I had a rod let loose at the wrist pin at 60 MPH. The ole gal kept running when I pulled over, so I shut it off when I came to a full stop and discovered that the maniacal shaking was not four blown tires.
I got lucky since the machine shop was able to sleeve the cracked cylinder. I did have to have all of the cylinders bored to .060 over due to trash scoring some of the other cylinders.
Also needed all new bearings.
I assembled the engine myself and took my time on the internals. I put everything back together and went for a drive of gradually speeding up to 45 MPH, slow down, speed up to 45, wash, rinse, repeat to break in the rings.
When I pulled in the driveway, I heard an on odd high pitch, but not very loud sound coming from the front of the engine. The harmonic balancer had a bad wobble to it that I don't recall it having prior to this episode. I don't remember dropping it, and I did use a puller threaded into the center section of it. I removed the balancer and the noise went away.
I found a balancer off of a '57. It has a pulley which is 3/8'' bigger in diameter, so of course it interfered with the aftermarket oil shield on the motor mount. I removed the motor mount and and changed the shape of the shield to clear the pulley.
I started it up and had another odd noise from the timing cover! A metal slapping sound. I pulled the new balancer off and the seal came of with it, minus the skinny coil spring which is now inside of the timing cover.
Once I took a good look at the balancer, I saw a sizable chunk missing from the end of the balancer at the keyway, which was now also inside of the timing cover. I missed the key by 1/2 the width of the key way. While pushing the balancer on with the specialty tool design for the job,I broke off the chunk. The interesting thing is, while turning the nut on the tool, it was not all that difficult to turn. I guess that after the chunk broke off, the balancer shifted over and lined up with the key and went the rest of the way on without much effort.
I now had to remove the timing cover to retrieve the metal bits, but guess what, I had to remove the oil pan to remove the 2 timing cover bolts from the front main cap.
I destroyed the seal, the balancer and the timing cover without even noticing.
Oh, and I nicked my pristine Desert Cooler radiator with the heavy balancer while installing it, causing it to leak. Radiator shop fixed that for $75. No biggy.
So now I needed a timing cover, seal, and harmonic balancer.
I made some calls and found an old friend who had a complete '54 engine and said I could have it for free. Yippy! Who doesn't like free?
So now I have everything cleaned up ready for reassembly once I pick up the free '54 engine on Saturday.
During this expensive adventure and all of the crazy things happening again and again, I couldn't help wondering if I should consider a different hobby.
One thing that I still have going for me is that I am getting really good at taking stuff apart...
Oh, and I made the modification so that I won't have to take off the oil pan to get the timing cover off ever again.
