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Time for an overhaul...


thebeebe5

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am I missing something or is the seat too wide ?       Years ago I did a 201 and made the seats wider than specs.  It gave no trouble but I have avoided doing that on subsequent jobs.

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3 hours ago, dpollo said:

am I missing something or is the seat too wide ?       Years ago I did a 201 and made the seats wider than specs.  It gave no trouble but I have avoided doing that on subsequent jobs.

Maybe you did this one?!?  :huh:

These exhaust seats are very wide, but they are what was installed in the deck so....  If we had replaced the seats initially they wouldn't have been this wide unless the factory seat was this wide to begin with?  They're good, hard seats though.

Long as they stay put I'll be happy. 

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as I said, mine gave no trouble and I did that job in 1977.  So far as I know it is still running.

Seems to me I used  exhaust valves from a 25 inch block.  

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Today's progress report:

Spent the morning adjusting my old Ford's carburetor on the wide band O2 sensor so I could get it past emissions.  That left the afternoon to wrap up the valve job.  Got all the  exhaust seats done and lapped to show about a 0.070" contact patch.  Glad they are done.  Those inserts were tough on the grinding stones.... 

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The intakes were far easier.  Got roughed in with a 30° and a 55° 

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And then came back with the 45° to make the actual seat.  Once the seat was as wide as the valve I came back in with the 55° to narrow the contact down to roughly 0.070".

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Then all the intakes got a 35° back cut leaving 0.070" of the actual 45° seat remaining.

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Final look at the intakes drying after their back cut.  Think I'm done for the day....  not much else to do until the pistons get done (again...) and the crank comes back from the grinder. 

 

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On 9/3/2017 at 12:54 PM, thebeebe5 said:

Quick update...  

Started to fill out a JE custom piston order form, but still need some bits of info like rod length (not until the resize is done).  Also wondering if Cometic can make up a thin copper head  gasket rather than the 0.075" gasket that is in the FelPro  gasket set I have.  Shooting for a quench of 0.035-0.040".  If I cannot get a thinner head  gasket I'll have the pistons made a bit taller to squeeze that quench a bit.

Was wondering why did you need/want to install custom pistons?  No stock oversize exists? How much did that cost? :o

 

 

 

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On 10/14/2017 at 7:04 PM, thebeebe5 said:

Finished valve guide honing.  Intakes at about 1.4 mil, exhaust at about 1.8 mil.  I'm not the greatest at the honing process, but I'm learning. One exhaust came in at 2mil.  One intake came in at 1.6mil.   Suits me.  Should run just fine.

Hate to ask dumb questions but why not replace the valve guides instead of reaming and lining? About to have my engine overhauled by a shop, and I'm trying to learn what to look for.

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On 10/29/2017 at 4:28 AM, Bryan said:

Hate to ask dumb questions but why not replace the valve guides instead of reaming and lining? About to have my engine overhauled by a shop, and I'm trying to learn what to look for.

No dumb questions Bryan. B)

Firstly, the pistons.  I wanted a modern ring pack rather than the old, thick 4 ring set.  The slight reduction in rotational friction can't hurt.   Second, I didn't want to overbore any more than neccessary.  Third, I wanted to increase compression without milling the head a lot.   With a 0.070"-0.075" head gasket I ordered the pistons about 0.035" taller than the deck, so they'll stick out a bit and give me a bump in static CR.  Think my calculation came in about 7.2:1.   And I'll still maintain a quench of 0.035"-0.040" which is ideal.  Total cost from JE should be around $100/ea.  We are using leftover pins from a Ford modular (no cost to me) and Total Seal rings in an off-the-shelf size so their cost was minimal.   

Regarding the liners, a box of 100 liners costs the shop $70.   I only need 12.   So for less than $10 and WAY less time and effort than drilling out old guides and reinstalling new ones I had the guides ready to go.  The fellow I bought the valves from offered me a set of NOS guides for $80.  Just didn't make monetary sense.   If we had done guides we would have used a modern silicone-bronze guide rather than the old steel ones.  Less $ than the NOS, but no less work.  

