low oil pressure after engine rebuild

[BearCreek Majors]

Keith, you’ve found the Holy Grail!!!!
Does Mr. Falconer have an e-mail address for those of us that are on the other side of the pond?

Ok now I don’t need to start a feud and I apologize to Keith for hijacking his thread, but I do want anyone that’s looking at the bottom side of their block and scratching their head to understand the how’s and why’s.
Repairing a block that has spun a main bearing by shaving the main caps and doing a line bore is fine on conventional gasoline engines, however not the prefer method for the Fordsons. The issue is not the center alignment side to side in the block but the distance from the center of the crank to the top of the block.
Let’s say the machinist removed .010 from each cap, reinstalled them, and then bored .010 out of the assembled block and caps to get the holes back to the original I.D.. Assuming this will clean up the majority of the bad bearing surface area, and with new inserts having the stock O.D., and correctly sized for the crank everything can go together and everybody is happy…..but, when the machinist bored .010 out of the egg shaped holes he presumably removed .005 from the caps and .005 from the block, thus the crankshaft is now .005 closer to the head. This is no big deal on a gasoline engine and normally preferred as it slightly increases the compression ratio, the end result being more horse power. But on the Major diesels this can be bad, considering the timing needs to be changed depending on the thickness of the head gasket, and not to mention as Dave pointed out, having the pistons hit the head and valves would make for a bad day.
There is a reason Ford did it this way. Would I have one of my Major engines line bored by the “shave some off the caps and bore it method”….. Sure I would if it only needed to have a few thousands removed to clean it up, but if it needed .030, .040, or more removed to clean it up…….Your probably going to have a bad day.

Pat

[Grani]

Just a thought that came to my mind, how about grinding the connectingrods aswell then the piston stays at the same hight at the top.

[BearCreek Majors]

OK now we are getting in over our heads but Grani brings up a good point that I hadn’t even thought of.

Let’s go back to Joe Hotrods gasoline motor again, now Joe is just smart enough to know there are a few basic rules if within reason and properly utilized will make his three fity cheby go faster, more air and fuel, a cam with more lift and duration, more compression, more engine displacement, low restriction exhaust, etc,etc,etc. A common trick to get more displacement is to “stroke” the crankshaft. The crank grinder will grind the connecting rod throws undersize but take all the material off the bottom side of the journal moving the center of the journal outward and increasing the stroke of the crankshaft thus giving Joe more displacement and horse power. Unfortunately for Joe it won’t matter because some Ford will kick his but into last week anyway.

Now let’s look again at the Fordson block at Dandy Andy’s Machine Shop and Creamery, and this time let’s say Andy has shaved .020 of the caps and line bored .020 to get the holes to the correct size thus moving the crank up .010. Now Andy has been around for a while and besides building cream separators he also is darned good at stroking crankshafts, so he grids your rod journals down to take a .010 under rod bearing but he takes all the material off of the top of the journal. This will destroke your brand new crank .010 and get the piston to head clearance back to where God had intended it to be. Yes you will lose a little displacement in your cylinders but what the heck, now you can still use you Major to haul a couple of cans of milk over to Dandy Andy’s to pay yer bill, have a few beers, and console Joe bout getting his doors blown off by some black and yellow streak with three exhaust pipes.

And more importantly…Keith, can Mr. Falconer get his hands on cam bearings as well?

Pat

[YorkshireDextaMan]

OK now we are getting in over our heads but Grani brings up a good point that I hadn’t even thought of.

Let’s go back to Joe Hotrods gasoline motor again, now Joe is just smart enough to know there are a few basic rules if within reason and properly utilized will make his three fity cheby go faster, more air and fuel, a cam with more lift and duration, more compression, more engine displacement, low restriction exhaust, etc,etc,etc. A common trick to get more displacement is to “stroke” the crankshaft. The crank grinder will grind the connecting rod throws undersize but take all the material off the bottom side of the journal moving the center of the journal outward and increasing the stroke of the crankshaft thus giving Joe more displacement and horse power. Unfortunately for Joe it won’t matter because some Ford will kick his but into last week anyway.

Now let’s look again at the Fordson block at Dandy Andy’s Machine Shop and Creamery, and this time let’s say Andy has shaved .020 of the caps and line bored .020 to get the holes to the correct size thus moving the crank up .010. Now Andy has been around for a while and besides building cream separators he also is darned good at stroking crankshafts, so he grids your rod journals down to take a .010 under rod bearing but he takes all the material off of the top of the journal. This will destroke your brand new crank .010 and get the piston to head clearance back to where God had intended it to be. Yes you will lose a little displacement in your cylinders but what the heck, now you can still use you Major to haul a couple of cans of milk over to Dandy Andy’s to pay yer bill, have a few beers, and console Joe bout getting his doors blown off by some black and yellow streak with three exhaust pipes.

