VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 1948 Engine Rebuild

Hey!! :-)

No - the '48 is definitely not coming to the Central Meet. At the moment it's even looking iffy for the 6 Cylinder Tour.

to decarter: What do you mean that the 6 cylinder tour if iffy? It WILL be ready. Just talk to your mechanic and feed him DQ Blizzards.

dtm

Did he just say "feed him to the buzzards?"

Nope, Dairy Queen Blizzards:

http://www.dairyqueen.com/us-en/Menu/Treats/?gclid=CPGjmcik5sYCFY9ffgodKaQOJQ

Dean

Well, we started yesterday with high hopes! Cousin Dave came up to spend the day as we had everything back from the machine shop and were ready to assemble this engine!! We first put the crankshaft in and the front engine plate. Then we went to put the camshaft in, but it didn't seem to fit. Even after hitting it repeatedly with a 10 pound sledgehammer we couldn't get it into the engine (just kidding). So, we took it back to the machine shop. Oh yeah, he says. Cams never fit in. Probably need to line bore out the cam bearings. Seems like something he might have mentioned earlier - like I installed the cam bearings like you asked, but your cam won't fit. With my very limited experience with new cam bearings, in the past the cams have always slipped right in. So we're waiting for him to fit the camshaft. Meanwhile, the 6 Cylinder Tour is creeping up on me...

Why is it,those we pay are the last we can trust???

So - Today we were back in the engine rebuilding mode. Cousin Dave showed up at 8:30 this morning and we continued where we left off a couple weeks ago when we didn't have all the parts and before I went to Virginia. Below is a chronology of our progress through the day. There is a pretty long gap in the late afternoon when we went in to watch General Hospital and One Life to Live. We had real trouble (!) getting, of all things, the distributor in. I'm using a new camshaft and the distributor and camshaft gears just did not want to mesh. Finally got that done, but decided it was too late to put in the car, so Cousin Dave is coming back on Wednesday.

Guess I have to post twice to get all the pictures to load.

Dale you are definitely the winner of the great engine re-build race!!!We should also file those pics for the perfectly correct blue-gray paint....Great looking job, my friend!!!

When I had my 216 done, it took the guy a year

Is that the extra high heat paint 1200-1800 deg. on your exhaust manifold and tranny?

The 48 engine has been a typical engine rebuild except for one or 2 glitches. The distributor driven gear is an extremely tight fit with the camshaft drive gear. Maybe a burr or other interference issue on the brand new NORS camshaft?

dtm
ps. Cousin Dale was kidding about watching General Hospital in the afternoon. We quit for 2 hours to watch Judge Judy.

He could have gotten done much sooner if he wouldn't have called me every five minutes for advise.

Did Dale restore that ol' convertible and neglected to do the engine? Mercy!

Dale:

a. Did you use a fiber cam or an aluminum one?

b. Did you install the dippers in the right direction? When the engine is upside down it makes everything seem to rotate backwards. Now that you have it all buttoned up, what do you think?

c. You are luck to have help. I hope you installed the shifter on the transmission before installing the assembly. Won't matter until you try to hook up the vacuum stuff.

d. What are you going to use as a break-in oil?

e. The color sure does look dark. Must be the photographer's fault. Was that from the FS?

Good luck with it,
Charlie

Question.
If you live in Australia do the dippers face the other way?

And if the oiling system is working correctly the fiber timing gear will last for over 100,000 miles in a 216 engine.
Dale rebuilds his engines every few thousand miles.

Our dippers are in the valve cover, the rocker gear is in the sump.

Good thing I am wearing my VCCA regulation hip boots. It sure is getting deep here.

Dean

That sure is a thing of beauty Dale!! -- Not you of course, the eng and car!!

Jim

OK, it is Thursday, is it in?????? Running???? Can hardly wait for more pictures!!!! Much good luck. Skip Judge Judy and stay with it!

Well - yesterday was Day #2 of the frantic engine rebuild, as we try to get this thing ready to leave on the 6 cylinder tour on September 13th. Below are the pictures from yesterday. The good news is that the engine is in the car, it turns over nicely, and it looks very pretty. Bad news is it hasn't actually decided to start yet. Cousin Dave and I are still sorting that out (distributor off a tooth?) and will continue work later. To answer a few questions - yes the paint is from the Filling Station. Yes - it sure is dark, but EVERYONE says they have the best color match. Yes - we did install a new set of timing/crankshaft gears and the cam gear is aluminum.

Just wondering? Why did you decide to treat the intake manifold the way you did?

The intake and exhaust manifolds were bolted to the engine when the engine was painted. The manifolds and attaching parts were all "engine color".

And we all know how long that engine paint lasts on an exhaust manifold!! I had the exhaust manifold ceramic coated. Intake is just painted to closely look like the exhaust manifold. Hoping the exhaust manifold stays decent for a while.

But of greater importance, here in Ohio at about 1:30 PM, EDT, we officially threw in the towel on trying to get this engine ready for next week's tour. We've decided this "interference" fit we have with the distributor and camshaft can only lead to bad things like metal in the engine and so we've decided to pull the camshaft and sort out what's going on. Unfortunately, with the engine in the car, that's going to involve removing a lot of stuff to get access to the camshaft. Who would have thought we needed to trial fit a distributor while it was on the engine stand...

Dale

"Just asking" Did you try another distributor to see if you get the same kind of interference. I've been messing with these old six cylinder engines since the early 50s and never encountered that sort of problem. I've ran 216 distributors in 235s and vice versa without any sort of interference with the cam gear. Its a PITA to pull that cam out in the car.

Dang, I am so sorry! Don't know what else to say.