VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 ENGINE BOTTOM NOISE

My experience is that a greater than 0.004 piston fit will give piston slap. That is the noise problem with the '31 FireTruck. I knew it when I put the "temporary" engine back together. It really should have been bored as the cylinders were a bit too worn. But since I was only going to run it until I got the original engine redone only put standard rings on the pistons, replaced two rods with bad babbit and put it back together. It still has the original cast iron pistons. It makes noise when ever idling. More so when hot than cold. Oil on cylinder walls is thicker when cold. Aluminum pistons could be the opposite. Less noise when piston expands on heating.

I only have put 1500+ miles on the slapping engine since putting it back together. Noise is about the same. I have a round tuit but not used it yet in getting the original rebuilt. It likely will run as long as I do.

In your case I would hold the builders feet to the fire. Pull the engine and get it fixed right. If he will not do it with verification from another experienced mechanic. Then have it done and send him the bill. The fitting of parts does not have anything to do with the fact that it is a '32. A 2002 requires the same attention to detail.

Good luck!

Well, Donald, old Bugle Boy Chipper is also one to not beat around the bush. I , myself would rather have a nice "Come to Jesus meeting" with the engine re-builder rather than "Hold his feet to the fire" What is the difference, you ask Grasshopper?
Well In a "CTJM" you start off with a question like " I guess you know your soal belongs to Jesus, don't you? then, "Well what do you have to say before I stick your footseys into the furnace?" Yeah!

Lil' Johnny and Chipper Dipper: Excellent input on Donald's problem, and I too agree that Donald needs to pull his engine and go through it again to check everything out to make sure that there are not any other snafu's within his engine.....and that includes checking out the Egge pistons as well. This should definitely be done by a qualified machinist that knows what he is doing with this type of older engine. Remember, Donald also had problems earlier with '31 rocker arms and the wrong push rods installed in his 1932 engine too, so this is a good indication that there could be more problems with his engine than meets the eye at this point. Like you, I also think that the individual responsible for most of Donald's grief over this engine should be the one to foot the bill for whatever repairs have to be accomplised to get his engine to the point where it is a quaility rebuild like he expected and paid for in the beginning.

JYD, them are my sentiments xactly! and without any of the antimosity that could have been shown, I guess you are mellowing in your maturity, sit back and quaff a cold Colorado koolaid, before you have one of them Senior Moments and forget what you went to the fridge for!

Mellowing in my maturity?? Not this Junkyard Dog. If it would have been my engine, this old mutt would have bitten the dude that built it right in the butt!! Now, do you call that mellowing out?? ha ha!

Yeah I do. but I understand some of the folks around here besides you are whut Us Texicans call "Kinkey!
:p

Isn't being "kinky" and a Texican the same thing??? :confused: :confused: That's okay though since no "kinky" Texican worked on old Donald's engine....just some Model T Dude from Washington, who calls himself a professional! :( :( Bow wow wow and wow!! :eek: :eek:

Well JYD , you are close, you don't HAVE to be a Texican to be Kinky, but it don't hurt, know whut I mean, (;- )

so junkyard dog a friend of mine in seattle is about to have his 47 engine done. Who is this guy that he should avoid? I wouldn't want him to have as bad a time as poor Don.

I knew if I left for a couple of days that I would miss out on a new development.First I would like to say we had a good time with the Viking And Packerland regions.Bob Hensel was there with his firetruck as usual and Bill Dirnberger came modern so I didn't need to repair his '51 as usual.There was another odd thing....While driving thru Manitowoc,Wi.,where we were staying we passed the Fedral-Mogol factory.I didn't realize that there was one in Wisconsin................Now back to Don's noise.As stated before I left I had doubts as to the noise coming from the rods.If the pistons have as much clearence as Don indicates that is diffenitly the problem.Like Skip said you could see .004" on an old engine and as the engine warms up the piston will expand and the noise dissapear.But in a "new" engine anything over .002",depending on skirt type,is way too much and not acceptable.Don't blame the pistons before the cylinder walls are measured because those cylinders may be too large.Either way this should have been discovered by the person rebuilding the engine during assembly.If the cyls. are too large new liners could be installed in those two to save the block and the complete engien reassembeled correctly with the rods groved. .........liljohn,I always thought the hole on the top of the rod was for upper cylinder lubrication too but Chevrolet says that it was more like an airbleed to allow yhe cold oil to enter the bearing and the air to escape on top. Thru 1934 there were two large holes.In 1935 when the oil lines were right in the bottom of the trough they went down to one small hole which was continued till the end.When they changed to the single center grove in 1937 they said that was better but then the little chamfers between cap and rod(but not too outer edge of rod) were added to carry the oil out to sides if bearing.Also the little pocket at the pick-up hole in side the bearing,introduced in 1935 is important.Many after-market rebabbited rods did not have these features.

Hey cdt: If you have any questions regarding the problems with Donald's 1932 engine, you might want to email him directly since he is the owner of the engine in question.

Enough is enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm the mechanic who rebuilt Don's engine, and he is leaving out several things, the most important of which is after receiving the engine from me, which I test ran, he removed the distributor and installed it with the timing off which resulted in numerous overheating episodes. Gee..... why do you think the pistons are colapsed??? I happen to know that the piston clearances were correct when I put the engine together, it is not the fault of Egge's pistons.

It appears that now's a good time to cap this discussion thread. Thanks to many of you, Don has a zillion ideas that he can pursue to find out the source of his engine noise. At this rate it'll take him another 2 or 3 months to check them all out!! :rolleyes:

This thread is hereby CLOSED.