[johnta1]

You and Jack Benny?









(if you know who or watched that is, probably over 39 )

[gtofreek]

OK, you got me, as I do know who Jack Benny is. As well as Jackie Gleason!

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by gtofreek

Speaking of rings:

Never twist rings onto the piston. This put a permanent twist in the ring, and can crack a Moly face. Instead, use a ring expander. They can be had for under $10 in most cases. They sell them at Sears, as well as most auto parts stores.

X 2! This drives me insane when I correct people doing this and their response is "It's just a street engine". Additionally, I don't like to use engine oil on cylinder walls. I've seen too many glaze over using engine oil. I like MMO (Marvel Mystery Oil) or ATF. Both lubricate but will burn off before glazing occurs.

[PurelyGTO68]

Originally Posted by DOC

My basic oil pump routine is clean, verify clearances, verify bottom plate is flat, de-burr edges of gears and change the relief ball to 9/16 and shim the spring as well. I put 1 small tack weld to hold the pickup on. its a tight fit to begin with but this is added insurance.

I have found 3 different M54 oil pumps with bottom plates that were not perfect flat, gears had slight burrs on the edges. and pretty dirty.

The below pics are a new plate that came off an unused pump. 2nd is after a few seconds on 400 grit on a piece of glass. 3rd is showing the machine grooves on the housing flat surface. you can see how not flat they are and the machine grooves. there is no gasket here so it is imperative that the 2 surfaces are flat and dont leak. I sand them flat and then polish with 1500 grit. it will be like a mirror. I sand just enough to make sure it is clean and flat. need to make sure you still have clearance after touching up the oil pump housing., I do very little sanding here. when all done it gets cleaned 3 times.

Fantastic. Thanks for the advice. I will make sure and check the new pump before it gets installed.

[Me Notyou]

Originally Posted by DOC

My basic oil pump routine is clean, verify clearances, verify bottom plate is flat, de-burr edges of gears and change the relief ball to 9/16 and shim the spring as well. I put 1 small tack weld to hold the pickup on. its a tight fit to begin with but this is added insurance.

I have found 3 different M54 oil pumps with bottom plates that were not perfect flat, gears had slight burrs on the edges. and pretty dirty.

The below pics are a new plate that came off an unused pump. 2nd is after a few seconds on 400 grit on a piece of glass. 3rd is showing the machine grooves on the housing flat surface. you can see how not flat they are and the machine grooves. there is no gasket here so it is imperative that the 2 surfaces are flat and dont leak. I sand them flat and then polish with 1500 grit. it will be like a mirror. I sand just enough to make sure it is clean and flat. need to make sure you still have clearance after touching up the oil pump housing., I do very little sanding here. when all done it gets cleaned 3 times.

Is this what I've heard referenced as blueprinting the oilpump or is that a more involved process ?

[DOC]

Yes... That is blueprinting. making sure every part , edge and surface is perfect.

[Schurkey]

Originally Posted by DOC

My basic oil pump routine is clean, verify clearances, verify bottom plate is flat, de-burr edges of gears

Yup, I agree.

Originally Posted by DOC

and change the relief ball to 9/16 and shim the spring as well.

What does that accomplish? What is the OEM relief ball size? Does shimming the spring CHANGE the relief pressure, or does it merely compensate for a smaller ball?

Originally Posted by DOC

I put 1 small tack weld to hold the pickup on. its a tight fit to begin with but this is added insurance.

I never understood the concept of welding steel to cast iron. Welding iron is...difficult.

Brazing or silver-soldering makes more sense to me.

[gtofreek]

The stock pump relief ball is 5/8". The passage that it is in is about .015" larger, leaving only about .0075" in any spot around the ball for clearance. That makes it very easy for a piece of dirt to get stuck in between them and jam the relief ball. Then you have little to no oil pressure. The 9/16" ball allows for more room for dirt to pass by, thus making it less likely to stick. The ball seat, obviously is designed for a 5/8" ball, but it's OD, and ID is small enough where the 9/16" ball still seem to work fine. I've done this a few times.

[DOC]

Originally Posted by Schurkey

Yup, I agree.


What does that accomplish? What is the OEM relief ball size? Does shimming the spring CHANGE the relief pressure, or does it merely compensate for a smaller ball?



I never understood the concept of welding steel to cast iron. Welding iron is...difficult.

Brazing or silver-soldering makes more sense to me.

