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I put on the main cap and noticed binding. When I bolted the case halves together the binding went away.
Steve

It's the same with just the main cap, and with the lower case bolted down. I'll get a straight edge and check the line bore. It's gotta be low in the middle of the upper case.

Should have only dimpled the case at the loose bearing not the others.

zed1015 wrote: Should have only dimpled the case at the loose bearing not the others.

Right now I have the crank laid in the upper case. #2 and #3 main outer races are loose while the weight of the crank is keeping the others tight in the journals. If I rotate the crank the two remain loose, so it's not crank run out.

This means the line bore at the two journals are low. I could file off the dimples at those two lower journals and get it to spin freely. But I see two problems that remain. One are the loose races shifting and beating up the dowels, the other is the races being loose against the upper journals will cause oil pressure bleed off at the gaps and less oil to the bearings.

Did you punch both cases? I only did the lower ones. Have you tried bolting in the main cap. If the outer bearings are loose then I would file out the dimples in the main. Pics?
Steve

I only punched the lower. Punching the upper would cause a gap that will lose oil pressure. I can't put any pressure on the main cap. There would have to be no contact at all from the main cap to make it spin freely. I could keep it from moving with the Loctite, but still worried about the gap at the upper causing a loss of oil to the bearing. The tightness of the outer race to the upper journal is the only thing providing a seal at the oil galley. And with the line bore out like this there's no way to achieve that seal, and have the crank spin freely.

And from experience, any loss of oil pressure restriction will reduce pressure and volume to the rest of the engine.

Did you put a straight edge on it? Jeff was telling me a roller crank would be more forgiving than a babbitt crank. I suspect if you take out the dimples in the center journals, the end ones will be tight enough the oil seal won't be a problem. After a few heat cycles everything will settle in. As I said, I could feel a slight binding after three revolutions. I put it together anyway hoping for the best. It seems fine now. The problem I ran into was the seal at the oil filter O ring. I pulled the pan and put in a new one. Oil pressure came back. The big end and tranny get the oil first. It's a high volume system so there should be plenty of oil.
Steve

I'll get the straight edge from work tomorrow. Of course I can't be sure how detrimental the oil loss may be, but I have too much into this engine. I'd always be wondering what's going on down there.

I can get a case on ebay, test assemble, and if it's not right just send it back.

I thought the case was the only thing undamaged by the as%&%$# that originally re-built this engine for me. But I was wrong.

That might be the best thing to do. In my state if the cases are changed it becomes a salvage title.
Steve

No one would ever know. And I'm not even sure this is the original case. Is there any way to match the VIN to the engine ID?

Someone here should be abler to tell you. Have you checked your title?
Steve

No engine ID on the title.