T/A aluminum block

Discussion in 'Race 400/430/455' started by Tom Righter, Dec 22, 2018.

  1. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    I don’t know if this is been posted before however I think it deserves mentioning.especially with people who have purchased blocks early on as I have you need to make sure that The lifter galley from one lifter bore to the next is connected, another words when they were drilled the drill bit walked towards the center of the block and create a situation where is you have to go in and grind a channel to connect one lifter bore to the other otherwise You’ll have issues with oil flow. There should be a thread created with any issues with the block to avoid any problems for anyone who has Purchased this block so we can all have success with it. I am not bashing this block in anyway however people need to know about any problems to avoid costly failures.
     
  2. hugger

    hugger Well-Known Member

    Thanks for pointing this out Tom,....good looking out
     
  3. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    No problem ,I hate to see anybody have failures.
     
  4. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    Is Mike aware of this? Are they going to change it on the next run?
     
  5. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    He is aware of it .I expressed to him that there should be a post or a letter sent to the people who had purchased the block .He Assured me that each block that was going out was personally inspected by him however,I have one of the ones that had The problem,and I did correct it, wasn’t really happy about taking a grinder to expensive piece,it still beats a factory block though
     
  6. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    If I'm not mistaken if you drove out to a bigger lifter bore doesn't this change the oil hole?
     
  7. GS Kubisch

    GS Kubisch THE "CUT-UP" BUICK

    Depending on the lifter selection, this may well not be a problem.
     
  8. Julian

    Julian Well-Known Member

    What type of 904 lifter design is the problem? Inquiring minds want to know.
     
  9. GS Kubisch

    GS Kubisch THE "CUT-UP" BUICK

    My experience...My Jesel lifters that were fit to properly honed bores.

    The exhaust side needed a little "scratch" from the oil band to the feed hole. Same technique that people have been doing for decades.
     
    Julian likes this.
  10. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    That would be correct it’s not a problem if you bore to a larger lifter and sleeve it you would be modifying the oil channel anyway with the sleeve,I was just referring to the .842 size And the lifter bores not being connected to one another
     
  11. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    Guys this has nothing to do with what type of lifter you run there was a problem in the machining process it was not caught and some of the earlier blocks made it out the door.I’m simply trying to put it out there to save somebody failures.it would be great if we could all pass along things that we discovered ,and what we did to solve the problem. Tom
     
  12. Todd69GS

    Todd69GS Silver Level contributor

    Thanks for the heads up Tom.
     
  13. buicksstage1

    buicksstage1 Well-Known Member

    I believe this all started because of me and my findings. Its most likely just the first run and its easy to ID these blocks. I will post some pictures. Anything after that first batch is ok.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
    2dtrak and Julian like this.
  14. slimfromnz

    slimfromnz Kiwi Abroad

    First batch, 3-31?
     
  15. buicksstage1

    buicksstage1 Well-Known Member

    This is with .390 lobe lift. Both corners are exposing the oil passage causing a leak X 16 lifters.
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
  16. buicksstage1

    buicksstage1 Well-Known Member

    This is with .530 lobe lift.
     

    Attached Files:

  17. buicksstage1

    buicksstage1 Well-Known Member

    The way to Identify these early blocks that have the issue with the lower lifter feeds is: the 2 lifter oil passages next to the cam tunnel are lower then the 3rd plug to the left side see attached pictures and all 3 plugs in the front of the block are large vs 1 large and 2 small plugs in the late model blocks. The later blocks has small 2 plugs next to the cam tunnel and the 3rd plug to the left side is large like the early style blocks and all 3 plugs line up because the lifter oil passages were raised. There is no need to panic, there is only a half dozen of these early blocks out there, and I believe the owners all know about this now. It is a easy fix by installing bushings. This is part of building engines, no stone should be unturned
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Feb 7, 2019
    300sbb_overkill likes this.
  18. slimfromnz

    slimfromnz Kiwi Abroad

    Just checked mine from pics and they are the smaller plugs. Thanks Chris
     
  19. Tom Righter

    Tom Righter Well-Known Member

    This is great info. This is exactly what I was trying to do not to bash the T/a block but to get the information out there to resolve any problems.I checked mine it is a later one. Bushing them while I will agree is an easy fix, it’s not cheap! I also have a lot of time in fitting the thrust bearing due to the block being wide where the bearing fits and it would actually spread the bearing. I carefully removed a small amount of material on the block where the thrust fits with some 600 grit paper on a Perfectly flat block and some WD-40 luckily being aluminum it doesn’t take much to remove material.
     
    slimfromnz likes this.
  20. slimfromnz

    slimfromnz Kiwi Abroad

    I do remember my engine guy telling me about the effort required to get the 3" ford main bearings to work. I believe it was on the radius of the Crower crank and tight to turn by hand
     

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