Over the last two years I’ve had the Hydramatic and the back end rebuilt, now it’s been about time to get to the last major source of rattles and knocks. So these last couple of months have seen the 55 in a long spell of down-time having the engine rebuilt. This is a real long story, but the short version is… the engine came out and went to Ian a local rebuilder (I took the advice of shopping around and going with the one who just felt the best – like he’d balance things without me asking). He put in all new bearings, pistons, oil pump, camshaft and followers (I took the advice to get the 261), plus a new crankshaft, the old one was too far gone to take down further, three new valves and one new rod. Meanwhile I sourced up a NOS carb and an electronic distributor, coil and new wires. Get the engine back, hook up the transmission, back in the truck, bolt on all the outside bits, prime the oil pump (the old screwdriver on the electric drill method – just about took it out of my hand when it primed), and set the timing. I turned it over with a piece of wood between two bolts in the pulley, nice and smooth. Wired everything up, took the bolts out of the pulley, fan and radiator on, ignition on, push the starter. Vroom… instant start up, I jump around scaring the dog. Bit of an exhaust blow from the manifold somewhere but just as I’m trying to figure where, it stalls out. It’s run for maybe 20 seconds. Restarts first push again, 12 seconds and stalls out. I figure I’m off with the ignition so I turn it a little – that’s it! I just couldn’t get it to fire after that. Lots of starter, lots of dizzie adjusting and lots of nearly firing, but it didn’t go. Give up for the weekend. Next weekend JK comes around to give me a hand. First thing he says, you gotta get the timing reset. So radiator and fan off, put the bolts in, get the piece of wood and turn. Man is this thing tight! And what about all the noise!! Sounds like everything is scraping against everything else!!! Not at all nice!!!! Anyway, we get the timing reset. Radiator etc back on, push the button. Vroom – 10 seconds stalls out. We have a bit of a think, JK isn’t happy about the tightness and the noise. Well one more go. Vroom again, but just 5 seconds this time. Shut it down says JK in that shut it down forever kinda way. I’m real miserable about this but we decide it has to go back to Ian the builder. Ok, the whole engine out bit again. When I got it to him he’s as puzzled as I am and almost as unhappy “I never get jobs back”. He agrees to strip it down and see what the problem is. JK has money on a cam bearing’s not been set up right I just think everything’s tearing itself apart in there. Two days later I get the ‘phone call. Ian says it’s as dry as a bone, the noise was the pistons running in dry bores. The bearings are OK, he’d put Graphite on them so they’d have been good for some time. I’m thinking well... that pump sure primed, I saw oil through the rockers so I don’t know what. But Ian’s sure, there’s no oil circulating when it’s been run. Then he asks, did you say you put a new distributor on it? Wow! Big light bulb moment!!. The new dizzie was straight out of the box and in, I didn’t check the size. So I check the old and new side by side, they are exactly the same BUT the clamp that holds it to the block on the new one was maybe 3/8 inch further up the shaft. When I’d pushed the distributor home it’d engaged the cam ok, but the clamp was too high to let the tang engage with the oil pump. We tried it in the block as it was and it didn’t turn the oil pump, adjusted the clamp, works fine!!!! So, big lesson here for me that I thought I’d share with you all, when you put a new distributor in, even if it engages with the cam it ain’t necessarily driving the oil pump. And that’s a real bummer. ‘course you all knew that anyway didn’t you?
Many a simple thing has taken out an engine before, friend of mine (no not me honest) left a plastic bag of split pins in a sump before, under the baffle, ran and seemed ok for about 10 miles then they must have shifted and boom, side of the block and a rod hanging out, I left circlips out of small end of one piston on an alcohol drag motor, now that was expensive! both cash and friends. Little things are so easy to miss but they are always the ones who get you. It will probably never happen again but you'll shure as hell check for it every time! ________ ANGELINA JOLIE PICTURES
That really sucks. Don't be too hard on yourself, we've all had that type of thing happen to us at one time or another (at times I'm really amazed I'm still alive). I remind myself I'm still in one piece and "its only money", sigh. Dave.
My worst cost me about $1,600. Didn't put enough grease in the differential before taking a test drive. Locked up and scooted down the highway. Probably not as bad as ruining an alcohol dragster engine but it sure made me feel stupid. I got over it and now my baby is about ready to hit the road running. Hang in there.
Cheer up guys, mate of mine trashed 4 stickshift trannies before he realised that you dont hammer on the outer part of the bearings lol, I had to have a quiet word in his ear when i popped round whilst he was doing the 5th! ________ Medical marijuana
Mechanic's Boo-Boos Well ; I sure am glad I'm so professional I never did any of those ~ oh no . It's far worse when the customer is standing there watching... One that really drove me batty was an older VW engine job , 36HP one , a '59 IIRC , we'd done the whole enchilada and even align-bored the case (rare on a 36HP) and it ran great , we drove it for lunch for a day or two as I like those ones & I wanted it ' Just So ' ~ the customer headed off and after the usual week of no freeway driving , he headed off to work on the then new 134 freeway , it got to the far side of Glendale and stalled out so we towed it in , so sorry , not to worry , we'll fix it up ASAP , but it was _PERFECT_ in the shop , we drove it all over and it purred like new WTH ?? so we gave it back , next morning it stalled out in exactly the same place , this went on for one whole week untill I decided to ride to work with him and guess what it was ? the doggone boring bar has slipped out of spec. ever so slightly and so the mains were just barely tight enough to drag a little bit once it reach full tilt boogie and got fully heated up ~ by the time the tow truck got there , it was cool and had no crank drag ~ that was a real nut buster believe me Or the time we had a restored Euro Spec, 1954 VW Convertible and XXXX installed the $1,800.00 rebuilt tranny on my day off and neglected to fill it with oil..... since I don't sleep much I decided I'd take a nice top down pre-dawn ride with my buddy and sip coffee in the 45° morning whilst crusing 'round San Marino , a rich neighborhood with narrow windy streets , the tranny began to shift stiffly as the assembly lube got slung off ~ I headed back in and was _very_ lucky the tranny wasn't ruined... Snuffy once did a regular PM on a Chevy 250 - 6 powered Toro , one of those BIG gang mowers from 1973 or so , he forgot to re-fill the crankcase after draining it sdo of course if left our shop (where I work now) and got 1/2 way across the freeway bridge in heavy rush hour traffic before shuddering to a stop , siezed beyond repair.... There's plenty more , ALL mechanice have these stories , few will admit them .
