There's a lot of truth to getting a good deal of satisfaction out of doing your own work on your restoration. This site caters to folks that like to jump right in and get their hands dirty and I'd venture to say, that many have learned much from their "hands-on" experiences. Most facets of a build can be accomplished with varying degrees of success, with a little help from an experienced friend when you get yourself "painted into a corner." However, there is NO SUBSTITUE for experience when it comes to building up an engine and the list of things that can be done incorrectly to ruin a rebuild, would be as long as your arm.
Your pro engine builders have compiled this list in their brains by working with those who already knew and shared, and in many cases by trial and error. That's how they got to be considered pros. For a novice to jump into assembling an engine as a "learning experience" is flirting with disaster.
Over the years (50) I've made a cottage industry out of buying incomplete projects where the amatuer/novice builder "bit off more than he could chew." Paying pennies on a dollar....taking the time to go back through and finding and correcting the mistakes, has shown me just how a couple simple oversights can turn what was supposed to be FUN, into an on-going nightmare. Having the insight and experience to troubleshoot and correct these little bumps in the road, is something that is written BETWEEN the lines in most shop manuals. In 90 percent of the cases with engine problems, it had been something relatively simple, that just didn't get double-checked when it should have been.
So my advice to a person who wants to learn about engine assembly is to hire the best machinist you can afford, and if you're dead set on saving a small percentage of the cost of a rebuild by reassembling the engine yourself.....find someone with plenty of hands-on experience who can look over your shoulder and make sure you don't overlook some simple procedure that will turn your "learning experience" into a nightmare.
Or "do you feel lucky?"
Dave
