Yesterday I called
Atlantic and had them order a set
of correct piston rings for my ABA build. They arrived today, so I went and picked them up.
These are Goetze instead of Mahle. Both are superb quality, but at least the instruction
sheet with the Goetze rings has better grammar.
I was planning on getting the crankshaft and pistons/rods installed tonight, so I started by
opening my package of new main bearings:
That little white packet contains the 4 thrust bearings that get installed on either side of
the #3 main crankshaft journal.
I had all of the main bearing caps bagged and tagged, so I just cleaned them up, popped all
of the new main bearing shells into place in the block and in the caps, applied plenty of
assembly lube,
carefully placed the crankshaft into place, and worked the caps into
place on top of their respective main journals. According to the Bentley manual, there are
2 types of main bolts used. The early type are shouldered and get torqued to 48 ft*lb. The
later type are threaded all the way up to the head, and get torqued to 48 ft*lb plus another
quarter of a turn (90 degrees). I had the later type. The crankshaft is the original from
this engine block (220,000 miles!), and I had it worked over by a reputable machine shop in
our area (R&L engines). They didn't have to grind the journals for oversized bearings because
they were still well within spec. It was a simple radius and polish job. I got the crankshaft
back well packaged, oiled, and looking brand new. It only cost $65. Here is that beauty
of a crank installed:
I didn't get any of the pistons installed because I don't have a ring compressor. Well,
that's not entirely true. I just don't have one that will fit 82.5mm pistons. So my next
ABA rebuild related post will be me making a ring compressor and (hopefully) installing
the pistons and attaching the connecting rods to the crankshaft.
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