Got a thousand tales to tell but remembered this one and it seems appropriate, had a f*rd pick up parts chaser, only couple of years old (in the late 80's this was) had bought it minus the 4 banger (yeah british small block ) so built up a nicely tuned lump and threw it in, banged it off first turn no problems, ran it for app 2-300 miles no prob, and crusing on freeway one night temp guage rose up slowly and gradually over a couple of miles it lost power, stopped in a gas station and it stalled, struggled to re-start, but it did, opened the hood and the header was glowing yellow!!!! not cherry but yellow, aint seen that before or since on a street motor. Timing had shifted out of kilter, re-timed and off I went puzzled. 200 miles or so later happened again! re-timed and hey ho off we went, now this kept happening every 200 miles or so and had to slip out the dizzy sometimes because I couldnt get enough twist on the thing to get the timing back!!!! In the end after going over cam belt and pulleys I ripped the motor out an stripped it bare (really had got to me by then ) fine tooth comb jobby all over every item, spent 2 days re-assembling it being super critical. everything fine so back in it went and sure enough after 200 or so miles, nearly burnt the truck down to the ground with the frustration!! now it was a mission to find what was causing it, marked every item to do with timing and eventually it came down to the.............. Nah, your prob bored by now so wont bother telling you ________ NOUVO
In the late '50s my Dad and I built a go-kart. Horse and a half Briggs and Stratton. Dad was always a stickler for checking the oil. I seldom did. On a Wednesday I'm driving the kart down the street and it starts to loose power. By the time I turn into the driveway at home it dies. I get out, wrap the starter rope (no recoil starter on the beast) around whatever you call the thing you wrap the rope around and give it a pull. It doesn't turn. Locked up tighter than a drum. Pulled the oil fill plug. The oil is WAY low. I filled it up and pushed the kart into the garage. Didn't say anything to my Dad about the seized motor because I wanted to put off the punishment as long as possible. Saturday morning Dad needed to go to his fishing buddy's house 3 blocks away. He pushes the kart out of the garage, checks the oil (now full) and wraps the rope around the gizmo. Meanwhile, I bail out the back of the house and head to my buddy's house down the street. Dad pulls the rope and the Briggs starts right up. Once it had cooled down all was well. I never did tell him about the problem. Dad has been gone for 11 years now. I really miss him.
Well im off to sunny Cannes again sunday so should I tell you............... Ok well, it turned out to be the dizzy!!! after removing numerous times I find the gear is twisting on the shaft!!!!!!!!! its held on by interference fit and an engineers pin through both shaft and gear, pin had sheared and because it was a spring steel split pin the two visible parts in the holes on either side of the gear stayed perfectly in place so nothing looked wrong. but the tight fit of the gear on the shaft was'nt enough especially when hot and it allowed the gear to rotate minute increments till eventually the timing very slowly, and I mean very, went out of bonk and the thing ran retarded, hence the glowing header! oh boy was I so relieved I had found it, called all my mates an went on an on about it, twist to the story................. Was loading an old jaguar engine in the bed from the side when a weld broke on the hoist and the engine trashes the rear passenger corner and rear window of cab and then crashes into the bed side and wrecks that too!! just 3 weeks after the dizzy episode decided to cut my losses and scrap the cursed thing ________ New Mexico Dispensaries
OK, who said you Brits were stuffed shirts? You two are pretty funny! (No offense, Mel). I've never done any of that. NOT!!
Dizzy Hey Brit, would I be way out of line to ask what a "DIZZY" is? Is that kind of like a thing a ma bob? I know what monback, motee, shonuf and things like that are, but a DIZZY. That one gets past my Tex slang.... I'm lost! I do have some whatchmacallets, and thingamajigs in my shop and I might want a DIZZY to go with them...... Just funnin, but I really don't know what it is TB'sD
I'll tell one off on myself. I had a BMW X5 (SUV w/v-8) that had a very bad misfire at idle. I ran all of the appropriate tests and found that the intermediate fingers for the VANOS system were worn. Well I replaced the fingers on it which includes removing both intake cams on both banks. Well to do this you have to take off the timing chain. Well dummy me I did one side at a time. I put Bank one completely back together valve cover and all and then started Bank 2. I did the whole job which took a while and started the truck. It ran like crap, only on four cylinders. Well when this happend I almost crapped myself because it didn't run nearly this bad when starting. I checked everything technical to basic. I worked on this truck for five days straight trying to figure it out. Well I only thought I checked everythng. I guess you have to go back to the basics sometimes and not think technical all of the time. I checked timing. I was 180 degrees out from bank to bank. I felt so stupid but at the same time releived that I didn't just blow up a $10k engine. I guess we all make mistakes sometime.
Thanks for all the stories on this one guys. I was begining to feel a bit better about it anyway as it doesn't look like there's any real damage - just a waste of time. But compared to some of these tales... I feel a whole lot better
