Thanks: 
Likes: 
Glad to see there is still interest. I know that this has been a long and drawn out project. I keep finding little things that make me rethink my direction, but I just keep trying to get something accomplished everyday.
The first pictures are drilling the engine base for the tower housing studs The plate is made with a clamp in center pilot for the block and when removed has a hole and bushing to set on the tower housing, with unit in place, to fit over either a 5/8 or the 7/8 inch drive shaft for drilling the tower housing. Seems like most of the time is spent making jigs and fixtures, hours to make and minutes to do the job. Guess I knew that going into this project.
In the process of trying to round up 5 of the center main bearing holders with the heavy front half, I came across 3 sets of main carriers out of the late 60's block. The Typhoon series. They are 1/4 inch larger in diameter with the same inside mold allowing the OD to be turned down to the Mark series main size. This also allowed the removal of the bleed notches that drained the puddled fuel from idling overboard. Closer examination reveled the outer mold dies were narrowed to allow the larger bore Typhoon series, a larger land mating surface to the block, which works out well with this larger bore small main setup.
The back of the blocks had to be cut back for the piston to pull back into because the pistons are .100 thousands longer below the wrist pin. They clear the crank counter weights by about 1/32 of an inch after cutting the inside of the piston skirt on a 45 degree angle. With that being done, it required that the main blocks be pinned for alignment which would not be possible to do by hand. So with the pins out I ground them down to 1/8th inch in diameter and shortened up to minimize cracking of the mid case.
Bookmarks