Performance Engine Rebuild Page 9


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All the images below are thumbnails. Clicking on them will bring up the bigger images.

Oil Pump Rotor
Normally I would reuse my oil pump, after checking out the clearances, but upon disassembly, I found the rotor had ingested some small metal parts that left some nicks in the rotor.
Oil Pump Rotor
At about $36 for a new Melling high volume pump (high volume because of the loose race clearances at the crank) I wasn't about to use a questionable oil pump.
Oil Pump
After mocking up the oil pump, I found out it hit the front main stud.
Oil Pump
Cutting the stud down solved that problem.
Oil Pump
The hole in the pickup tube support bracket was drilled out to 1/2" to accomondate the larger main stud, and a 1/2" nut with some locktite on it finished the oil pump assembly.
Oil Pan
I used a one piece oil pan seal from Ford made for a '95 Lightning. It's a steel core gasket for the rails, and should be reusable.

The engine was flipped rightside, filled with oil, and the rest of the core plugs were installed. There are three at the rear of the block, next to the cam plug, and two on the side of the block for antifreeze. Then the oil pressure sender was installed, and the engine was filled with oil. I primed the oil system using an old distributor shaft and a drill. Don't try this with anything less than a 1/2" drill folks, you'll burn out a 3/8" drill or a cordless.
Distributor
Next comes the distributor. Doing this right will make startup much easier. Here's my little trick for "static timing". Put your engine at desired timing at idle. Since my distributor has no advance, I set the balancer at 31 degrees. Then drop in the distributor with the rotor pointing towards the number 1 cylinder. Then pull the rotor off, look at the starwheel, and line it up on the pickup. You should get within 2 degrees using this method.
Complete Engine
The last step is to bolt on the valvecovers, tape the intake manifold closed, and put the cap and rotor back on. That's it, engine is ready to go to the dyno. Dyno pulls are on March 7th, we'll find out if I did everything right.

Update: Information on the dyno sessions can be found here.
     


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Last updated: Fri, March 8, 2002.
Copyright © Mike vanMeeteren, 2002.