Date:	4-11-2010
Number of Hours:	8.00
Brief Description:	Block Assembly
Even though I don’t have an answer concerning the crank shaft end play shim, I can still continue with the block assembly. This was the start of a very frustrating couple of days. It started out fine; I got the crank shaft installed without any further issues. The Cam shaft and gear went together well and installed nicely into the block. The block halves were prepped and the form-a-gasket was applied and the block halves were mated together. All the nuts and bolts that hold the block halves together were installed and tightened to the proper torque specification. Everything was smooth sailing, until I attempted to measure the gap between the piston rings with my Dad’s feeler-gauge in the following section and I noticed that the nut the holds all the feeler gauges together was missing. Image 1 shows the feeler gauge with the missing nut. So, where did this nut go? A few minutes before I noticed it was missing, I was re-measuring the end play on the crank, standing over the block half with the open side facing up. Did the nut fall inside the block to stay there until I’m climbing out at about 1000 feet before it becomes lodged between the connecting rod and the block? So, I spent the next 5 hours thoroughly cleaning the garage, moving everything I could looking for this little nut, without success. I really didn’t want to tear apart the block, but in the end, that’s what I did. So, all told, I spent about 7 hours looking for that little nut without ever finding it. Image 2 shows the engine halves re-mated and re-tightened to the proper torque specification on the engine stand. One thing about that engine stand: I ordered it from the Aviation department at JC Whitney (50$) on Thursday afternoon, and had it installed and ready for use (after a little modification) by 10:00 AM Saturday morning using regular FedEx ground shipping. Amazing.