but so far she's running great. Up next is a B&M Megashifter.

 

Random issue: I was experiencing a vacuum loss from the brake booster whenever i would push the brake pedal in. I could hear a loud hiss whenever i press the brake pedal is so I got a new booster today and installed it (keep in mind the booster that was on the car was basically new itself). There was no fluid leaking on the seal that i could tell.

Well, the new booster is making the same hiss. Not as loud but still there whenever i press the pedal. Anyone have any ideas?

 

Take a close look at the vacuum hose fitting, it's a check valve...you might find a crack or split. Check the grommet also.

Devon

 

I found the faulty hose; its the one going from the vacuum reservoir to the heater control box. The new booster is working great. Much firmer pedal and feels more stable when i brake if that makes sense.

I also added a B&M oil cooler for the trans. Tomorrow, I'll finish the Megashifter install! Pics will be up tomorrow.

 

Have been following your thread,and I'm SO glad you got everything figured out!:TU:

I hope you enjoy cruising your classic Buick!GL

:beer

Derek

 

Couple quick updates:

I love the Megashifter! The rachet feature is simply amazing. I've done a little more tuning to help lean up the AFR during WOT/cruise but i still have a ways to go. I'm at 72/74 jets and im still seeing 10.5-11.2 @ WOT and around 11.5-12 during light acceleration. Car feels faster than with the 430 did with headers and a hotter cam so I'm pretty excited with the results of the build so far.

I decided to be a guinea pig and ordered Quickfuel's new QFI fuel injection system. As much as i love fiddling with the carb, it's really no fun to do on a daily driver so I'm going back to EFI. I'll probably be one of the first people to install this system since it's SEMA debut back in Sept so I'll be sure to start another thread to document everything.

 

Great stuff getting your engine back up and running.
I would be interested in your QFI thread for sure.
Cheers

 

Well, I guess i spoke too soon on the QFI. When i ordered it, the website told me it would ship out the next day. I then get an email saying its back ordered until the 10th of Apr. So i call up Quickfuel and they say that date is best case due to them waiting for a parts shipment. I decided to cancel my order for now. I may reorder later this summer or go with a different EFI setup but for now I'll keep working with carbs.

On that note, i FINALLY got the car to idle at 800rpms nice and smooth. i did this by backing the idle screw all the way off and then screwed it in until i saw the throttle lever just barely move. I then messed with the secondary opening until i got the car idling. This has provided the smoothest and lowest idle i've yet to achieve. The problem is, when i step on the gas from a stop it immediately bogs and wants to die. Ok, my initial thought is not enough pump shot but i have a 50cc pump with a 40 shooter up front so that should be way more than i need, so my only thought is that the arm needs adjusted to account for the new throttle position (before i had the idle screw down pretty far to get it to idle so im thinking the pump arm was already on the verge of starting its pump). The weird thing is, when i tried to adjust the idle screw o raise the idles the car bogged and wanted to die.
I'll work on it some more today when i get home.