Never felt so Stupid !

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July 20, 2008, 11:44:03 AM

As some of you may know I have been working on my wifes '66 stang for the past several Months,
well I got the engine back from the machine shop a couple weeks ago
and yesterday I finally got around to re-assmbling of the 289 engine, the machine shop has had it about 2 months just enough time for me to forget some things,
like which side no.#1 piston is on Huh

So I started into the thing, 1st the bearings then crank etc,etc, got all the rings installed even cylinder match the top ring to .020 ring gap , Man! I was moving right along
with this thing, then went in all the new slugs, rod bearings & caps etc,etc,
I read with the instructions to torque the caps @ no more then 25 ft lb
Huh

so I think Huh! this does'nt feel like enough, so anyway I went ahead and torque all the rod caps at 25 lbs rotaited it over a few times and everything work smoothly , so at this time I done all i had plan to do, this had took about 5 hours,, so I cover it up and put it to rest for a while until next time, I come to the house set back behind the Ol-putor of corse to relax and check out the bbd sign

site, then go to a link to rebuilding small block ford's to check out the torque specs on the
rod caps, and i was right! they are supposed to be torque from 25-45 depending on the HP of the engine, and I read on and looked at a picture that showed no.# 1 cylinder on the front Pass side of the block,, Oh Sh1T I thought Shocked

Ihad put this thing together as I would have a Mopar Block starting with No#1 on the driver side front,,

even though all of them were correct in line they were completly backwords from side to side,,, Jeeesh! what a Morron I felt like.
I guess that served me right for having a Ford....
Someone please tell me they have done things like this too. $\/][$
Oh well got to go pull them all apart again and reverse the pistons to the other side.
1 good thing though! atleast I did'nt make that mistake on the 1st day of the new year.
because you know whatthey say... OBTW Happy New Year Ya'll

is their valve relief's on the piston's [from the machine shop so i guess not stock] if not ...it really dosen't matter which bank the piston's are on as long as the bearing tang is facing the proper direction....as far as the 25lbs to 45lbs on the caps go it's most important that the bearing clearence's are on spec. then varying the torque around...

I put a 289 together for a buddy about 5 years ago. I had an assembly manual so I caught that. My problem came when I went to time it on fire up. Wasn't thinking and statically timed the Duraspark Dizzy with HI-6 box and was on the wrong #1 cylinder. It wouldn't fire, the advance light wasn't even close and remembered: Ford $\/][$

It didn't have the low end grunt of a big block but it sure love to rev; 4" bore with 2.87" stoke : Dart heads, victor jr intake, 600 double pump carb, 10 to 1, Isky hydraulic cam around 285 advertised.

A couple years ago, he finished his '65 when I finished the RR and we took them to the track. We were sure he was a little faster. About 5 times he would get me out of the hole but I would chase him down.

The header clearence is tight on the '65 to '66. Check the shock towers for cracking and add a Monte Carlo Car. If you put some power to it and don't weld in connectors, the B pillar will tear at the extreme rear of the rear side window. Go to Ford shows and you will this on many coupes, including my buddies. he went with the bolt in connectors which are worthless.

Tom

Don't sweat it dude. I've done plenty of stupid things and I continue on doing them.

If I remember right, look at the block from the front. The cylinder closest to you is number one.There is a slight offset side to side because the rods have to fit on the crank. I haven't built a small ford in years, but I'm pretty sure they go 1,2,3,4 down one bank and 5,6,7,8 down the opposite bank. Was that block line honed at the machine shop? If it was, find out what they had the mains torqued to while they were doing it, because that's where they belong now. Like it was said before, measure everything carefully. Let us know how you make out.

well I just got through swaping the piston & rods over to the other side, I noticed that there were already rub marks on the cap side of the rod bearings , some a bit more than others, should this be? or did it have something to do with the rods being in wrong way? all the pistons were in correctly either way facing forword like they should be,so that wasn't a concern,
the only thing was that the rods were not matting together the right way on the crank juornals and were in the wrong
cylinders , Yes the crank was turned 10/10 and the rods were inline drilled and rebuilt re-ssembled and weight out
evenly. I could'nt reach machine shop tody ( Closed ) But I torque them to specs of inside main caps 70 ft lb and ends @ 40 ft lb . and the secound time round on the rod caps were @ 30 ft lb because it seem as though the 25 might have stretched the threds a bit, this scares me when it comes to tightning the rod bolts because I have heard about so many small block fords loosing there rods through the block because they rev up such high rpm's, and at this point I have dumped right at 1-k into this engine.
so even though there were no mention of thred lock for the rod bolts i used some anyway's Wink

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on another note : I have already changed out the rear to a 9" , and let me tell you it was hard for me to turn loose of
the 9" to go in that stang because it would had bolted right into the GTS perfectly, the rearend was from a '79 Granada
with a stock 302ci . so if anyone is looking for a good direct raplacment for your Darts the one from the Granda's will work .. and I scored it for only 100 bucks.. with leafs brakes everything attached. Grin

I'm not a machinist or engine builder, but I don't torque down any rods or mains without using plastigage. Just a cheap way to double check clearances. Summit carries it.

Tom