A bit of a stiff one

[rustybin]

I'm in the process of rebuilding a forumla ford engine. 2.0 8V DOHC. I have had the crank ground to first under-size and re-fitted it and new bearings. It seems incredibly stiff to me but it is consistent i.e. is stiff all the way around rather than pinching at one point. The manual states that it may be stiff but I am not sure how stiff is stiff. I can just turn it with a half inch socket wrench on the end of the crankshaft. Is this too tight? Help?

[350matt]

If you only have the crank in with no rods pistons etc then it should turn by hand or light pressure with a small spanner.
Soounds like the main caps are fitted to the wrong locations or the bearing are the wrong size

Matt

[nick_f]

Can you use Plastigauge to check the clearances?

[steve_D]

nick_f said:

Can you use Plastigauge to check the clearances?

If it's that tight there will be no room for plastigauge.

A carefull strip down and inspect everything.

Turn the crank after releasing each bearing cap in case it suddenly comes free. If not then re-torque the bearings one at a time. Measure, if you can, the torque required to turn the crank each time. You are looking to see if all the bearings are equally tight or if it is just one.

Steve

[Nighthawk]

just to ask a really simple question

did you apply a thin coating of oil to the bearing face during the build?

and did you fit the bearings correctly in their locating cut outs?

[rustybin]

Thanks for the assistance guys. The caps are definitely in the right place and everything is smothered in oil. I tried the tigthen everything down individually approach see if one is causing the jam approach but they all feel about the same. Ill strip everything down again this afternoon and see if I can see if there is any polishing on the shell faces that may give me a clue. In case anyone is interested I'll let you know what I find.

[rustybin]

Problem solved. The bearings supplied by ford were wrong. I'm sure most of you guys know but apparently ford have a trick of, instead of scrapping bearing caps that are out of tolerance, grinding them out oversize by 0.4mm and fitting thicker shells. The bearings I had been supplied with were for this size bearing cap so they were being crushed against the journal by the normal size caps. Proper bearings now on the way.

Thanks for the words of wisdom that very much helped locate the problem.

[Nighthawk]

rustybin said:

Problem solved. The bearings supplied by ford were wrong. I'm sure most of you guys know but apparently ford have a trick of, instead of scrapping bearing caps that are out of tolerance, grinding them out oversize by 0.4mm and fitting thicker shells. The bearings I had been supplied with were for this size bearing cap so they were being crushed against the journal by the normal size caps. Proper bearings now on the way. Thanks for the words of wisdom that very much helped locate the problem.

Glad you found the cause of the concern,

oversize bearing on ford engines can usually be identified with paint on the caps or crank of a certain colour, (yellow and green are about the most common)

So If I read your post correctly, a ford parts dealer (not ford motor company ) sold you 1st oversize shells by mistake.
Tis' a good job you had your wits about you, i've examined engines after post rebuild failure only to find the person building it didn't bother to check things like that during build.

[steve_D]

I can see the next post coming.

"I've put the correct shells in now and it feels like a donkeys d*** in a bucket. How much clearance should there be?"

Steve

[wedg1e]

For a minute there I thought I knew the answer, but then I read a couple more posts... here's what I thought:
When I had my Rover V8 reground and reshelled it, I happened by chance on an internet article where it was stated that not only are the main bearing caps oversize (ie smaller diameter journals), but the THRUST shells are too, ie they are THICKER. So if you just drop them in as they are supplied, the crank will have no endfloat (it's supposed to have 4-6 thou from memory). You have to use fine wet'n'dry to reduce the thrust faces to get the required clearance, and it was a ballache. Rub a bit, assemble, measure, dismantle, repeat until finger bones protrude

Just a thought for anyone else trying it... I don't know if it's only a RV8 thing.

Ian

[rustybin]

steve_D said:

I can see the next post coming. "I've put the correct shells in now and it feels like a donkeys d*** in a bucket. How much clearance should there be?" Steve

Have plastiguage and manual can cope with that one. I'm happy with things I can measure, it's the 'engineers feel' thing that is slow in developing.