The 216s were updated ancient technology but they held their own against the competition. The main sticky point in a rebuild is rebuilding the rods. They came from the factory with a very thin layer of babbitt right on the cast iron inner surface. There are a lot of places that can do the old F O R D babbitting because it was much thicker, but rebabbitting these 216 rods is a very spcialized business.I had mine machined to take inserts and they worked out very nicely. The mains are of the insert variety. Every once in a while, reconditioned, rebabbitted rods turn up on Ebay. You can also buy them from major suppliers for major dollars.
The other thing, the cast iron pistons are a great strain on the bottom end because of the weight. I used a nice new set of aluminum pistons, bought on Ebay.
