Engine removal '38 deluxe

[Will D]

Made it in time after work to pick up the engine hoist. Managed to get it pulled, with the hood on.

I was going to remove the water pumps prior but I neglected to notice the bolt thru the bottom inlet. Glad I didn't pry and bang on it. Had to twist slightly to get double pulley past the hood latch brace. Had a comfortable amount of clearance all the way around.

Have a bunch of 1/4" flat steel plates so I ended up making a lifting plate that covers the entire valve gallery. A little overboard compared to the summit lifting plate but better safe than sorry.

I ended up running out of welding wire before I was finished the exhaust mount adapter for my engine stand so I ended up just pulling #3 & #7 pistons and rod bearing for now. #3 is the cylinder which had the bad wear in the cylinder wall due to a suspected loose piston pin retaining circlip. Turns out just the little doodad or doomahickie, whatever its called was snapped off of the retaining circlip. Amazing what kind of damage a little piece of spring steel can do.

If you look closely, you can see the circlip is still in place, it is only the little doodad thats broken off/missing. I found the little piece inside the center of the piston pin, hence the wear on both sides of the piston ring on the cylinder wall.

What the circlip used to look like.

A couple pics of the rod bearing after meeting metal bits.

Broken ring discovered on #7 cylinder.

Interesting repair previously done to the oil pick up.

Will get more welding wire tomorrow so I can get this thing on a stand and continue to disassemble.

 

[tubman]

Those are great pictures! Very informative.

 

[Mart]

Lots of good info there, Will.

 

[corvette8n]

Love the picture documentation, keep it coming. Reminds me of my first flathead a ‘50 sedan, when I drained the oil I found pieces of rings in the drain pan, surprisingly the cylinder walls were ok.

 

[cas3]

not sure i would trust copper fittings and solder on the pick up tube, call Vanpelts Sales and get a new one!

 

[Will D]

not sure i would trust copper fittings and solder on the pick up tube, call Vanpelts Sales and get a new one!

Yes, I will replace this. I love the fix it idea but if any leak occurred, there would be major oil pick up problems.

 

[cas3]

i am more afraid of it breaking off, but yeah, fix er' up

 

[Will D]

I managed to get back at it, finished the stand bracket and got to disassembly. I am thinking at this point, the metal bits in the oil were from the circlip damage to the #3 cylinder wall and the locking tabs on the rod nuts. The rods in this thing are 29A6205(more on these later), instead of holes for a cotter pin and castle nut, they have locking tab washers. X5 of the locking tabs were missing, snapped off. When I was removing the remaining locking tabs, a few more broke right off while the others just bent over.

Broken locking tab - MIA

The connecting rod bearings need to be replaced so I will get the rod big holes cleaned up and see if floating bearings are available in the closest oversize. If I can't find the bearings, I can use 8ba rods and insert bearings. The C59A crank has x2 oil holes on each rod journal unlike the 59A which only had x1. The rod journal sizes are the same from 45-53.

Interesting to note the 59A block typically has "59" cast in the top center of the bellhousing. This C59A block does not have "59" cast in the bellhousing but instead has "C59A" cast on the front left head on the block.

Here is a pic of the only cast numbers on the bellhousing.

Check out the wear on this oil relief valve plunger.

Con rod journals don't look too bad.

The block and all that is/was on it was made in Canada from what I can tell. Except the oil pump. Says USA right on it. Whether this was a replacement or original hardware, I don't know.

What I would like to know is how to distinguish a 50lb pump from an 80lb pump. Model number or can you tell by counting the gear teeth? When the motor was running previous, it had 2 gauges. The stock dash gauge read up to #50. The needle would always shoot up past 50 and stay there when running, hot or cold. A mechanical aftermarket gauge mounted under the dash read up to #60. It would sit at #50 cold and #35-#40 warm idle.


Got all the pistons removed, tackled one valve after making a valve spring tool. Will get the rest out tomorrow hopefully.

 

[Will D]

Oh ya, those piston rods...in searching for info, I could only find information on the most common for 59A which are 29A6200 rods. This C59A has 29A6205 rods which have differences from all others. Check out page 24 & 25 for an interesting roducation. I'll post the link to which I found this great info as well.

26A6205 con rods

99A caps

If you can't read these, click the link to zoom in.

