I appreciate all of the wise replies and concerns. THey all make great mechanical sense. But I like the challenge of doing it in the truck, plus the lack of shop space, engine stand availability right now, etc....
So last night I finally got the crankshaft out. Learned a couple new things along the way. (THis is the first 235 engine I have disassembled)
1. The thrust bearing is on the 3rd main cap back, not the rear heavy cap like I have seen in the past.
2. The bearings have a little round nub on the back of them to hold them from spinning in the block. This was new to me as well, also the reason for totally removing the crank, just easier.
3 Chevrolet used alot of screw head bolts when assembling their engines. WHY?? THey suck and are so easy to strip out. Definitely gonna replace most of them with a hex head bolts!
4. Chevrolet has alot of faith in pinch bolts holding in their oil pumps.
5. I found thin foil spacers between all of the main caps and the block, I guess this was Chevrolets' way of shimming the bearings for clearances? Should I put these back in with the new bearings? Or should I just plasti-gage it when I assemble it to check if I need them?
This morning I am going to use a whole case of BRAKLEEN to degrease and clean out the engines oil passages, journals, etc. Then its onto re-assembly, finally. I pretty much have the entire engine apart. If I can, I will post some pics later, but engine pics can be pretty boring.