And more importantly…Keith, can Mr. Falconer get his hands on cam bearings as well?

Pat

Fella's sorry to butt in here but i wonder if i've missed something.
If the crank is lifted in any way upwards, surely that would put the crank and timeing gear clearance out. and the clutch spigot, 010. 020. whatever, it's more precise than that.
If the piston crown protruds too far you just mill the right clearance off the top of the piston.

[Grani]

To mill the right clearance off the top of the piston is doing the same thing but does not make the engine better in any other way. To grind the connecting rods you get them as good as new at the same time. The timing gear clearence is affected just by half of the new hight because of the angle to the camshaft. The gearbox inputshaft is newer going to know the difference.

[BearCreek Majors]

I’ve been so busy flapping my jaws that we have missed the obvious as YorkshireDextaMan has pointed out.
Back in Joe HotRods tree fity cheby he has a timing chain driving his camshaft and moving the crank up in the block a little is no big deal as the chain can compensate for this. In the Major engine at Dandy Andy’s moving the crank up .010 would most likely mash the timing gears together so tight that they would self destruct faster than you could say “what was that black and yellow streak with three exhaust pipes”
Knowing what we have discovered today would I have Dandy Andy do a shave and line bore on my engine…….No. Sorry Andy I guess your stuck stroking tree fity chebys and building cream separators.

Again, Ford Line bored and used oversize bearings for a good reason.

Pat

[Dandy Dave]

I’ve been so busy flapping my jaws that we have missed the obvious as YorkshireDextaMan has pointed out.
Back in Joe HotRods tree fity cheby he has a timing chain driving his camshaft and moving the crank up in the block a little is no big deal as the chain can compensate for this. In the Major engine at Dandy Andy’s moving the crank up .010 would most likely mash the timing gears together so tight that they would self destruct faster than you could say “what was that black and yellow streak with three exhaust pipes”
Knowing what we have discovered today would I have Dandy Andy do a shave and line bore on my engine…….No. Sorry Andy I guess your stuck stroking tree fity chebys and building cream separators.

Again, Ford Line bored and used oversize bearings for a good reason.

Pat

And all is right in the land of Fordson once again. ... Dandy Dave!

[JC]

I just talked to Dandy Andy, and he said that when he has timing gear clearance problems with his cream separators, he chucks them up in his lathe and takes 10 thou off of each one with his tool post grinder.
He still can't figure out why his 383 strokers keep gettin beat by 292 Y-blocks, though.

[Dandy Dave]

I just talked to Dandy Andy, and he said that when he has timing gear clearance problems with his cream separators, he chucks them up in his lathe and takes 10 thou off of each one with his tool post grinder.
He still can't figure out why his 383 strokers keep gettin beat by 292 Y-blocks, though.

.... .... Sounds like he is "Mashing the Gears" instead of Meshing the Gears... dang old Dandy Andy and his tree fibty cheby With the 4 bolt mains chop shop.... As long as he stays away from my Fordson motor, that runs just fine the way it is, everything will be alright. ... ....

I have a cousin to the 292, a 272 in a 1962 Ford F-250 4WD that still pushes snow in the winter. Dandy Dave!

[Supermanuel]

If the crankcase must be linebored, you need also oversize inserts. Maybe Brian knows if they are still available. Oversize is 0,015 (0,381 mm)

Lower pistons, 0,010 can be used to compensate it and 1 mm head gasket.

[kcraigmile]

Hi Pat, David Falconer doesn't have an email address unfortunately but if you need the sheels then by all means give him a call, he will be happy to help

[BearCreek Majors]

I just talked to Dandy Andy, and he said that when he has timing gear clearance problems with his cream separators, he chucks them up in his lathe and takes 10 thou off of each one with his tool post grinder.
He still can't figure out why his 383 strokers keep gettin beat by 292 Y-blocks, though.

That Dandy Andy is one smart feller! I’m sure at some point you will run out of clearance between the teeth and start to make metal shavings but if you get to that point.......go dig up a pair of "well used" gears and stick them in. where there's a will there's a way. And what the hell.... I stuck my Selen back together with shimstock under the bearings!

I'm starting to think if we hash this out long enough it will be a blue and orange streak with one exhaust pipe passing up Joe HotRod.

And now back to Keith, did you get the new bearings yet?

Pat

[kcraigmile]

Hi

an update for all

we have now fitted the new shells and it seems to have done the trick, oil pressure when hot on tickover is now sitting at 34psi

thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated

cheers

Keith