Engine Assembly Continued
Cleaning and blueprinting parts continues, and I came across one issue so far. While cleaning the new top-shelf Howards Cams RaceMax mechanical roller lifters, I was perplexed to find that one of the pairs had a lifter riveted on backwards, which misaligns the two lifters (see the circled photo). I emailed a photo to Howards and asked if they’d send a replacement, and the manager responded that he was dumfounded and has never seen that happen in thirty years working there. A replacement is on the way, but the issue doesn’t instill confidence in me for their quality control.
I wanted to mock up the billet Howards cam, thrust plate, and sprocket to measure endplay. The factory engine uses an eccentric bolted to the front of the sprocket that drives the mechanical fuel pump, but I’m running an electric pump and can ditch the heavier eccentric and special heavy cup washer to shave some rotating mass. One option would be to figure out a way to get the camshaft into someone’s lathe with a large enough throat diameter without damaging the cam and machine off the snout, but that’s a big risk for an expensive cam. Instead, I built a spacer from three hardened machine washers, filed notches into them to index on the woodruff key, and tack-welded them together to form the spacer.
I’m making good progress on cleaning the remaining parts for assembly in the ultrasonic bath and my trusty 5-gallon buckets, although I still need to disassemble the new heads and get those cleaned.
On Saturday, Tom (@Sportsracer) came over and joined Nick (@Nick_H) and me for coffee and donuts, to check out the project, and for a chat (thanks again for the donuts and visit, Tom). After Tom left, Nick and I got to work on the engine. We had to further massage that pesky #2 cam bearing a little more to get the bump stick installed, but we got it done and the cam spinning nicely by hand. From there, we focused on blueprinting the ring-to-piston clearances and file fitting the rings. Our plan for this coming weekend is to get the rotating assembly installed, degree the camshaft, and, if time allows, mock up a cylinder head to get a measurement on push rod length so I can get the custom push rods ordered from Smith Brothers Push Rods.
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@jonUU
@Sportsracer
@Datsun78
@Bob_Alder
@Rich
@Nick_H