Thursday, my latest shipment of parts arrived from the USA. Small things mostly like temperature senders, oil pressure sender, thermostats, several springs, assorted bolt sets, bendix spring & associated hardware, and some minor electrical pieces including temp cross over wires, etc, etc...
Got the engine off my trolley and placed it on the stand I bought a couple of weeks ago. I had initially considered it to be sitting too high, and had concerns about stability, but it has worked out well. Any lower and I would quickly brew a bad back! Still remains stable too. Incidentally, the engine doesn't really hang down like it looks in the photo. Just an artifact of the angle I took photo from.
First actual engine work was to hone the cylinder walls. They only got 7 passes of the 320 grit hone, over 4-5 seconds. As a fellow member suggested, I did some practice runs on the old engine block. Had some difficulty in finding a bore which was not rusted to the extent that it may have damaged the honing tool. After a number of test runs I cleaned the hone well and moved onto the good block. For lubrication I used light air tool oil. Had a good quantity on hand, and would submerge the honing tool into the oil and pull it out while it revolved, attached to the cordless drill. I'm pleased with the finished result. Cleanup was interesting. Very strange feeling to soap up such an expensive piece of bare metal, no matter what the reason, it just doesn't feel right. Came up nicely, and after a thorough drying, copious amounts of oil added, again.
Next job was to lap the remaining valves. That was fairly quick, so I installed the cam temporarily and kicked off with the adjustment of lifters. Decision between solid and adjustable lifters was made for me, because the cam I am using has been ground for.......'street' use.
Adjusting the Johnson lifters is a PIG of a job. I am minus several portions of skin as a testament to that fact. No swear words were uttered, although they were thought! Even with the correct lifter adjustment tools, and a 7/16 open ended spanner I ground considerably thinner than originally intended, still a painfully slow process. After I had taken the above photo, I did one more set to completion. That brought the total finished so far to 5 sets. I hope to christ they don't re-adjust themselves during operation. Not aware of any instances of this occuring, and certainly don't wish to be the first. Thought about putting a dob of threadlocker on each. Don't know that would be a good idea. Does that stuff still work in the heat of an engines internals?
I do believe I am getting quicker / better at doing the lifter adjusting, so the remaining 12 sets shouldn't take anywhere near the time I piddled away this afternoon.
