Bearing up

So, with new main bearings and big end shells purchased I could actually start building the engine - hurragh!

One thing I have learned though is that if something doesn't feel right, stop, consult, think and make sure all is well. I had to do this a number of times as various components have to go on in the right order and they all have to be there!

Putting the crankshaft main bearing shells in seemed to go OK after I found one of the thrust washers has been spun back out whilst rotating the crank - no wonder it all tightened up. So, fixed that and then proceeded to lightly nip up all the main bearing bolts at a low torque wrench setting to start with.

I proceeded by tightening number 3 up first and rotating the crank to make sure it was OK. With this OK I moved on to number 2 (I always start from the centre and work out as instructed by my brother too many years ago) but this time the crank wouldn't budge - and this was with only 40 lbs/ft instead off 55.

On removal of the end cap I found one of the brand new Vandervell main bearing shells had been squashed as I obviously hadn't seated it right. I was not happy but at least it can be fixed now, even if it does mean buying a replacement and waiting until I can work on the engine again.

Numbers 1 & 4 went on all OK though.

Then all six pistons went in with new big end bearings after I had honed the bores and there was no problems with the crank rotating.

The clutch cover and flywheel have now been removed so that next time the build up can continue.

Interesting to see where metal has been removed from the piston connecting rods to balance them all out aswell as on the crankshaft itself.

Here's a picture of the bottom end build up in process with the missing end cap.

2000 engine assembly

Now started re-assembly of the original engine from PMW.

Here's a picture of the block and then the crank etc lightened and balanced. If you look closely it's quite clear where a fair bit of metal has been removed from the crankshaft!

Next step was to partially assemble the crank into the block using the old shells etc so that we could measure the end float with the exisiting thrust washers. The result was that actually end float was bang in the middle of the factory tolerances.

Then we took it apart again, gave the block a thorough cleaning and panted it - that's a shock given my normal way of going about things!

During the coming week I'll order the main and big end bearings so that reassembly can start properly next weekend.