Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines How not to rebuild a 235

Well I finally got the old 53 down to my Dad's garage. Got the engine out and the Crank. I figured out what went wrong last rebuild. As far as I can see, on initial start up the bearings were dry, even though I had them coated with white grease, it has sat three years and must have dried up. The two inner main bearings took a large beating no babbit left. Rods and outter weren't bad (if they had been older), but for 1/2 hour worth of running, they had a lot more wear then there should have been. The crank is scored and burnt on those inners. I hope it can be saved. Its at the machinests tonight. Someone had mentioned in one of my old posts when the engine failed, that i should run the gear pump with an electric drill first. I wish I had known this. So for all you first timers out there:

Stick a rod with a flat end down your distributer hole, hook it up to an electric drill and spin spin spin.

Don't trust white grease, or any engine thats sat for a while. These old engines need oil on those bearings. Is that why they called them Babbit Pounders??? Hahahaha

Red,That's a real shame to suffer that much
damage on a fresh rebuild. I guess I read it here somewhere and remembered to oil prime my 235 first before its first start up. I also
attached an aftermarket(Mallory) mechanical oil pressure gauge to make sure pressure was as close to 40 PSI as I could get it. A quick look at the valve train verified oil was pumping. If that happened to me I think I would be very
depressed unlike the good humor you have.

If I got down on every little thing that went wrong while working on my cars, I'd probably be to depressed to ever work on them.

The crank hasn't been looked at yet, the shop I took it to got 15 cranks that day, mine was on the tail end. Hopefully I'll get some news tommorrow.