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On 10/29/2017 at 7:29 AM, thebeebe5 said:

SNIP:

Firstly, the pistons.  I wanted a modern ring pack rather than the old, thick 4 ring set.  The slight reduction in rotational friction can't hurt.   Second, I didn't want to overbore any more than neccessary.  Third, I wanted to increase compression without milling the head a lot.   With a 0.070"-0.075" head gasket I ordered the pistons about 0.035" taller than the deck, so they'll stick out a bit and give me a bump in static CR.  Think my calculation came in about 7.2:1.   And I'll still maintain a quench of 0.035"-0.040" which is ideal.  Total cost from JE should be around $100/ea.  We are using leftover pins from a Ford modular (no cost to me) and Total Seal rings in an off-the-shelf size so their cost was minimal.   

SNIP

I totally agree with this approach.  If I ever have to go through my 230, I will install a set of 218 (longer) rods and have custom 3 ring pistons made.  Cost isn't that much higher, you get the benefits of a 3 ring piston, longer rod, and ability to choose your total height.  With the piston speeds of these long stroke engines, the benefits are real....

I would expect your compression to be closer to 8:1 with your pistons, but that's just a guess.  I am not sure if the stock pistons even come to the top of the deck?

Adam

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On 10/5/2017 at 6:13 PM, thebeebe5 said:

Well, my pistons arrived from JE....  Anyone see a problem compared to my custom piston order form above...?  :angry:

They also sent pins and billed me for them, and I specifically marked no pins.....  

These will be going back tomorrow, but Pat won't be able to final hone the cylinders until he has pistons in hand.

It's always something.....  <_<

Got a replacement first main bearing from Bernbaum.  They sent a single NOS which will work fine, but when torqued up that main came in at 0.0005" smaller than the other three mains. No problem at all,  We just asked the crank grinder to grind main journal No 1 a half a mil smaller than the other three to maintain a consistent 0.002" oil clearance for every main.   This is precisely the reason to order bearings first and find out what you need your journals ground to for proper oil relief. 

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1.58 mm equals 1/16" .  They must have got to thinking too much and figured 1.5 mm. I was wondering about the mm/inches mix. Do piston rings come like that?

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On 7/15/2017 at 7:22 PM, thebeebe5 said:

So, progress report.  Last week not much done.  Other things to do at the shop, and the block hasn't come back from the second dip yet.  

This week, resurfaced the valve adjusters.  Some were dished as much as 0.050" where the valve stem made contact.   Should help with valve adjustments...  

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How was the fit in the block and what did the faces riding on the camshaft and lobes look like?  Out of different posts on overhaul seems nobody takes pics of the camshaft or talks about the bearings and thrust plate.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Bryan said:

1.58 mm equals 1/16" .  They must have got to thinking too much and figured 1.5 mm. I was wondering about the mm/inches mix. Do piston rings come like that?

Yeah, but that 0.0003 inch difference is a lot for a ring. 

Not sure why those were the rings we chose.  Brian went to Total Seal to see what they could get him for a 3.150" piston and he came back with those.  Might simply have been that's what they had on hand and so that's what we told JE.

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Got pistons.   They sure look boring..... :mellow:

Compared to all the other cool, short skirt, graphite coated, domed with valve reliefs etc, etc. that get ordered here.  Still, they look good enough to me.  

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And @Bryan, the rings we have are because that's what Total Seal had on hand for a modern ring application.

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Was wondering what the final price was. Earlier you said about $ 100 a piston. I got a rough quote from Ross over the phone and they were stating about $ 850 for 6.  I wanted to go the same route to use modern rings.. Was the original piston compression height 2.0 or 1.9xxsomething for the 201?   You probably know the quench area only covers 1/2 of the piston top, rest is flat.  What will be your final clearance in this area?  Really interested in how yours turns out.   Besides higher reliability, modern rings reduces internal friction. One article on a different engine mentioned a difference between 14 ft/lbs and 34 ft/lbs of torque to turn the crank over with a T-wrench just from ring difference.

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On 11/5/2017 at 5:27 AM, Bryan said:

Was wondering what the final price was. Earlier you said about $ 100 a piston. I got a rough quote from Ross over the phone and they were stating about $ 850 for 6.  I wanted to go the same route to use modern rings.. Was the original piston compression height 2.0 or 1.9xxsomething for the 201?   You probably know the quench area only covers 1/2 of the piston top, rest is flat.  What will be your final clearance in this area?  Really interested in how yours turns out.   Besides higher reliability, modern rings reduces internal friction. One article on a different engine mentioned a difference between 14 ft/lbs and 34 ft/lbs of torque to turn the crank over with a T-wrench just from ring difference.

Bryan,  don't know the final price yet.  Recall I get shop pricing and Brian said they'd run $100-$120 each.  Not sure what the cost would be if a supplier sold them OTC. 

Re: original compression height, I'll have to refer to my notes which I don't have ATM.   I'll post it later. Would be an easy measurement with an old piston in hand, but I don't have that handy either. But compression plus rod length and 1/2 stroke may not equal deck height, and I can determine how far the pistons were in the hole by doing that simple math.   I'm doubtful they were at zero deck.  

Quench is the flat portion of the piston's association with the flat portion of the head.  I tried to trace the cylinder location on my head for illustration.  The "X" is the quench area.

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 Modern engine building techniques have found a reduction of detonation with a quench of approximately 0.035"-0.040".   Where the "bread slice" starts is the cylinder head chamber.  As I chose flat top pistons for simplicity the clearance will simply be whatever the height of the chamber is at any given point above that portion of the piston.  We discussed having a domed piston made to increase compression, but it seemed like a whole lot of sugar for a dime....  7.2:1 SCR should be just fine, and will allow me the option of adding some fun in the near future if I desire. B) 

Regarding your torque quotes on the ring change, this is likely the build you were refering to:

http://blog.jepistons.com/are-thinner-rings-worth-more-power

While I don't expect that kind of gain, I do like the idea of decreasing the force required to spin the motor.   Also, recall this motor will be going from 4 large cast rings to three thin modern alloy ones.  I'm interested to see how it turns out myself....  

The box JE sent says the final weight for each piston (unverified by me so far...) is. 

 

Wait for it.

 

 

wait for it.....

 

 

426 grams.   Guess they figured might as well keep it all MOPAR!! 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some progress the last two weeks. Have had some shop projects which kept me a little busy while waiting for the crankshaft to be ground.  As the pistons arrived Pat was able to get the final cylinder hone done. IIRC he said final clearance is 0.0035".  Block is now ready for deburring of the deck (so I don't catch a ring during assembly), and then I'll be ready to start mock up once the crank is here.   Also, will likely look into a way to plumb for full flow oil filtration.  

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I got the carb knocked down and found some shaft wear and a few missing parts.  Not sure how it ran missing at least one of those little bearings....  Found a cheap second carb on ebay for a nice price, and it's turned out to be a real gem; almost no wear at all. It was missing some linkage, but between the two I should come up with a nice, tight unit.  Took the time yesterday to soda blast the soft parts.  It's a major task to switch the blast cab from glass to soda, with lots of cleaning between each to avoid leftover glass damage to parts.  Did a few aluminum heads while set up for soda and then did the swap back to glass.  Long process, back's tired this morning, but another one of those tasks that had to be done. Glad that's over. 

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Yesterday's efforts.  

Some time went into helping reinstall the carburetor on the boss' FJ60, but while I wasn't doing that I was deburring cylinders,  main bearing saddle edges, drilling for a full flow oil set up and thoroughly cleaning the block.  Once all the nooks, crannies and oil passages were scrubbed out with brushes it went into the parts washer for a 30min auto cycle hot wash and then got thoroughly blown dry. 

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Then it got bagged and parked in the assembly room  fun stuff starts next week!!!

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Got the crankshaft back from the grinder.   They hit the specs on all journals within 0.0003", so pretty happy there. Will have oil clearance of 0.0018"-0.0021". Need to have the main machinist look at the crank though.  Journal 6 didn't completely clean up.  There's a slight blemish mid journal.   I'll trust his opinion on weather to run it or get a 20 under bearing for that rod and have it re-turned.  

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Also, got the oiling mod complete for full flow filter.  Will be installing 3/8" AN fittings and probably mounting the adapter right to the oil pan rail behind the oil pump boss keeping things nice and compact.  

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My first crankshaft balance today.   Should be a learning experience...!

 

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