The first thing Weckman
made me do was to thoroughly clean the block
using soap, water, cleaning solvent and some
compressed air. I spent about an hour cleaning
and scrubbing the block and all of the oiling
passages. You can't spend too much time cleaning
the block and getting as much dirt and metal
out of the block before you assemble, especially
if the block has recently had any machining
done to it. You'll save yourself lots of time
and money in the long and short run.
You can't spend too much time cleaning the
block and getting as much dirt and metal out
of it as you can before you assemble. Especially
if the block has recently had any machining
done to it. You'll save yourself lots of time
and money in the long and short run.
Once the block was cleaned it was time to install
the rotating assembly. The Ohio Crankshaft rotating
assembly was clean when we opened the box and
we just had to wipe it down. The crank bolted
right in and while I was doing that job Bill
was doing the most difficult and precise work:
putting the spiral locks into the piston to
hold the wrist pins in and end-gapping the rings.
There are no shortcuts here unless you have
some trick tools; we didn't. Bill did these
jobs using a steel pick to install the spiral
locks and a body grinder and feeler gauges to
end-gap the rings. Anyone could possibly do
this, but it is tedious, time consuming and
you really have to be careful about what you
are doing, especially when grinding the rings.
One little slip and the ring is trashed. I tried
to do this job but after one futile attempt
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Weckman
quickly took the tools away from me, apparently
afraid that I would injure myself on the grinder
or worse and, more probably, screw the job up.
Once we got all of the parts prepped it was
just a matter of installing and bolting everything
together. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, it should
have been if it weren't for the old Burkster
factor.
Once we had the rotating assembly bolted together,
we started installing the cam and valve train.
The springs that came on our Dart heads were
more than enough for our cam. We didn't have
to check all of the valve geometry or even use
a degree wheel to install the cam. I swear to
you that Weckman just pushed the cam into the
short block! I asked him if we should get a
degree wheel and check it and he said, "What
for? I've installed hundreds of these cams like
this and they've all worked fine." That
was good enough for me.
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