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Ah, so true. Will know better once I get it cleaned up and the rest of the pistons out.
My 38 Plymouth project
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Are those pistons still readily available Mike? Hopefully the rest look good, and you can just replace one to match the busted one, and be back in business. Amazing it could be that bad and not scar the cylinder walls.
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The pistons are still available and they sell singles and sets. I don't know Mario, the cylinder looks better than what I had expected. I will finish pulling the rest of the pistons tomorrow or Friday and will have a better idea on which direction to go. I did find a machine shop willing to do the machine work if needed. Keeping fingers crossed.
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I finally got the block to the machine shop today. Good News, cyclinders are straight and he recommended a hone and clean up. I need to find someone that can polish my crankshaft as he does not have that tooling. But, everything went better than I had hoped!
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In the old days shops had a big bow device that held croakus cloth and was weighted. It was attached to a lathe head so the cloth could line up with various throws or mains. Then the crank was turned at slow speed with the polishing cloth bow pivoted down on a crank throw. A certain time limit was observed, and then moved to each throw, or main. Pretty low tech, but the polishing cloth really didn't remove any metal, just gave it a mirror surface.
Bet nobody uses that old setup anymore, just because it's not high tech now. The guy who built my 283 for my '55 gasser used this method back in 1970.
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Wow glad you caught it in time.
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My buddy Gary still uses that Machine.
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When you find a 80 year old machinist still working with the right tools!
![Motor vehicle Automotive tire Rolling Railway Gas]()
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There ya go! Likely a true expert in his trade who knows how to use it too!
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Very cool Mike
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Lucky for me most of the parts I needed for the rebuild were in stock and available to ship. Shipping was another story all together. Got the last piece of the puzzle this week, the oil pump. The old one had some nicks in it, so did not want to reuse it, just in case. Spun up the oil drive with a drill and have oil pressure, so now to finish buttoning up the top end and get it back in the car.
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Great to hear it's coming back together Mike!
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Ditto
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It takes a lot of time to assemble and fit an engine, but I've always enjoyed this part of the build. I've only had one engine assembled for me, and that was the Austin's replacement engine. The engine builder told me he would blueprint an balance it, and warranty the short block if I let him assemble it also. So I figured I'd let him do it as the price was very good too.
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I agree with you Vall, I like putting mechanical stuff together. Most of us that have hot rods or gassers do. I didn't have an option on this one for someone else to put together for me, sometimes I wish I had. Getting all the parts together and finding all the right answers seem harder now than it used to be. I know there is a lot of info on the web, but you really have to sift through it to find a few gems to use. It's not like it used to be, when you were able to go down to the local Chev, Ford or Mopar garage/shop and talk to a real expert in the field. Ah well, is that the reason they call it Nostalgia drag racing?
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A lot of guys today tell me we can find any answer or info we want if we Google it! But from what I've seen on internet answers we can also get pretty well confused if we didn't already know, as there's plenty of stuff found on the internet that makes me chuckle.
I was at a car show yesterday and taking with a guy who was walking around looking at cars. We got on the topic of SBC engines, and he told me how he was an old racer who'd built a lot of drag cars. Then he asked me what a 301 SBC was? I was really caught off guard that a guy my age, who said he'd drag raced and built a lot of cars would ask that question. I explained how they got to a 301 with a 327 and a 283 crank, and he told me, "I guess I wasn't paying attention when the guys put engines together?"
So I guess his idea of building lots of cars was writing checks.
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