Low buck 360 build

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Time for final block and other parts cleaning and paint....

I blasted the living hell out of everything with the pressure washer. Everything super degreased and scrubbed. Lots of cleaning with the engine brushes. Put it all together with a few screws and bolts. That way I didn't have to mask anything off. At least not too much. This engine is going to have a spray rustoleum job. It's cheap and easy :D

Before primer:

IMG_20221004_105748~2.jpg

After primer:

IMG_20221004_115213.jpg


I used the rusty metal primer. Sprayed 4:3:1 paint/ thinner/hardener

I then mixed the red and yellow to make something kinda like orange. It didn't turn out as great as I'd have liked but I'm still quite pleased with it. I think I spent $30 on paint and thinner and another $10 in hardener. And I have lots of paint leftover.
 
Mixed the paint together. Red plus yellow makes orange! Ended up taking more yellow than red to get to the shade that I wanted.

IMG_20221004_142353.jpg


All in all I'm pleased with the outcome. It'll be a quality engine paint job that'll hold up pretty well. It'll look good with a Carter and a chrome air cleaner and some headers :D

IMG_20221004_152711~2.jpg
 
Mean416 said:
Time for final block and other parts cleaning and paint....

I blasted the living hell out of everything with the pressure washer. Everything super degreased and scrubbed. Lots of cleaning with the engine brushes. Put it all together with a few screws and bolts. That way I didn't have to mask anything off. At least not too much. This engine is going to have a spray rustoleum job. It's cheap and easy :D

Before primer:

View attachment 1715995293
After primer:

View attachment 1715995297

I used the rusty metal primer. Sprayed 4:3:1 paint/ thinner/hardener

I then mixed the red and yellow to make something kinda like orange. It didn't turn out as great as I'd have liked but I'm still quite pleased with it. I think I spent $30 on paint and thinner and another $10 in hardener. And I have lots of paint leftover.
Click to expand...

I don't think the crank pulley is going to line up with that water pump pulley you have on there.
 
Maybe a Ford 460 crank for more "stick out".
 
Working on installing the cam bearings and the crank today.
IMG_20221008_125854~2.jpg


Mic'd all the journals and it's in spec on diameters. Remarkably well ground in fact. All mains 2.8000-2.8002.

Clearance with the engine tech bearings is on the loose side. Checked with a dial bore gauge they're between 0.0025-0.0030. on the high side of the spec but I think it'll be fine.
 
Got all the cam bearings installed yesterday, and the crank installed too. Also lapped in the valves and even got one of the heads assembled. Next up I'll start looking at pistons and rods.

Assembling the other head today. Might go ahead and stab in the cam with ample cam goop applied.

IMG_20221008_162546.jpg
 
So I ran into an issue. It seems either my cam or bearings are too tight. It's actually something I noticed when I was checking piston to valve clearance earlier. But those bearings were completely shot. I suspect the cam journals on this cam might be on the large side. Anybody had any experience with this?

I have another cam I can pop in and see if it's any better.
 
Mean416 said:
So I ran into an issue. It seems either my cam or bearings are too tight. It's actually something I noticed when I was checking piston to valve clearance earlier. But those bearings were completely shot. I suspect the cam journals on this cam might be on the large side. Anybody had any experience with this?

I have another cam I can pop in and see if it's any better.
Click to expand...

Scrape the bearings and make it fit.

Use some blueing on the bearings and then slide the cam in and turn it. You‘ll see the high spots. Take them down with a bearing knife.
 
Mean416 said:
Time for final block and other parts cleaning and paint....

I blasted the living hell out of everything with the pressure washer. Everything super degreased and scrubbed. Lots of cleaning with the engine brushes. Put it all together with a few screws and bolts. That way I didn't have to mask anything off. At least not too much. This engine is going to have a spray rustoleum job. It's cheap and easy :D

Before primer:

View attachment 1715995293
After primer:

View attachment 1715995297

I used the rusty metal primer. Sprayed 4:3:1 paint/ thinner/hardener

I then mixed the red and yellow to make something kinda like orange. It didn't turn out as great as I'd have liked but I'm still quite pleased with it. I think I spent $30 on paint and thinner and another $10 in hardener. And I have lots of paint leftover.
Click to expand...
What thinner and hardener did you use? Looks great!
 
