Tips from a Listeroid newbie

[playdiesel]

Found pealing paint and sand underneath it inside my DI Metro so down it came for the clean up. I am new to these engines and glad for all the tips you guys share and I also have Georges CD. I have 30 years of engine experiance so not many questions. I do have a few tips that I hope you guys can use.
!. I hate the european pattern seals so I found some SKF (Chicago Rawhide to us geeezers) that fit. Number 20005. Another tip here is leave the seals out until after you have the bearing housings installed and shimmed. Then slide them over the crank and knock them in flush, the 20005 is a bit narrower then stock, no worries. Twist them as you slide them so the keyway doesnt cut the lips.

2. Marking your timing gears. Mark your gears with the crank throw pointing straight down. Thats where its going to head on its own so no sence fighting it to keep it some where else. Paint marks are temporary. We punch marked the gears after they were out. It is allways smart to double check timing and a quick check on any 4 stroke engine is you should be in overlap (exhaust closing, intake opening) as you cross TDC.

3. We hot tanked the castings to remove all the paint and putty. Could not find any Gypal loacally and this stuff from WW grainger came highly reccomended. All I know is it goes on very nice and gets very hard over night. I didnt mask the bearing bores figuring it to be easier to sand it out. I will mask the next one, LOL
Name and part numbershould be readable inthe pic. Use whats left over to insulate your ST gen head.

4 This is where I quit tonight. Maybe some more pics tomorrow/

[LowGear]

Wow!  I'm trying to adopt the "art project" standard but I won't ever be in this league.

It must be nice to be where the rust doesn't wait in the dark for bare metal.  Salivating over the thought of cast iron. 

Setting new timing marks to 180 out is an interesting concept.  I got kind of turned up side down thinking about it.

Truely nice work.

Casey

[mike90045]

Punch marked the gears

Isn't that a bad thing ?  Didn't George in his CD find that's where all the teeth broke off, was from the punch?


Any idea how much the crankcase alone weighs ?  can 1 person lift it, (to take it to a hot tank) or will I still need a hoist ?

[cgwymp]

Punch marked the gears

Isn't that a bad thing ?  Didn't George in his CD find that's where all the teeth broke off, was from the punch?

George seems to think it's not a good idea: http://www.utterpower.com/problems.htm (scroll down about 2/3)....

I'm also curious about the weight of the bare crankcase.  I've got that looming in my future!  ;-)

[playdiesel]

I realy hesitate acting like an expert here as I am pretty fresh with these engines but here we go,

My thoughts on the punched gear problem. There is no problem punching marks on gears made of proper materials, been done for years. None the less since it is recorded on these engines that failures occur at the punch marks there must be a connection or extreem chance involved? The suspect gears looked like they were punched with a sledge. All we did was mark them a light tap with a sharp centering punch so there is a permanant mark, big differance. Should have taken a pic but I'm not much for keeping a camera handy all the time, sorry.

I didn't weigh the crankcase but my guess is  50 lbs. I took it off and put it back on the cart by myself and I am no body builder. The only thing that required two sets of hands was the flywheels and in a pinch a srong back could do them also.

Jens, we went the homemade hot tank route. Took the top out of a 55gal drum and filled it 2/3 full of water. added 10lb of lye and cooked with a wood fire. Paint and putty on the outside was off in minutes. the paint inside was differant and took 4-5 hours to remove. There was LOTS of slag/sand pockets under the paint. I will post pics of my rigging. Probably would have taken the parts to town but I also have the air cooled Petter (filthy inside) to start on as soon as this one is done.
As for time and tools. Probably at 6-8 hours (besides the tank time) as of now but we have lots of equipment and tools to do this type of work. One thing we do not have is the proper Witworth tools but we have gotten along fine with our S-K 6 point metric and inch pattern sockets and wrenches. A needle scaler ($25 at HF) took out the sand and slag pockets pronto and saved probably 8 hours of pecking around by hand. The casting need to be cleaned after the tanking and a pressure washer makes quick work of that. Everything was also wire wheeled. WIth every part held on by studs and nuts a person realy needs a set of stud pullers, Vise grip marks dont hurt anything I guess but I dont like it.

Enough for now. More pics tonight maybe and thanks for the kind comments on the work.

[veggie]

playdiesel,

very nice job on the roid so far.
Thanks for sharing your tips.
Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

veggie

[playdiesel]

Back on the Metro today and we are ready to put the block back on the crankcase,, 2 hours later that is. Who ever machined my engine was pretty reasonable at his craft. problem is my castings look like they took them off the mill and threw them in a pile then pushed them in a heap with a bulldozer. Some damage is cosmetic some is not, like gasket surfaces. Here is the prep work. If I am boring you guys with this just let me know and ill knock it off.

