Fellas,
First a little history. I bought a low mile, (less than 10,000 mile) 1954 261 to drop into my 50 Fleetline. Since this has the early bypass oiling system I decided to convert to full flow and thanks to Ken on this message board I had all of the info I needed to do the job.
Reading about the full flow conversion it became very clear that drilling and tapping a bare block was the only option to do the job safely. Thus began the teardown. I noticed a reasonable amount of surface rust on the rockers, inside the block, on the crank etc. Again after reading more it sounds like this is in line with an engine that hasn't run for long periods at a time and sees infrequent use. Which make sense with my 261.
Since I now have it all apart, the crank, bearings and bores all look good. I want to give it a thorough cleaning and get the block hot tanked. I figured I would just put it all back together again with new gaskets and upgrade to a street performance cam, along the specs outlined in Pat Smith's 261 street engine build article.
Unfortunately I broke 2 piston rings when disassembling so a new set of rings are in order. That made me think whether I should get the bores honed and deck milled since I'm already down to a bare block.
Now the questions!
1. Should I check the crank bearing clearances with Plastigage?
2. Can I reuse the aluminum cam timing gear or do I need to replace it?
3. Do I need new cam bearings if I'm going with a reground cam?
4. With the reground cam I should get new lifters and possibly pushrods?
5. How much should I get the deck milled?
6. With new rings, cylinder hone or not?
Sorry for the long winded post but I want to make sure I rebuild this right the first time. Many thanks in advance!
