The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop to babbit or not to babbit

Was talking with an older guy who drove the early 50's when they were every day transportation. He did not have good things to say about babbits. There is a shop in KC that will re-pour babbits or machine for inserts. What do you all think?

If properly adjusted the babbits will work just fine. I think you will find in todays world that it is cheaper to have your rods converted to insert bearings.

The supply of new old stock conversion insert bearings is drying up. It's already impossible to find .020" undersize conversion bearings, and the price is going up on .010 and .030. Don't even think about finding standard- - - -they're Unobtanium.

The bright spot at the end of the tunnel is that a few other bearings will work, with a little tweaking. Certain sizes of John Deere and Massey-Ferguson tractor rod bearings can be adapted to the Stovebolt rods with a little custom fitting.

If your Babbit rods are in good shape, not severely worn or pitted, adjust them for proper fit and re-use them. With a little Prussian Blue and a sharp scraper, the bearing can be exactly matched to the crankshaft, and shims added to get the correct oil clearance.

If the bearing material is damaged or badly worn, you have a choice of finding proper-size replacement rods or getting them machined for insert bearings. There are still a pretty good supply of reconditioned rods with new Babbit on Ebay, but you'll need to be careful to buy rods sized to match your crankshaft. Some of the prices for recon rods are downright ridiculous! Shop wisely!
Jerry

Kanter lists rod bearings for the old 216s with converted rods. I bought new, not NOS from them a number of years ago. The bearings I bought were .002" under.

Lots of people "list" parts that aren't there just to make a catalog look good. I have searched nationwide for .020" undersize conversion bearings three times in the past six months- - - - -they just don't exist! My friend who owns a very high-quality machine shop ended up regrinding a 216 crankshaft twice because one of his suppliers lied to him about having 20 under rod bearings in stock. After several weeks of delay they admitted they couldn't supply 20's so he had to go back and take another .010" off the crank to make it fit the only bearings they could ship. That happened in August 2014.
Jerry