The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 59-235 breakin

i was going to wait a couple more days but i decided on the way home today was the day i was going to break in the engine and cam. the weather was just too nice today and with an extra hour of daylight i was going for it. dialed up mackb125 and he was on his way with a spare battery should we needed it.

i had the whole bottom end done with a bore job of .30 over. installed the adapter plate and ran the same style new water pump. changed out the crank pully from the 59 to a 54. added a speedy sleeve, new push rods and rocker shafts. i cleaned up the rockers and they looked good so i reused them. i lapped and spotted in the valves and they looked good so i left them alone.

now was the time to push the button which i was all worked up in my mind since i never broke in a engine before. one more look over and contact we were spinning and in no time it fired and lit up. no oil pressure and we killed it. i had plenty of oil pressure and oil up to the rockers over the weekend. didnt have the dis. seated all the way. lit it up again and had plenty of oil pressure. drove it up to 2000 rpms and checking everything out and it sounded good. i was about to take readings at the five minute mark and the motor bogged down blaaaah and we killed it. at the time all instruments had good readings and it wasnt fully up to temp. jeremy said the rpms dropped to 1000 when i killed it.

we pulled the rocker cover off and i noticed the the rear part wasnt getting all the oil it should have been getting. the top of the head showed 180* +/- all the way across. being somewhat perplexed we need to walk away and gather our thoughts and drove to the general store a couple of miles away. along the way we ran into a small flock of turkeys with a big gobbler not far from the house. i said "ill look you up later next month" . i came up with a game plan for when we returned. first, drained and srained the oil and the oil showed no signs of metal. pulled the plugs and they were fine. i added a needle valve to the oil gage to get control of the needle movement. pulled dist and ran oil up to rockers and noticed a large flow of oil coming from the front of the first rocker.(it didnt do that when i pumped oil up on sat.

i decided that from all observations and finding nothing wrong that we'd attempt it again and see what happens. buttoned everything up and lit it up again which it fired right off. oil good, vacuum good, real quick timing adjustment by sound and drove it up to speed again but this time i stopped a 1600 rpm. the radiator had a slight leak and was lightly spraying the engine every so often but it was managable. then i spotted what appeard to be steam at the lower left rear of the radiator so im checking it out and its getting worse and trying to see where its coming from. i spotted it, it was the dummy generator bearings that were being smoked so we killed it. it was so bad we had to vent out the garage with a fan. i never oiled the bearings .

we swapped it out with another one with a wider pully and oiled everything that turns. lit it up again, five min. mark OK, 10 minute mark OK, 15 min ok, 20 min. mark OK. brought it down to idle and killed it. the mental was over . the ave. readings for four sets five minutes apart were as follows

oil press 34 psi
vacuum 20"
temp at the exh. 580*
water temp 175*
rpm 1600

on the first attempt the engine was real tight. after we worked out the bugs it started to loosen up because over time you could hear the rpm increasing, plus it was cranking faster between shutdowns. what i did notice was on occasion at speed it would have a slight putt putt to it. maybe its a combination of timing, valve adjustment or something else. the carb is freshly rebuilt by larry. i dont know what bogged the engine down on the first try. was it the generator or maybe one of the bends in the fuel line is to too tight and was starving the engine for fuel which i didnt like that bend from the time i made up the line but decided to run with it. speedy sleeve is working and no leak from the rear seal yet but then i didnt put the seal in or the pan on so time will tell there. from where i was standing during the run i was lucky to suck up all the exhaust for 20 minutes not good or fun. tomorrow im going back to look at some things and decide what to do next. i need to look at the rocker bores, maybe i ll have to end up getting new ones. any suggestions or thoughts are greatly welcomed. for the whole process to take place i made a test stand with wheels which worked out good. when we were done jeremy and i just rolled it to the back of the shop disconnected the battery and turned off the lights and closed the door on the way out which by then it was just getting dark.

Very complete report.
At Ease.

i agree it sounds like he is going about everything in the right manner