Page 24/25

https://books.google.ca/books?id=ItB4Tg8IYLYC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=29A6205&source=bl&ots=_sGbJG52Wp&sig=ACfU3U2MRoUiaX50B3Y11xaS_6Gwb7sjKA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCkpiL4vfuAhUHpZ4KHc6nCsMQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[Mart]

Hi Will.
Good job on numbering the cylinders and components.

The "wear" flat on the pump plunger is intentional. They should all have that. It allows a constant bleed of oil to lube up the cam gear area.

The engine looks pretty good inside, if you are confident you have found the source of the metal, is it just a case of reassembly?

Will you use some self locking nuts?

Mart.

 

[marko39]

Looks like a Melling M-19 oil pump which I believe is 50#.

 

[Will D]

Hi Will.
Good job on numbering the cylinders and components.

The "wear" flat on the pump plunger is intentional. They should all have that. It allows a constant bleed of oil to lube up the cam gear area.

The engine looks pretty good inside, if you are confident you have found the source of the metal, is it just a case of reassembly?

Will you use some self locking nuts?

Mart.

Thanks Mart, and all who have commented.

Good to know that flat spot on the plunger is supposed to be there.

It does look pretty good inside but I am concerned about #3 cylinder wall. I feel like its going to cause problems sooner than later, possibly developing into a crack.

I am going to deal with that for sure but as well am going thru everything and checking fits and tolerances as per my repair manual.

An excerpt from the forward:
-----------
"This is a Repair Manual rather than a Reconditioner's Manual, and some acceptable repair practices would not be acceptable reconditioning practices. In this book the word "repair" is used to indicate "restore to good working condition" and not to a "like new" condition.
-----------

Self locking nuts, are those the aircraft ones you refer to in your videos?

 

[Mart]

My gut feeling, Will, is that the cylinder wall will be fine, as it has only been abraded, not impacted. If the score is deep, it is possible to cheat the boring bar over to equalise up the cuts and achieve bore cleanup at a smaller oversize than if cutting on centre. This is advanced stuff, I've not done it, but it was described to me by one of the experienced builders on here.

 

[Will D]

I had found what I believe to be the source of the metalic bits but hadn't traced the source of the brass particles. I think I found it. I couldn't remove the front cover until I removed the crank pulley because the bolts where a hair too long. Once off, I discovered the front engine cover/ timing gear cover has been brazed at some point. You can see a groove worn in the brass, deeper on the bottom edge. The timing gear is aluminum. It got me thinking, awhile back when I rebuilt the distributor, the back of the point plate had a deep groove worn in it to the point of removing the rivet heads and then some.

Are these 2 issues linked? What could be the source? Bent cam? Worn cam bearings? Is anything supposed to retain the cam aside from the front cover?

Front engine cover:

Points plate, rear view:

 

[19Fordy]

Will, Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to meticulously photograph and
explain exactly what you are doing in such detail. It's a great learning experience for all.
Be sure to keep us updated. Wishing you continued success with your project. I imagine you will be getting a new timing cover. On your engine, doesn't the thrust of the cam go "forward"?
Jim

 

[JSeery]

Cam thrust should be towards the block on a 59a engine and toward the timing cover on an 8ba. Could be an 8ba set of cam gears in there.

 

[Will D]

Cam thrust should be towards the block on a 59a engine and toward the timing cover on an 8ba. Could be an 8ba set of cam gears in there.

I'm not beside it right now and don't have a pic of the back of the gear, but no numbers on the front. Can you tell from the gear??

Don't mind my shoe, or lack there of. Haha

 

[40cpe]

I have a 59 block on engine stand now. Facing the crank gear installed on the crank, the teeth slant off the the left side. Looks like yours on the crank in the picture of it on the floor. I bought this engine this way, so I can't verify originality.

 

[Mart]

The gears in the pictures are putting the thrust towards the block.

Mart.

 

[Mart]

Is there a problem at the oil pump drive end? Imagine an oil pump that is very hard to turn (mega high pressure) or very tight idler gear, that would impart a forward thrust on the cam from that gear at the back end.

Can't really se that being it, but I'm racking my brains to think what could cause the cam to thrust forwards.

The cover was brazed, do you think it was finished to the correct height?

Would a replacement cover that is not damaged possibly be all that is required?

I'm interested to see what unfolds.

Mart.