A Tight Spot When Rotating Crank

The Butcher was always known as a few bolts shy of a short block.

It was an exciting week as I got to finally torque on some bolts. I am minutes away from "shortblock". Here are the week's stories on micrometers, plastigauge, and more.

A mysterious 'tight' spot had we worried. When rotating the crank by hand, everything was silky smooth until the dreaded bind. I decided to call in the experts. Young Samurai dropped by in his ultra cool Robnell. We talked cobra's until our lips fell off. I gave Samurai the ratchet and he slowly began to turn "there it is!" he said. I tried to convince him we were both imagining it "ah, its nothing, maybe some belly button lint in the bearing". Ryo continued to spin "there it is again!". We could definitely feel something. Was it enough to delay the build? I wasn't sure. I decided to sleep on it and then re-crank all the main caps in the morning. I figured I could try a different cranking order. Corvette Ansel showed up over breakfast. I gave him the ratchet and he began to turn "yep, there it is...it is like 2-3 catch points" said Ansel. The Butcher replied "are you sure, I think it is nothing, just some extra lube slowing things down."

Later that day, I tried the re-torquing of the main caps in every pattern known to man. I ever removed the crank, degreased the bearings, made sure they were installed correctly, re-greased with a different grease and re-torqued. This time the bind was way worse. I could now hear it and feel it with more authority. I had re-torqued everything 4 times and was tired of degreasing. Things were looking bleak. Ford Short track power stated "there should be no tight spots when rotating the crank by hand....if there is, it means you have a bent crank or a warped block". Aye Carrumba! It was time again to take some time and think. I was just mad in the garage, and I would soon reach the point where that overdose of gamma radiator turns calm and mild mannered andy, into the tool destroying 'Butcher'!

I decided to reread the 331 build up on the FordMuscle site. The answer jumped out of the page at me. Check the crankshaft end play. It should be 0.004 - 0.008. If it is too tight, sand the thrust bearing a little.

Ah ha! I had checked crank endplay early on, but not with everything tight. I ran to the garage and got out the tool. I began to check endplay. 0.001 Eeek! The next day I decided to unbolt the maincaps yet again and take some measurements. I checked the crank journal #3 and it was 1.1350" and I checked bolt sides of the main bearing, the thrust bearing #3 and that rascal was 1.1331". That ain't bigger than a spec of fly shit. No wonder the darn crank is binding! That was my hope at this point. That certainly would explain things.

Do not try this at home. These are butcher techniques and have not been approved by the association of high horsepower, small block, engine builders. I make this stuff up. I have used a little wetdry paper, three times in the build. Each time I had at least one expert tell me it was ok (but could not find reference in books).

Crankshaft Scratched From Micrometer - a little 1500
Remember I was turning way hard on the mike, and scratched the crank. Well I was able to use some wet dry 1500, and remove all surface scratches with a gentle shoe polishing technique. I first experimented on old wrecked camshafts to determine the severity of the grit. The 1500 is almost like baby butt fur. It worked well.

New Rod Was Extra Beefy - a little 220 and 400 cleaned up with 600 and 1500
When the engine spun bearing #5 on the big rod end, this over heated the rod and stretched it beyond repair. I ordered a new rod. This rod was a touch wider than all the rest and sunk my rod to rod clearance on pair 1-5 to close to 0.001 when all the others were .002. I decided I wanted to remove 4 thousandth from rod 5. I could of ran down to the machine shop, but instead opted to try at home since it was a very small amount. Remember rods are not symmetrical, and so you can only remove material from the side that touched the other rod. A nascar engine builder friend of a friend ok'd this technique. I had a flat surface (the piece of plexi I used from the head chamber measuring). I placed 1500 wet on this and began to move the rod in a circular manner. 3 hours later I had removed 0.00000001 from the surface and decided to step it up. I ended up using 600 and 400 the most and finishing up with higher grits for smoothness. You want to rub the rod on the paper to try and get as flat a removal as possible. After about an hour, I had removed the 3 to 4 thousandths that I wanted to and the rod was removal pattern was even since I continued to check it with a mic.

Thrust Bearing Was Fat - a touch of 600 and 400
Once again I turned to the fine high grit wet paper. I again rubbed the bearing on the flat paper, rather than the opposite, to get the flattest possible wear. Bearings are soft so I could see material being removed. I had the bearing installed on the main cap metal for stability. Lots of circles and measuring. I did both sides the same way. The edges were coming off faster than the middle so I did use a small flat board to get a little more off the mid sections. I went until I felt I measured what would equate to .004 -.005 crank end play. I cleaned everything off one more time. Re greased everything one more time. Re installed and torqued. I am happy to announce that the technique worked like a charm and the crank how spins easily, with no high or bind points. Wooo Hooo! =)

I finished gapping the new rings. It was kind of odd since this time Jegs sent a very old box of speed pro rings. Old enough that the instructions were completely different. Old school gapping I believe was like a 0.018 top and a 0.016 middle. New wave gapping as recommended by SpeedPro has the second ring with a larger gap that the top ring. 0.018 and a 0.022. I played with the ring installer tool but found that I quickly developed a hand method that was faster and also stretched the rings a lot less.

