|
|
Posted by Chriscase on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 19:38:37 :
In Reply to: Re: engine break-in... posted by copey on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 13:21:55 :
The biggest quality variation is in pistons. Use only TRWs or hi-eutectic. Mic them all, cheapies vary so much you'll need to bore for each one.
Double check all the machining as you assemble, mic everything, Mic the new inserts, make sure they aren't mismatched. Plastigauge a main and a rod. Check ring end gap.
Run a tap through every hole.
And you might think I'm strange, but wash the whole thing with clothes detergent. Including the oil galleys, where you need several sizes of bore brushes. Machining is gritty, dirty work. You need all those grits out of there. Blow out the water, and get instant redness. Detergent is an oxidizer. Spay it down with WD-40, or some other more oily spray. Don't worry about the redness, it beats the heck out of grits.
Oil liberally as assemling. Usually takes me 1 1/2 qts of 30wt. Moly lube is good on lifter/cam faces, but I use only motor oil everywhere else. We've all shut down hot engines, while the oil is thin as water. It runs out of the oil galleys, and every start up us an oil-starved engine, yet we don't worry about using grease each time, do we?
I learned all this the hard way- doing warranty work to fix screw ups by the machine shop's assemblers. Grit scratched inserts, burned inserts caused by using Lubriplate as assembly lube, rings a size too small. I had no problems once I started doing my own assembly. But I've only kept track of two engines, my bro-in-laws Chevy 350 has 300,000 on the bottom end, and my own F-250 with the 428 CJ that had 150,000 when I sold it off.
Follow Ups: