Closing a case at a College, Part #2

Builders:

Lets look at the Groups involved:

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1000  The Crankshaft Group

1100 The Camshaft Group

1200 The Case Group

2000 Rear oil Case Group

2100 Harmonic Balancer Group

2400 Starter Group

2500 Hub Group

3000 Weseman 5th bearing Group

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OK, to get to what I call a “Complete Closed Case” a builder needs everything from each of the above groups. Not all of it comes from us. Some of it is from the Core, Some from the Wesemans, and some from Clark’s. The most important thing is to look at every individual part number, and make sure you have all of them on hand before you go after assembling the case at a College or home. Being at a college, but not having a set of main bearings, effectively prevents you from getting anywhere on the case. Usually someone has a spare set, but don’t count on it, come prepared.

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1001- Crank -A (8409 GM) or -B (Weseman new Billet)

1002- Crank gear

1003- Crank gear key

1004- Crank gear gasket

1005- Rear keys -2-

1006- Fuel pump eccentric

1007- Spacer

1008- Bronze distributor drive gear

1009- Oil slinger

1010- Main bearings

1011- Connecting rod bearings

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OK. If the goal is to close the case, and you send your stock core crank to the Wesemans at SPA for processing into a Gen 1 5th bearing crank, it is going to come back with #’s 1001-A through #1004. You will need to #1005 keys, and #1006-#1009, are just cleaned up off your core engine. CRITICALLY, you must get a main bearing set that matches the grind on your crank. Ie, if the crank is ground .010″ under, you need “10 under mains.” for bearings. These do not come with the crank.  #1011 are the rod bearings, and they must also match the crank grind, but you will not need them to get to a “Completely Closed Case.”  You can take this link: http://flywithspa.com/corvaircomponents/new5thbearingcrankshaft.html directly to Dan and Rachel’s site for crankshaft rework information.

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Cam group (1100)

1101- Cam

1102- Thrust washer

1103- Key

1104- Cam gear

1105- Hydraulic lifter set -12 total-

1106- Cam lubricant

1107- ZDDP oil additive

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At a College, we do not have the capability of installing a cam gear. Thus #1101 through 1104 have to get there assembled correctly. I have written about this in : Cam Washer, looking for a gray area. No kidding, I am not going to assist people in building motors at colleges with loose cam washers. If you are coming to the next college, and you have a cam with a loose washer, send it to me ASAP, and I will fix it (it will cost money, I am going to ‘kill’ the gear and replace it) and bring it to the college, The solution that most people are choosing these days is to just get the entire contents of the 1100 Group from us: 1100-WW Camshaft Group. To close the case you will need #1006, but you will not need #1005 and #1007 until later.

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Case Group (1200)

1201- Case -2 halves with studs-

1202- Main case bolts  and nuts-8-

1203- Pipe plugs for oil galleries -2-

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Here we have a tiny group, the Case.Now, there are a lot of notes that can be applied here, but keep in mind we are just looking at the overview big picture. The one note that I want to point out is that the case has no machine work on a 2700/2850 but the six bores in the case for the cylinders must be machined larger on a 3,000 cc engine. Of course, this is done before it is assembled. If you are going to build a 3,000cc engine, you must ship me the case in advance of the college, so I can have it machined. Some advance planning is in order, I can’t do this a week before the event. I have the ability to fix one or two head studs per case at the college, but if you need more than that, consider shipping the case to us in advance. If you send us a dirty case, we can have it cleaned, but it does cost $100. We have a wash tank at colleges, but it is for final cleaning, not degreasing stuff that should have arrived clean.

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Now, let’s get a look at the four parts in the group and think about putting a case together. Using just these numbers as a check list and something of a road map, any builder can put together a plan to assemble their case at a Corvair College Actually all the effort to get to that stage goes into the prep work, cleaning and a little shopping. It you lay out all the properly prepared components from groups 1000, 1100 and 1200 in front of me on the bench, and get me an assembly stand and my trusty Snap-on torque wrench “Excalibur“, I can assemble the case in about 45 minutes.

Now I say this in bad conscience because I once took 2 days to do it.  There was a tiny ding in one of the bearing surfaces that was putting a small amount of extra drag on the turning crank and bothering me. I took it apart 6 times to find it and make it right. Keep in mind, it’s not a contest, the winning score is being happy with it, and any amount of time it takes between 45 minutes and 48 hours is fine. BTW, everything we are talking about here is in our engine assembly DVD #1 that covers building up a case.

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…. on to part #3

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