I had the ARP ring cylinder tool which worked very well. I would start the piston in the air, getting all the rings in the chamber. I would lube everything with a good squirting of oil. Once in the ARP chamber, the bottom of the piston sits out enough that you can line it up perfectly over the bore. Then tap tap tap with a wooden handle while reaching under the block to safely guide the rod onto the crank journal with no scratches. Then bolt it up. There are the pistons in their good old homes.

I needed my pistons installed to get their depth in the bore, which is used to calculate compression, which can be altered a little with head gasket choices. A lot of stock or crate engines have the piston slightly down the bore. Mine were 0.02 down the bore at top dead center. You can measure this with a simple dial gauge on a U shaped stand which is available at Jegs or Summit. You can also measure with the crafty bore depth gauge. I miscalculated when I bought this and got a 4" model. Well that was dumb since it is too small and so I cannot measure in the center and have to cheat off to the side a bit since at 4.04, it falls in.

With this measurement, I was able to use online compression calculator and the dyno2000 calculator to get some compression choices. Let me warn everyone, if you use 5 java compression calculators online, you will get 5 different compression ratios. Most of them are too simplistic and do not ask for gasket bore and gasket thickness, instead they just assume stock gaskets. Using the KB calc...

cylinder head volume 65.5
piston head volume 4
gasket thickness .040
gasket bore 4.10
cylinder bore 4.04
deck clearance .020
stroke 3.75

10.568:1 and my head volume is probably closer to 66 and so that is very close to 10.5. Gasket range from 030 to 050 in thickness AND then can have bore diameters from 4.06 to 4.12.

From McMaster, I ordered the one of he largest sockets in my collection and also one of the smallest. I needed a 1/4" base 1/4" 12 star and a 3/8" base 1.5". What for you might be asking? I needed the tiny one for ARP head screws for the cam bearing, and I needed the big honking one for the Canton sandwich plate. Here is the picture which shows what they will be used on.

Studs are going in every nook and cranny I can think of. This is the on deck box of ARP studs. Remember last week I joked about using Gapoxi? Well guess what? I open the new Edelbrock catalog, and there is a 2 part plasterciene epoxy! I bet it is the exact same material, just marketed under the Edelbrock name. Check at the bottom of this page....there it is! A/B Epoxy Putty.

I got the new Harbor Freight catalog and saw a deal I could not pass up. HLVP guns for $49. On the web they are $69. My old Devilbiss Finishline had seen better days. It had painted 2.5 cars and was coated in paint and the critical plastic nose threads had cracked. Into the trash. At the time the gun was a low - mid range gun for $150. Well these damn $49 guns don't look half bad. I figure if I get one good job out of them, they paid for themselves. They are heavier than the FinishLine, but they are all very solid aluminum AND the pressure gauge came with them. If they work half as good as they feel, then they were a good buy for the occasional garage painting man.

I test mounted the oil pump and was surprised at just how little clearance these things have. I checked with a feeler gauge and there was .001. I decided to dremel a little material off and get that to .002. The stud girdle one nut also was causing interference. This is really a lot of engine building...checking for interference and problems...like above...a tight thrust bearing, and here, an oil pump that was hitting the #1 maincap stud bolt. A little dremelling and it was good to go. I also had concerns that the oil pickup was touching the stud girdle. Once I tightened it all up, I found out it was free and clear and there was no interference. One thing I forgot to do was install the driveshaft. I had the whole unit gasketed and bolted up when I found out that the oil pump shaft had to go in first. When I removed the pump, I could see by the impression in the block gasket goop that the holes did not exactly line up. It was time for a touch more dremelling. This actually turned into a nightmare since the metal filings went into the pump and made a grinding sound. I took the whole unit apart afterwards and washed it in soap and water and regreased and it was back to new. If you dremel it at all, I say to take it apart and wash and then regrease and put it back together when you are done to avoid the nasty grit game.

Speaking of stud girdles once again, here are some thoughts. Many stroker companies sell stud girdle kits like mine and they are not too bad. Two of the trickest girdles I've found are the ones by FordRacing and Canton. If I was to do it again, I would be looking at those two products. The canton model is new for the 351w and is part number 21-062 and is machined so there is no need for bushing or spacer washers. Sweet.

The timing belt has been a bit of a challenge since they are made for racers who must own their own personal machine shops =) First, they make them for electric water pumps which have small legs and will clear the pulley. A regular water pump has no clearance. Next they sell a spacer it for the regular pumps. I tried it but it was for the older shaped pumps and did not fit my pump bolt pattern. Off to Jorge I went and he is machining various spacers. This too adds some challenge since now all your pulleys go out of alignment...move the waterpump outward and you have to move the crank pulley out too. AND I forgot I have to move the alternator out as well. Aye Carrumba. That will require a new spacer tube that I might already have from the first round of spacer tubes. It is the pulley alignment game. Other than that, the pulleys and backing plate are all fitting up very well. I had to do one cam bearing alteration and in this picture it looks massive! Eeek! In real life, I had to file a small .015 - .020 groove in the front half of cam bearing 1 which supplies oil to the back of the danny stuff. Check out this new Winston Cup Ford SB prototype at Jesel...way too cool and the spacing looks great for water.

s all downhill from here. Once gaskets arrive, on go the heads. Then I will delve into the black art of "timing wheels". The Butcher is not one to use a sissy boy 9" timing wheel. Even the larger 11" comp wheel is not too his liking. Instead, he purchased the MEGA 18" Moroso, which can be viewed 38 miles away. I will reveal the Moroso when next we chat.