You will always find that metal is pulled up around the bolt/stud holes. If high enough it prevents the gasket from being compressed and you have a leak. Also makes for "springy" assemby and makes things like deck heights harder to get right. Same goes for the big dings from rough handling. The thinner the gasket and the more critical assembly distances are the more critcal it is that they humps and bumps are rmoved. Might be rocket science for a Listeroid but sure makes for nice assembllies. The deck after being drawfiled with a 14" Nicholson mill bastard. Notice the silver areas where the file cut.


Studs cleaned and installed. There is reason for clean studs, aint for pretty pics.



Cleaning the sleave bore and counterbores with a flap wheel. Top and bottom gasket  surfaces have been drawfiled. The sleeve should go in easily with no orings. The tapered area above the bottom counter bore must be clean or you will cut the sealing rings every time.


And one of my shop super super tools. The tool for cleaning the strud holes is a die grinder with a 1/4 rod with a piece of tape on the end. stick the end of some 1" emery to the tape and roll it up in the direction of travel until its just under the hole size . Cleaning the bolt holes and studs is important. Dont do it and set the block over the studs and pull it back off to see why.

[Tom Reed]

Some great tips there. Thanks!

[cgwymp]

If I am boring you guys with this just let me know and ill knock it off.

HELL NO !!!!  This is extremely interesting (and usfull) stuff !!!!
Keep it up !!!!!!!!!

Jens

Yeah -- keep it coming!

Did you chamfer the stud holes after you went over them with the file?

Cheers!

[playdiesel]

Piston and rod, another 10 minute rinse off and install job that turned into hours on the 'roid due to slack QC. First thing should have already been done, marks. I have a routine, punch marks always are on the camshaft side or towards the front and I never vary from that, saves a lot of remembering time. When doing a job like this all parts go back in the way they came out even if it makes no differance on a new build. Another tip that saves grief is never, I repete NEVER install anything on a motor build that is not immediately tightened, if you don't have the time, tool or inclination to tighten it leave it on the bench.. Dinner can wait for a couple minutes too belive it or not.

I was washing of the rod and noticed some rough looking black stuff on the beam. scratched it off with a fingernail and it was slag/scale from the forging process,, grrrr. How my rod bearing escaped unscathed is beyond me. All the bleck specks on the cardboard plus 10 times more were taken of the rod with a needle scaler, proabaly a teaspoon full if gathered up.



Pin bearing lube hole, no comment needed here except you dont remove such things to align the holes in the home shop, drill the hole out.





Getting there. The rod wont go through the bore so you have to install the piston and rod from the bottom. I differed from the stated proceedure and turned the block upside down on the bench and stuck the piston in the bore working the rings into the generous taper with my fingers. if your cylinder does not have the taper you need a compressor. I then set the assmebly on the studs and then pushed the piston and rod down to meet the crank. I saved the shim stack but will be checking the deck heights just in case.

[playdiesel]

My redneck hot tank. Temps were very easy to control with the wood fire. Had to watch it though so I had to spend a Saturday on my favorite chair watching the fire



The chemical I used came from a Amish hardware store. Apearantly the druggies were using lye to make dope so bye bye lye. Now they sell it under another name to make candles. Attendant said you ARE going to make candles right? LOL. I must have a sleezy apearance??Name and make should be readable. My old Sony Mavicta with floppy diskdrive still takes a decent pic eh?

[playdiesel]

Love the dip tank We are not allowed open fires    Nothing compares to learning the hard way ....

How to you cook hot dogs?

[rcavictim]

Love the dip tank We are not allowed open fires    Nothing compares to learning the hard way ....

How to you cook hot dogs?

Two stainless steel 'nails', suicide clip leads and a backwards pole pig!   

I'd like to chime in here and express my appreciation also for the fine tech tips you are sharing here and how impressed I also am with the caliber of your work!

[playdiesel]

[/quote]

Two stainless steel 'nails', suicide clip leads and a backwards pole pig!   


[/quote]

I was up in the boonies in SAK (Calder, find that one on a map  ) a few years ago and no wonder the locals was all up in arms.  Red hot coals and a poker, that's how you cook hot dogs, LOL/

[playdiesel]

First order of business tonight was to check the deck height. Two legnths of solder just like the manual says, must be over top of the wrist pin.


And the verdict is A-OK at .045 you of course need the head gasket your going to use under the head and torque it down.


Next we checked the valve seating with prussion blue, get it at NAPA ot any hot rod shop.
Takes trial and error to get the technique down for using the blue marking grease. hard to put into words. Too much doesnt work, neither does too little. For reasons unknown for me it seems to help to put a bit on both the seat and valve, your results will be differant.

The seats




And the valve. Notice the darker blue line? That's the seat and its in good shape.





Assembled and torqued. Thought some would like to see the DI head since they are less common.