Virgin block, but she's been around the block once or twice Standard bore. I'm gonna grab new rings anyway, might as well. Along with normal engine rebuild stuff. Bearings, gaskets, cam bearings, etc. I have a basic understanding of how to use a dial bore gauge, but yeah there are quite a few video tutorials and wouldn't hurt to watch over again. I don't have them fancy micrometers but I do have a digital set of calipers. I think that'd be close enough, I'm not going for .00001 accuracy here. If it burns a quart every 5k, that'll be fine. This is just an engine I came across on the forum here to shove in my regal until I could get some AL heads and really beef up my smogger '76 motor. I don't expect it to be in there for more than a year or two, but I want to do what I can the right way.
The number on the caliper is somewhat irrelevant. What's important is the variance in the cylinder and the piston clearance. Even fancy mics need periodic certification and calibration, as well as a trained touch. It probably won't be an oil burner. Good for you for assembling a temporary runner!
Tore the thing completely apart, the crank spins like butter. I can grab the flexplate and wing it, and it'll spin about 2 1/2 times. Also, with just the short block it took 40lbs of torque according to my beam 1/2 drive torque wrench to turn the whole assembly (with pistons and rods in). The bores all look really, really good for what it is. There's next to no ridge on any of the cylinders. I think I really lucked out with this one. Clean up some lifter galley ugliness (flashing), hone to my liking, then have it hot tanked and go from there. I think that's a plan and a half right there.
The bearings all looked really good as well, but most of the rod bearings had a thin scar going down the center of the bearings, like when it was re done back in the day a piece of grit or something got stuck in there. Crank looks fine, albeit dirty. For safety's sake I'm gonna get new bearings, just reporting my findings. Plus the front cam bearing is worn, so there's been metal in the motor at some point. Better safe than sorry. And this time, I WONT forget the oil galley plugs. Ah, the things you screw up on your first engine build.
If you hone that thing and then have it "hot tanked" then you may loose ALL of your cross hatch marks that you worked so hard to get to your liking. Not very many shops "hot tank" engine blocks or any kind of engine parts any more, to hard to get rid of the toxic waste after that process. The new and improved process is to cook the block that is mounted in a cage so it can rotate like a pig being barbequed on a rotisserie. Then from there it is shot blasted with steel shot in the same cage to remove the soot from oven and the ash from burning the oil and grit off of it. This shot blasting process is aggressive enough to remove any honed in cross hatch marks that are still in the cylinders. From the shot blaster it goes to the shaker to remove the excess shot that may have stuck to the block, done and out it comes. The process that will NOT remove the cross hatch marks is the jet washer machine that spins the parts in it while spraying hot soapy water, so even though it uses hot soapy water I really wouldn't call it a "hot tank". An old fashion "hot tank" on the other hand, the parts are submerged in a heated corrosive solvent to chemically melt off the grease and dirt which would still remove any cross hatch from the cylinder walls. So either have the machine shop hone the block after it is "hot tanked" whichever process they use because they will jet wash all the oil from honing the block after they are done. After this process you will need to clean the honing grit out of the block before you install your pistons. I like to use paper towel with brake clean sprayed on the towel and rub the cylinders until a new paper towel does NOT change color with the brake clean on it when the cylinder is scrubbed out with the towel. If you still want to hone the block yourself you should either skip having the block "hot tanked" or do it afterwards and clean the block again yourself. GL Derek
They do have the vat of chemicals and whatnot, don't think they have the cooker thing. I can hone it afterwards, don't really matter to me. Was just gonna try to get it all done at once. Oh well. I was also thinking of making a cardboard plug to put in the bottom of the cylinders to prevent me from going down too far with the hone and hopefully it'll catch some, if not most of the grit. I'm set on honing it myself. I want to learn how to do it so, well so I know how. That's why I build qjets, bushings, well plugs and all. And why I build engines, I wanted to know how.
You'll never catch the grit, but you could degrease it in a tub of lye as good as any hot tank and rinse as you would need to after the shop 'boils it' for you anyways. It works as good as my cleaning machine.
