Key way gone wrong

[madkaw]

Customer who bought my L24 brought me his car to install the engine. It had a horrible knock but ran. He left the other day a happy guy with his new power plant . I was able to tear his motor down to show him some of the issues before he left . He had bought the car and it basically blew up in him 2 days after he got it. The seller didn’t take any responsibility for any engine issues. He had just put it together and knew it was good. 

Pictures tell a thousand lies. I didn’t get a picture of number 5 rod journal that had spun its bearing 

[siteunseen]

Oil swinger.

[grannyknot]

Quality work huh?

[madkaw]

41 minutes ago, grannyknot said:

Quality work huh?

The engine looked good besides this . It was salvageable but ended up at the recycle center . The rest of the car  was riddled with half-assed’ness. SU carbs were way out of whack too. 

[Captain Obvious]

Woof. I've seen at least four of those busted pulleys now. On my F54/P79 I just pulled the oil pump drive gear and lower timing gear off. I cleaned up the crank snout real good first and then slid the gears off. As I did that, I noticed a tight spot passing over the keys and determined that there was a small metal bump on the side of the outermost key. Not much, but just enough to cause some friction when the gears were right at the position where they were passing over two keys at once. The "upset" metal looked like it was caused by a mallet blow to set the key, probably done at the factory. I dressed that bump off the side of that one key and  now the gears slide on and off with ease.

Also, while I was messing around in that area of the motor, I refit the harmonic balancer into place just to make sure everything fit easy, and it did. With a clean crank snout and a clean bore inside the stock balancer, it slid right on all the way home easily. No mallet required. On and off smooth and easy with one hand. Clunks all the way home when it bottoms out against the oil slinger. Of course, you'll have a little more friction with a front main oil seal in play, but not much. You should still be able to feel that clunk.

Point is...... I've heard reports about aftermarket balancers being very tight on the crank snout, but my stock one was not tight at all. If you find yourself having to fight with the balancer to get it on, you might want to stop and look things over real good for issues before you crack something.

[Captain Obvious]

Oh yeah, and I saw your for sale post about the E88 head from that motor... Is that the large chamber or small chamber version of the E88?

From what I've read "on the internet" the E88's from the 240's are the small chamber and the ones from the 260's are the larger chamber.

[Diseazd]

This is exactly why the 280 damper bores were machined  back far enough so you could feel the groove receive the woodfuff key. If you are off just a tiny bit, it can push the key through the oil slinger. So many ways to screw up a good motor by one mistake......what a waste! BTW Capt.....you want a tight fit on your damper.....some race dampers require up to 250lbs. of torque to install.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Diseazd

[madkaw]

4 hours ago, Captain Obvious said:

Oh yeah, and I saw your for sale post about the E88 head from that motor... Is that the large chamber or small chamber version of the E88?

From what I've read "on the internet" the E88's from the 240's are the small chamber and the ones from the 260's are the larger chamber.

Large chamber. I believe there are 4 versions actually .  This is the open chamber version

Edited September 24, 2019 by madkaw

[madkaw]

2 hours ago, Diseazd said:

This is exactly why the 280 damper bores were machined  back far enough so you could feel the groove receive the woodfuff key. If you are off just a tiny bit, it can push the key through the oil slinger. So many ways to screw up a good motor by one mistake......what a waste! BTW Capt.....you want a tight fit on your damper.....some race dampers require up to 250lbs. of torque to install.

My BHJ damper is like that

[Jeff G 78]

1 hour ago, madkaw said:

My BHJ damper is like that

I had to file/sand my crank snout after my stock damper's bolt came loose and messed up my crank.  I then bought the BHJ and took the crank and new damper to my machine shop and told them to check the crank for straightness and cracks plus adjust the fit to the proper interference that BHJ recommends.  The crank checked fine and the fit was right where BHJ spec'd it.  When I installed it, I was a bit nervous about the key moving, but it stayed in place and the damper pulled right in using the bolt and only minimal torque.  I'd guess it took less than 15 ft-lbs. of torque to draw it in.

[240260280]

de-burring rules!

[siteunseen]

Sounds like my Dad's rules!  

Turn that hot water off! I know what you're doing.

Deburring...