Rat Bastid said:
Scrape the bearings and make it fit.

Use some blueing on the bearings and then slide the cam in and turn it. You‘ll see the high spots. Take them down with a bearing knife.
Click to expand...
Yeah I suspect I'll have to do this. The engine tech bearings were awfully tight on a couple journals though. I ordered some clevite.
 
Rat Bastid said:
Scrape the bearings and make it fit.

Use some blueing on the bearings and then slide the cam in and turn it. You‘ll see the high spots. Take them down with a bearing knife.
Click to expand...
I actually have found a cam, locally, that has had the diagonal slots cut in the journals to help with this issue. I'm going to give that a try.
 
Rat Bastid said:
Scrape the bearings and make it fit.

Use some blueing on the bearings and then slide the cam in and turn it. You‘ll see the high spots. Take them down with a bearing knife.
Click to expand...
So I did get a bearing scraper knife. Played around a bit with the enginetech bearings. The finish after scraping though. Looks pretty rough. Just wondering if this would work? After a fair bit of scraping they finally fit over the journals decently. The feel is ok. Just wondering how tolerant this would be. I worry the bearings will just get gouged up. I'm hoping the clevite bearings will have better out of the box fit. These engine tech were very tight!
 
The cut camshaft will work better than a bearing knife. Much more uniform. It might be dated and archaic, but it works well.
 
Mean416 said:
So I did get a bearing scraper knife. Played around a bit with the enginetech bearings. The finish after scraping though. Looks pretty rough. Just wondering if this would work? After a fair bit of scraping they finally fit over the journals decently. The feel is ok. Just wondering how tolerant this would be. I worry the bearings will just get gouged up. I'm hoping the clevite bearings will have better out of the box fit. These engine tech were very tight!
Click to expand...

If your knife is nice and sharp you can get a very nice finish but you have to just take small, smooth cuts and take your time.

Or you can use the cam with the grooves if you have one.
 
Rat Bastid said:
If your knife is nice and sharp you can get a very nice finish but you have to just take small, smooth cuts and take your time.

Or you can use the cam with the grooves if you have one.
Click to expand...
Here's some shots from my playing with the cheap bearings. They needed a lot of cutting to properly clear.

IMG_20221012_070336.jpg


IMG_20221012_070327.jpg
 
This is what I have found over the last few eng builds. Cam brg size is all over the place.
 
Bewy said:
This is what I have found over the last few eng builds. Cam brg size is all over the place.
Click to expand...
I've "found" that ever since the late 70s. lol
 
Last engine I built for my 318 , the new cam bearings were fitted but I could not get the camshaft in. After much looking I decided it was the second from the back that was tight. I tried to use a brake hone but that failed so after a while I found a piece of pipe the required size, happened to be my alloy floor racing jack handle and taped some wet and dry sandpaper around it and just put that into the bearing and kept turning it while lubing with WD40 until the camshaft fitted without binding. It worked for me!
 
Ok, so I spent the day pretty much, working on this engine. First thing, I had to clearance the cam bearings. I ended up installing clevite cam bearings, hoping they'd be better than the engine tech ones. They weren't. So I purchased a used 5.9 magnum cam locally. I slotted it at 30 deg on a staggered pattern.

IMG_20221014_075050.jpg


IMG_20221014_080701.jpg


IMG_20221014_080756.jpg


This took awhile to work. My bearings were very tight and I had to tap the cam in with a hammer, turn a few turns, tap again, repeat. Took awhile. But this method works.

Next up I installed the crank, cam and timing chain, now it all spins nice and smooth.

IMG_20221014_224739.jpg


Next stop, pistons. These are 4.030 pistons and rings. They were put together and tossed in a crate. Got dirty and rusty. So I cleaned them up.

IMG_20221014_142413.jpg


IMG_20221014_155057.jpg


Once all was cleaned I installed the bearings and torqued for a clearance check. All rods were between 0.0015 and 0.0020 so pretty good. I'll match the small rods with the smaller crank journals.

IMG_20221014_224645.jpg


IMG_20221014_080720.jpg
 
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