Crank it up

The 78 crank was installed this week into the 87 engine. Kinda a fun project, hardly even got dirty. First I had to wash the machining grease off the journals and clean out the oil passages. I put a light coat of oil on the journals to keep the rust away, its amazing how you can actually watch rust form after washing the machined and polished surfaces. The Crank was ground .010 under to clean it up. This process was all about clean clean clean. The crank caps and block surfaces that take the new bearings had to be spotless. After finally getting the bearings in the right locations (I kept putting the thrust bearing in the wrong location despite reading the manual over and over again... it just didn't look right in the # 3 position.) Ajay and I carefully placed the crank into the block. A little dab of oil was placed on each main bearing journal then plasti gauge was placed. The crank caps were then torqued down to 80 foot pounds in three steps, I used 40, 60 and 80, starting from the middle and working out to the ends. Then you take it all apart again, measure the width of the crushed plasti gauge to check the clearance. The plasti gauge residu was scraped off with my finger nail, and then wiped off with varisol. Journals were cleaned off again and assembly grease was smeared over all mating surfaces. Before putting the crank back in for the final time, the main oil seal was put in place and RTV smeared over the points where the cap half of the seal mates to the block half. All bolts are then torqued down to 80 again, except the thrust bearing cap. This one gets 12 foot pounds while checking thrust clearance with a pry bar and dial indicator. The clearance all worked out good, the main bearings were all 0.015 and the thrust was +-0.005.

I also test fitted the head, intake and exhaust manifolds... I couldn't resist. looks some pretty!