Welding man
Well-known Member
- Location
- West Virginia
I am on here looking almost every day, not posting too often, but I am amazed at how so many engines get rebuilt by people that don't even have a manual, a good torque wrench or basic engine building tools and they stick them together and they run. I have been building engines for a lot of years and try harder than anyone I know to never have a comeback. Now for my story. Back in April customer brought in a rough 6610 with dual power, didn't run ,dual power didn't work and wanted it completely overhauled. We pulled the engine, stripped it down and sent it to the machine shop. It had already been bored and sleeved and the sleeves were worn badly. Head was junk, Crank had to be reground, rods reconditioned. Machinist did his thing, new sleeves bored back to standard, new valves, springs, seats guides etc. Reground crank. Ready to order parts. We could not find a set of standard pistons and rings anywhere. I am a dealer for half a dozen suppliers and my machinist is too. We finally found a set of .030. Set it back up and bored the new sleeves .030.While all this was going on we rebuilt the dual power and the steering sector. We put it on the stand and start assembly. New pistons, rings. recon rods and reground crank, new cam and lifters, the works. Plastiguage everything, everything is going good, Install pistons and check piston protrusion and then this is where it goes from bad to worse. Spec says .011 to .023 above block. Block had been decked before and who knows how much. We have ..050. Disaster, pistons will hit head. Call machinist, we find .075 head gasket. Do the math, might work, put head on roll it through by hand and nothing hits. Finish rebuild, start her up runs but very noisy in valve train. Readjust valves, run on dyno, still too noisy. Sounds like spark knock. Back timing off a few degrees, helps but still too noisy. Pull head back off, Pistons kissing head. Next move, pull front axle, oil pan, balancer remove pistons and rods, disassemble and machine .035 off the tops of the pistons and reassemble. You get rich working on these.