Cheers Corazon, that makes sense.
The block is back
It's been in a waterfall bath type thing to remove any swarf from the engineering work, but I have been told to ensure there's none left in there before starting to rebuild it. So I started measuring stuff instead because I'm like that.
According to the official rebuild manual you should insert each piston from the top, with the direction arrow pointing backwards, then measure the gap between the thrust side of the piston and the cylinder wall. This gap should be between 0.02 and 0.045 mm which by my reckoning is around half the thickness of a human hair. My smallest feeler gauge is 0.04mm so I tried that, Then cleaned the cylinder and piston to get rid of any oil film and tried again. I could just get it in but only just the very end of it and it was jammed. So, it's less than 0.04 mm.
I tried three of them, failed to get a definite measurement then gave up and just oiled up the cylinders and put all eight of them. They all moved smoothly and evenly, which is good enough for me.
Piston rings next. I have a new set of rings and new liners so they should all fit perfectly, but I have been advised to check by measuring. I put one in and eased it down the bore with a piston to ensure it was flat.
Now the top ring, marked 'GOE STD' should be between 0.3mm and 0.5mm, and my 0.3mm gauge just fitted snuggly with a slight resistance. So, 0.3mm on the dot. The bottom compression ring, marked 'GOE TOP STD' should be between 0.4mm and 0.65mm, and it was spot on 0.4mm. Seems a bit daft marking the lower ring with the word TOP, but it just means that it should be upward in the bore.
Thinking this would take an age, I numbered all of the packets of rings, then fitted all eight of the top rings and measured them all. They were all the same at 0.3mm, then took them out, put them back into their respective packets then did the same with the lower ones, all measuring 0.4mm.
All measurements were at the lower limit, so fairly tight, but then this is basically a new engine, so I'm ok with that.
Clean up time.
I wheeled the block outside armed with some waste solvent, wire brushes and bits of wire for poking
Prior to doing this I had found this
This at the bottom of the cylinder and is the end of the bolt hole holding the main caps, and is full of swarf. There are six of these (the other four are blind) and all six were full of bits of aluminium and steel particles.
I poked them all clear and then squirted them all with solvent to clean up the area. I pumped solvent through all of the oil ways then dragged it back inside to the airline. I had lost my air puffer gun but had managed to find this.
I blew out all of the oil ways, then the threads on the main caps, then filled the head bolt threads with solvent and let them soke before blowing them out with the airline. Then did it all again to be sure
I have managed to get a set of original main bearings at a reasonable price and although the build manual says just to put oil on them, I have opted for some Graphogen as I don't know how long it's going to be before I can get it started.
The build manual didn't mention the rear oil seal ? but I fitted it anyway, and also it says to fit the cross seals in the rear cap dry whereas all of the youtube videos I have seen say to plaster them in silicone. I put a bit on
and also a small amount on the horizontal mating surfaces.
Tourqed up to 4lb/ft then I need to refit the cross bolts with new dowty washers
before torquing any further. No, I don't have any
So that was it for the time being, although I do need to let V8D know the volume above the piston before they can finish the heads, so I did put piston No. 1 in, and just to make sure they're all the same, I put No.6 in as well. It does look quite purposeful
I have made up a perpex top to measure it, but ran out of time for now.
I did notice that the surface left by the engineers is very good, and uniform
Certainly a lot better then it was - don't know why there's a rusty patch in there ?