Tomorrow is today – or, more correctly, tomorrow was about a week ago
March 3, 2018
Avid readers will remember that the body work was chugging along, accomplishments each week to keep the momentum going, but the machinist seemingly was making no progress. For months he kept promising to be done “by the end of the week.” And then, about a month ago, “by the end of the week” turned into promises to finish “tomorrow.” The “tomorrow” promise went on for weeks.
Well, tomorrow finally came. About a week ago. For the lower end. Which was picked up and carted off to my garage, leaving the head behind to be completed, yes you guessed it, “by the end of the week.”
Since I knew assembling the lower end would take me a couple of weeks, I have not called the machinist about the head. Instead, I started chugging along.
Before assembly could begin, I needed to (wanted to?) paint the block. While I asked the machinist to do that about a month ago, I saw it was unpainted when I went to pick it up. My friend helping me advised, correctly, not to say anything. Rather, we took it home, I taped up the openings and primed and painted it, black.
Then I tried to figure out which way the end caps went (internet research helped as it wasn’t obvious from trying to fit them).
With the order and orientation of the end caps clarified, it was time to install the rod bearings in the block.
And the end caps.
Then it was time for the turbo diesel crank.
Gently place the crank in the block.
And install the end caps with bearings.
And, miracles, it turns freely (as if I know what I’m doing)!
Next, gap the rings.
And install them on the pistons.
Then attach the rods to the pistons. The hardest part being, without the right tool, installing the wrist-pin retaining clips.
