Hey guys, I had to replace my piston rings, valve seals but I decided to disassemble the whole engine and rebuild it. I'm glad I did because one of my cam bearings was destroyed and crud threw out the oil. I want to do as much of the work myself but I'm a little unsure about some of the wear I found. My crankshaft has some discolouration on the flywheel and harmonic balancer ends. Inspecting the connecting rods I found some marks underneath the bearings. Everything was measured and within the factory specs and I didn't find any deep gouging or scratches. Are these fine to be reused, should I replace them or get them machined? Is this normal wear on a fifty-year-old engine?
The discolored cap i.d.'s and crank snout are just oxidation. No biggy. Crank journals look like they will polish up very nicely. Get a new gear & chainset.
I took the bearing out when I disassembled the block with the plan of replacing all of them. I'm glad to hear that. I noticed my timing chain felt loose with the original gears and was going to swap them.
You can't buy the good asbestos rear main seals anymore, your only options are graphite rope or neoprene. Do the neoprene front and rear seals.
Cam bearings are shot. Everything else looks fine, wear wise. Replace timing set, rod and main bearings. Check backside of main and rod bearings to make sure they're standard size, they should say M400 std.
I would get the ta backgrooved cam bearing for front, and drill out oil pickup passage to 1/2 inch at least, get a 76-80 pickup screen (5/8) . Now would be a good time to bump compression up and/or zero deck. Block. Change freeze plugs .
I was reading a book about Buick engine building and was planning on following that for the oil modifications. For compression, I was debating getting new pistons to get it up to the high compression specs. Money kind of deterred me from doing that.
Uem 1734 pistons are cheap. 3.0 v6 flat top. not the best choice but the will give about 9.6 compression and cheap. Come in sets of 6 , need to buy 2 extra. . Can be found on eBay. Badger number 496. Or mill block .030. Which should piston.030 below deck. For about 8.6 actual compression.
I finally got a tool for my cam bearings and after removing the front ones I found this. I'm freaking out now am I screwed?
The way the oiling hole goes up like that. I wasn't sure if that's normal or it was ground out by a bearing.
There's a little casting flash that could be cleaned up but it isn't anything a burr wouldn't clean up. That hole runs in such a way that it grazes the other hole.
Polish the knurled area on the crank if using a neoprene seal. Remove casting flash in lifter valley.
Hey, again everyone. I installed new cam bearings the other day and got the camshaft put back in. It's a little hard to start turning by hand but once it gets started it turns freely. Is this anything that should be a concern?
Probably not. Cam bearings sometimes need to be dressed by shop . Basically to size to the cam . If you don’t need sizing and it’s not too loose(can cause low oil pressure). Then you should be ok.