The original ball size is 5/8". There is discussion that it is very easy for a small piece of trash to get hung up on the seat and ball since there is not much room for flow. the smaller ball allows for flow and if a small piece of trash makes it through somehow it will not hold open the pressure relief ball causing a drop in oil pressure. I was taught that a .060 washer behind the ball makes up for the smaller ball.

Your are right. for me, I just hit it with the mig and it makes a small goober. never had an issue either way. It's not under any tension/stress, the idea is for it to not fall out. with vibration.

[77 TRASHCAN]

Obviously, these things apply to any make.
It's really hard to communicate to those inexperienced in doing this how important cleanliness is. Just because the machine shop thoroughly cleaned the block and heads in a hot tank, does not mean everything is as clean as it needs to be...

Moroso makes a brush kit with essentially all the brushes you would likely need to clean a block.
All the oil passages need to be cleaned. After all the crud and slime are cleaned out of an engine. Soap and water needs to used the get the last of the dirt/debris out of the pores of the block. You should actually be able to eat off of it!

Before you get serious with the final cleaning the block or heads, you need to look the block and heads over to de-burr them where needed. Especially a 557 block!

[Will]

A 1/8" hardened washer will raise the pressure about 10 PSI on a 60 PSI pump.

[mgarblik]

Great advice. If you are doing a home build, this can get a bit tricky if you don't have close access to a pressure washer. If you have access to a pressure washer and a HOT water source, you are in great shape. Dry compressed air is also needed. Use the brushes in a bucket with Tide liquid or equivalent, clean all the passages with the detergent, then pressure wash the heck out of the block with the hottest water you can. Then immediately blow dry the entire block with clean, dry air. As soon as the block is dry, go through the cylinders with WD-40 on a lint free rag. The cylinders should rust immediately if really clean so you want to take care of that ASAP. If you don't have all this equipment but still want to build your own engine. put the block into a thick plastic construction bag and take it to a self-serve car wash. Use the hot water and your brushes to clean the best you can and rinse the detergent off. Then get out your rags and wipe cylinders with WD 40. Put it in another CLEAN bag and get home as fast as you can and dry it with compressed air. There will be some rust formed on the deck and main this way, but it should come off if you get to it right away. You must do all this AFTER it comes to you "CLEAN" from the machine shop. The only possible exception would be a shop that has 2 or more pressure washers. At my school we have one for intermediate washing and one for final wash for assembly only and it is padlocked. A pressure wash cabinet is no more than a large industrial dishwasher. It recirculates whatever crap is in the holding tank. It only uses clean water when the tank is cleaned, which at the school is once a year. Many machine shops go 2-3 years without cleaning and their "final clean" is hot, gritty, dirty water being sprayed on your block. That's really not good enough. You can't get the parts too clean.

Originally Posted by 77 TRASHCAN

Obviously, these things apply to any make.
It's really hard to communicate to those inexperienced in doing this how important cleanliness is. Just because the machine shop thoroughly cleaned the block and heads in a hot tank, does not mean everything is as clean as it needs to be...

Moroso makes a brush kit with essentially all the brushes you would likely need to clean a block.
All the oil passages need to be cleaned. After all the crud and slime are cleaned out of an engine. Soap and water needs to used the get the last of the dirt/debris out of the pores of the block. You should actually be able to eat off of it!

Before you get serious with the final cleaning the block or heads, you need to look the block and heads over to de-burr them where needed. Especially a 557 block!

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

Great advice. If you are doing a home build, this can get a bit tricky if you don't have close access to a pressure washer. If you have access to a pressure washer and a HOT water source, you are in great shape. Dry compressed air is also needed. Use the brushes in a bucket with Tide liquid or equivalent, clean all the passages with the detergent, then pressure wash the heck out of the block with the hottest water you can. Then immediately blow dry the entire block with clean, dry air. As soon as the block is dry, go through the cylinders with WD-40 on a lint free rag. The cylinders should rust immediately if really clean so you want to take care of that ASAP. If you don't have all this equipment but still want to build your own engine. put the block into a thick plastic construction bag and take it to a self-serve car wash. Use the hot water and your brushes to clean the best you can and rinse the detergent off. Then get out your rags and wipe cylinders with WD 40. Put it in another CLEAN bag and get home as fast as you can and dry it with compressed air. There will be some rust formed on the deck and main this way, but it should come off if you get to it right away. You must do all this AFTER it comes to you "CLEAN" from the machine shop. The only possible exception would be a shop that has 2 or more pressure washers. At my school we have one for intermediate washing and one for final wash for assembly only and it is padlocked. A pressure wash cabinet is no more than a large industrial dishwasher. It recirculates whatever crap is in the holding tank. It only uses clean water when the tank is cleaned, which at the school is once a year. Many machine shops go 2-3 years without cleaning and their "final clean" is hot, gritty, dirty water being sprayed on your block. That's really not good enough. You can't get the parts too clean.

