Ouch Larry! This work can be very unforgiving. You are lucky it didn't snip off your finger tip. Whenever I am feeling an odd pain, I wonder if that's where I... I have smashed and cut about everything working on cars!
Yikes, that would hurt, Larry. I normally say I'm not officially working in the shop unless there's blood somewhere.
Alright, how do I go about measuring the gear backlash? I haven't found anything in the manual yet. Do I just use a feeler guage? And what spec should I be looking for? Thank you!!
On a fiber gear you are looking for no more than .005" of backlash. Usually on a new gear there will be 0.00" to .003". The most important thing is to look at it very closely for any deep indentations from the mating gear and signs that it is starting to swell soaking in oil. The failure mode of the gear is they become either soft from soaking in oil, or brittle from age and heat. Eventually they strip the teeth off. Look it over for any signs it might be getting ready to strip teeth. Excessive backlash is a tell tale sign. With the lifters out, set up a magnetic base dial indicator and measure the back lash directly off the tooth at the top. Just like measuring a ring gear.
The good news is if you guess wrong, you can change the cam gear with the engine installed. You will need a puller.
Awesome, thanks. It doesn't look like it's excessively worn. I'll get it measured and go from there. This photo isn't great but it's all I have right now.
A T-500 Galion road graders used to run a big fiber gear that the governor would mesh with. We had one where the teeth decided to leave the chat and the governor had no effect. The International 466 sat there running wide open for the time it took for me to get out to the machine to manually work the governor, so roughly 30 minutes. The fun part was that the engine had to come out to replace the gear because it was on the inside of the flywheel.
I'm back at the engine, after being sick all last week. So I couldn't do much. Here's some photos of the last 3 pistons I had taken last week. The compression ring on all 3 was broken in many little pieces. And in some spots the small pieces got stacked on top of each other, forcing the grooves in the piston outwards. Kinda crazy stuff. The good thing is the bores don't look hurt.
Then tonight I was able to get back out and i removed the exhaust valves. Then was able to remove cam and lifters. The cam came out nicely with the timing gear still in place.
Registration for the Bantam Jeep fest opened up. Which is exciting but also kind of depressing, as I would have been registering Flossy for all sorts of stuff. But I won't now because I'm not sure how long the machining will take. Hopefully I can have the engine done in a couple months and go. But depending upon how much machining it takes, it will be a stretch. I have been searching for a local f head. If all else fails, I buy a cheap, running engine. Drop it in and hook up the 2 wires it requires to run. Then go hit the trails in a matter of a couple days work.Then wait, till I can get flossys engine built correctly. Just things to think about.
Sounds like a good plan '56. It could be tough finding a good running F-Head but you never know. You are on the right track. Get the engine to the machine shop for an estimate and you are well on your way to finding out just what you need to do.
It may seem like all the luck you've had recently has been bad, but from what you are finding from your engine teardown, you were just a few miles away from that engine throwing a world class scrap iron fit (to use a gmwillys phrase) and you would have had nothing to start over with.
I think you were lucky to have decided to tear it down when you did....
No question LarrBeard, that thing was gettin' ready to let go. "World Class Scrap Iron Fit", I love that one! I think 56' saved himself from having to find a block. Those pistons had to be banging around in there without the support of the rings. The pieces of the rings are definitely going to wear the cylinder walls. If .080" bore wont clean it up, you either need sleeves or a new block. That's all providing the rod doesn't go through the side of the piston as it breaks apart and really has hay day.
When you get it all machined and back together, you are going to think you have a Swiss watch in there if you think it was running good before '56.
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