VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Rebabbiting

Does anyone out there in Chevy land know of someone that does rebabbiting in New York State?
Thanks in advance, Bob

Bob,
I think this is the place:
Babbitt Pot
1693 Route 4,
Fort Edward, NY 12828
(518) 747-4277

I looked for a web site, but none was found.

Dan.

Have you considered replacing those babbits with insert bearings? A definite improvement. Most good machine shops that do engine building can perform this.

Yup Dave and almost the same price and at least if not more, reliable ...

Another thing to think about with an inserted rod the heat doesn't conduct as well thru an insert as it does directly thru the rod, and is trapped at the bearing, remember the rod also acts as a radiator for the heat of friction where the rod turns on the journal, just as the crankshaft does.

I have to agree with Mr Mack and Lil'Johny. Rebabbiting is as effective in providing long crank life as modern inserts. And yes the Babbit used today is of a better quality than the "good O'l days" Tranfering heat is an excelent thought. Conduction between the poured babbit will be far supperior to the shells. Another thing to consider is the jurnals. These are only surface hardend, generally through induction. If you have to grind you will remove some of this hardend surfase. If the jurnals are in poor shape or thin to begin with you may not have enouph left to grind to a standard oversize. With poured units you will be able to adapt the pouring to match your crank. Thus saving the crank.

I will go along with babbit also.If it is done correctly with modern materials its great.The only way that I have doubts is when a crank is turned to a greater under size and the babbit it then made too "thick" to make up the difference.If its not of good quality it will compress and the bearing will keep loosening up.The insert itself is thicker in this case and the babbit is uniform.What I would worry about in getting rods rebabbited is the quality-you may not know until 5000 miles later......

Looks like I have some bad information. I was told that babbit is best for low speed rotataion and that inserts were more reliable under heavier loads. I guess I'm entitled to my opinion no matter how wrong I am. lol

FatFenders, You and us are both probably right. We are thinking about the older original babbited engines VS. modifying the rods for inserts. I agree that inserts are better for modern engines.

I think that one major factor is the reason that insert bearings are being promoted to replace the babbitt in early engines. Most machine shops do not understand nor have the capability to replace and size babbitt bearings. They understand inserts.

There is another problem with inserts for pre'32 rods. The side thrust is controlled by the babbitt on the edge of the rod for those engines. Beginning in '32 the side of the rod forging was macnined to be the control surface. If you insert the earlier rods then there is no provision to control side thrust. Read: uneven bearing & cylinder wear, noise, shorter life.

Just because someone tells you that something is better you better not believe them without expert verification. They may think they know what they saying but caveat emptor.

Yes, Chipper , did you ever solder the edge of a rod bearing to reduce the side thrust?

Most fail to realize that an insert is just babbit applied to a metal shell rather than a connecting rod.The inserts of the thirtys used the thicker babbit as did the Chev. rods and that was the big problem.Once they learned that less than .010" babbit thickness was better both methods were longer lived.Thr 48 and up thin babbit rods were a great step forward.To day most are judging babbited rods by what the find in a 60 year old engine---bearings that have been run many thousands of miles'run too loose,with poor and dirty oil full of acids and often stored for years with bad oil.The advantage of inserts is that they can be replaced without removing the rod.If an insert spins--burnt out rod bearing--The rod is damaged and still needs replacing.Babbited rod advantage --They are adjustable and once worn in will last a long time.As far as lugging and hotrodding a babbit bearing'I have been guilty of all of these things,both years ago and today, and have never had a problem--including needing to adjust the rods.

The mechanically inclined among the group might even want to try to do their own babbitting. Lindsay's Technical Books ( http://www.lindsaybks.com/HomePage.html ) has a couple of booklets on the process.

How I Pour Babbit Bearings

Babbitt Bearing Techniques

jeff, thanks for the informative sites! Lindsey Publications looks like a place old codgers like myself can relate to very well.

Just for my education, maybe somebody answer the following question:

After the babbitt is poured, how does the shop find the exact center of the rod bore, align it perfectly on the axis and then bore/ream it out to a mere .010" thickness.

Also, I was surfing the other day looking for information on babbitting. What I found is that the automotive segment is a tiny part of the industry (ie old engines) and in fact there are people in the centrifugal (spelling ??) babbitting business for machinery.

I'm not too sure that they always find the center.Have seen new rods and the center grove cut into the bearing will be all babbit down to the bottom on one side and the steel of the connecting rod showing at the bottom of the grove on the other side.Thats probably why they will same that the babbit is from .006" to .010" to allow for error.That is where it would be much more precise to get the thickness uniform in a insert shell.Modern inserts have like only .002" babbit thickness.This would not have been acceptable on older engines,especially with out good filters,both air & oil,as the bearing material would have no dirt imbedabilty.

Johnny, If those guys told some of us their secret way of doing things, half of us wouldn't beleive them and the other half wouldn't understand any way....... Besides if it was that easy to do, you couldn't get a haircut anywhere, all the barbers would be out pouring babbit bearings!

:eek:

Now, I know of a shop where they do rebabbitting but they insist that they have the crankshaft to fit to. I don't quite understand this approach unless they are using methods dating back to when this was necessary ?

My thoughts are that all they should need is the crank shaft demensions. I would prefer to have a bearing made to the standard demension and final fitting would be made by removing shims.That is the method used in new or rebabbited rods.