Hey the short block is for the most part together! The new new piston set had a lot of variability in piston weights, and I was lucky to find an excellent match without going through material removal.

The machinist had not sized the cam to the new cam bearings, so a experienced friend helped me do that using blueing to determine where on the bearings the cam was rubbing. We then scraped the bearings, reinsterted cam, checked again for high areas with blueing, scraped, removed and repeated the process too many times to count. Finished the surface of the cam bearings with 0000 steel wool and washed the block thorougly.

The process for inserting piston/rod/ring assemblies had me a bit anxious since I'd never done it. It went pretty well, though required a lot of time. A new AutoZone ring compressor failed after the second assembly, and a retired mechanic friend came to the rescue by lending his compressor for a day. Getting the first oil scraper ring into the cylinder was always the most difficult.

There is a problem on the cam nose. The hardware that goes between the cam gear and nose bolt/washer determines endplay of the cam, at least that is the way it looks after hassling with it for a week. At first I had zero endplay, not good. Now I have .060 endplay, also not good. So that will need to be worked out before the final installation of the timing cover.

The crank had been in and out so many times that I installed another new set of main bearings during the final assembly. Probably overkill but it felt better.

There isnt much else left to do. Check the wear tolerances of a used oil pump to see if it can be bolted up, put in oil galley plugs. Good thing because it looks like our ranch may possibly, finally, sell. That would mean no time for anything but moving.

Last week I bought 5 new brass bodied thermostats to fit this type motor for a total of $9.50 (including shipping) on ebay. They were supposed to be 190 degrees. Figured one could go into motor, one save for backup and 3 resold. 190 degrees would have been perfect for mileage, heating up the oil for less drag. After receiving them, saw that the box said 190 degree, stamped on the stat was 195 degree. Checked three of them in a cup of water with accurage thermometer. All three were BARELY open with water boiling at 208 degrees! So the five new thermostats went into the metal recycling trash.

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46 1/2 ton with 56 292:thumbsup: