It's been a little interesting building this motor. First hurdle was to discover the rear main seal in the gasket kit was wrong. I already knew they didn't exist (from a previous attempt to find one for a guy who reached out to me to see if I had one in my stash) so I looked at the 289 seal that found its way into the package and after doing some test fits determined I could insert the seal into the cap and cut it to length. Worked like a charm - so much so I may make more of them.
Then when I went to degree the cam - it's like 13 degrees out - out of the box. So we ordered a special gear set to allow some finer adjustment beyond a full tooth, which was 19 degrees. I plan to discuss why a cam is so far out. Is that normal? Rob at Action Machine didn't think so. I will call Clay Smith Cams tomorrow and confirm after checking dot-to-dot with the new timing set.
The other thing I discovered was there being a spacer on the cam nose. We didn't have one anymore. I discovered this is why every time I tightened the cam gear bolt, at all, the cam seized. They're not unavailable, but slowed us down. After a couple calls I found one in Tacoma at a very cool old cam grinding shop. $5 for the part and $275 dollars in gas - and we were back in business! To install the spacer meant pulling the pin, and making a tool that used vise grips, but not use them at the same time.
Not much to show yet, but here's a couple pics.
Bookmarks