Great post, Mike. Our final wash tank in machining was cleaned every2 weeks. The final wash tank in the assembly area was cleaned every week.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by hurryinhoosier62

Great post, Mike. Our final wash tank in machining was cleaned every2 weeks. The final wash tank in the assembly area was cleaned every week.

That is very impressive and NOT the norm. Most shops do not see their cleaning equipment as money making and do not clean that often. At my school, the once a year cleaning was the equivalent of 25-30 engines a year. That's the maximum that would typically be built each year. The reason for the padlock on the final jet clean was people were constantly bringing in horrible, dirty crap that had no business even being put in a jet cleaner. They would even sneak this crap in over the weekends and just ruin the water and scum up the tank. We were able to put a stop to it that way. It takes time and money to keep the washers clean. Every week or two is amazing.

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

That is very impressive and NOT the norm. Most shops do not see their cleaning equipment as money making and do not clean that often. At my school, the once a year cleaning was the equivalent of 25-30 engines a year. That's the maximum that would typically be built each year. The reason for the padlock on the final jet clean was people were constantly bringing in horrible, dirty crap that had no business even being put in a jet cleaner. They would even sneak this crap in over the weekends and just ruin the water and scum up the tank. We were able to put a stop to it that way. It takes time and money to keep the washers clean. Every week or two is amazing.

QC used to perform patch tests to check the cleanliness of the blocks. If you've cleaned a rifle or pistol, you're familiar with the cleaning patches we used. QC would select a block, run a clean patch through a selected oil gallery and log the results.

[gtofreek]

Most blocks clean up fine with gallery brushes, but every now and then I get one that is so bad, the brushes won't get all the crud out, so we have a 2 foot long piece of 1/4 steel dowel rod that we cut a slit in one end, and we stick a piece of folded sand paper in it. I use a piece roughly twice the length of the diameter of the hole[80 grit]. Then I spin it in our head porting cable die grinder, but a drill would work just fine. Then I flap the oil galleries until there is no more crud build-up in them. Lacquer thinner works good to help break the crud up. I just pour a little in the gallery, then flap away before it evaporates. A variety of small flex hones are a worth while investment for cleaning the lifter feed holes, the cam bearing, and main bearing feed holes, and the crankshaft oil holes. Dip them in lacquer thinner, and hone away. A 1/4"[6mm-7mm], and a 5/16" should be all you would need. It really cleans them up nice, then you can brush them afterwards to finish cleaning. No matter how clean you think you have it, you still need to clean the cylinders out with ATF on a clean paper towel, or TP, and wipe them down until they come out clean everytime. After you file fit your rings, always wipe the rings down with lacquer thinner or brake clean.

Do not install any friction part without lubrication! The following parts all need lubrication of some kind:
Pushrod tips
Rocker arm balls, or needle bearings, and pushrod seat in rocker
Timing chain, and cam thrust plate
Rod, main, and cam bearings
Piston skirts, cylinder walls, rings, and piston pins
Lifters
Cam
Oil pump
Rear seal, and front seal
Valve springs
Pushrod to guide plate
Fuel pump eccentric
Fuel pump arm
Distributor gear, and bottom of distributor where oil pump drive rod inserts
Underside of bolt heads that need to be torqued, and threads.
Valve tips

I probably forgot something, but this is a good start. I've seen assembled engines come in that didn't even have lube on the cam or lifters, let alone the pushrods or most of the other stuff I listed, so some of these things seem to get forgotten by someone who may not do this everyday.

[Brentco]

Originally Posted by johnta1

Here is an Assembly Check by Lee on PY:

Assembly Check List

This assembly checklist is a great resource. For future users, however, note that the main bearings on page 3 have the thrust bearing in the wrong place: “ Front 2 thrust 4 Rear.” It should be “Front 2 3 thrust Rear.”