390FE (406ci) for #50, built by Tom Lucas at FE Specialties.

[robroy]

Good afternoon Alvin, Robert, and BobbyFord, thanks for replying!

Argentina, Germany, what's the difference?

Yeah! If a German bearing were available, I'd have surely bought it. Oh well, it sounds like this one is A-OK!

Like Ranchero said, it's a light duty application for spinning but kinda
"rough side-hammering loads" according to a website I read about it.
The bearing quality isn't the problem, it's the side-hammering the pilot
takes. The 6303 is hell for strong on the hammering part! I put a
flimsy little 6003 in my 351w as a test, theoretically it's not supposed
to hold up to the side-hammering-like loads so good. We'll see huh?

That's interesting Alvin; I haven't heard of these different types of loads before! It makes sense. And that sounds like a nice experiment you did with your 351W setup!

pps- Don't know why some outfits want to leave the "6" off? :/

I noticed that just today! I asked for a 6303, and the guy said, "A '303 huh..."

Google (or Bing) "MRC Bearings".

It appears they are owned by SKF.

And so they are! Thanks for letting me know--I checked it out.

I usually look for Timken or SKF but an SKF by another name is fine by me.

Okay, excellent!

SKF is a OEM for many of the German Car Companies (possibly US ones too)

Interesting!

Funny I was getting bearings for the front wheels on the F100 and they guy was like "You want US or Chinese?" Me "US", him "They are twice as much", me "They will last twice as long...", him "thats true"....

It's classic isn't it--it's hard for me to imagine why anybody would ever buy the Chinese-made bearings.

ANYTHING but a Chinese bearing.

You can count on that! I'd sooner put in my nice oil-impregnated bushing than use a Chinese bearing!

My next steps include cleaning up the back of the block (the bellhousing mating surface) and using the Browell Bellhousing alignment tool to make sure it's still in perfect alignment!

Alvin, Robert, and BobbyFord, thanks for the excellent replies!

Robroy

[Happy_Camper]

***EDIT***** OK, so I misssed a whole page, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it... ***********

I agree with Robert. use the T.O. bearing, replace the pilot bearing & make sure it doesn't say "made in China", as they are inferior bearings. Timken is a great brand made here in the USA.

As to the filter, talk with Tom. Personally, I don't care for Fram. I use Napa Filters (made by Wix).

Because you live near an area of foggy air, that can have a salt tinge to it, You may want to shoot the bare metal with something to protect it.
Painting the bare surfaces helps you down the road to find loose fasteners, or cracks, as rust will form where the paint wears away from the loose bolt, and the paint cracks with the metal if the metal cracks, so you see a fine pencil line rust trail.
It's much easier to look for rust trails, than to put a wrench on every nut and bolt during a periodic maintenance inspection (aka oil change & "bonding time" with the truck )

[robroy]

Good afternoon Scott, thanks for replying!

I agree with Robert. use the T.O. bearing, replace the pilot bearing & make sure it doesn't say "made in China", as they are inferior bearings. Timken is a great brand made here in the USA.

Excellent! Thanks for your advice. I'll have a preference for those Timken bearings whenever I can!

As to the filter, talk with Tom. Personally, I don't care for Fram. I use Napa Filters (made by Wix).

Okay doke--this I may do. Thanks to the great advice here on FORDification, I'd been using those WIX filters also (normally).

Because you live near an area of foggy air, that can have a salt tinge to it, You may want to shoot the bare metal with something to protect it.
Painting the bare surfaces helps you down the road to find loose fasteners, or cracks, as rust will form where the paint wears away from the loose bolt, and the paint cracks with the metal if the metal cracks, so you see a fine pencil line rust trail.
It's much easier to look for rust trails, than to put a wrench on every nut and bolt during a periodic maintenance inspection (aka oil change & "bonding time" with the truck )

Gosh, thanks for this excellent advice Scott! I hadn't thought of those points before at all. I may go ahead and hit it with something, although I'm not sure if I'm ready to do the masking required for a good job. These are strong points you've made though!

Updates:

1. The flywheel and pressure plate are still at Midway Engine Rebuilders in Salinas. Steve (the main guy there) said they'd probably be done tomorrow.
2. I've started scraping the bell housing surface clean, including some old paint that came off on the starter plate. I also have begun using the Browell Bellhousing alignment tool, but it looks like I'll need to pull the engine out of its cradle, since the starter plate won't clear the cradle.
   
   
   
   

Scott, thanks again for your excellent reply! I'll keep y'all updated.

Robroy

[ToughOldFord]

Last Timken I bought was made in Indonesia. But really, we're talking about a pilot bushing here, who really cares? It's under no load to speak of, it doesn't move, it doesn't wear out, it doesn't even need to be a precision fit.

[70_F100]

Robroy, looks like you've got things going your way now!!

One thing I noticed, it looks like you've got some bends that need to be straightened out at the bottom of your spacer plate!!

[robroy]

Good evening ToughOldFord and 70_F100, thanks for replying!

Last Timken I bought was made in Indonesia. But really, we're talking about a pilot bushing here, who really cares? It's under no load to speak of, it doesn't move, it doesn't wear out, it doesn't even need to be a precision fit.

Thanks for clarifying this--I see your point! I've probably been getting overly concerned over this pilot bearing. At least I know it's perfect now!

Robroy, looks like you've got things going your way now!!

Excellent, thanks!!!

One thing I noticed, it looks like you've got some bends that need to be straightened out at the bottom of your spacer plate!!

You're right! I personally implemented those bends when originally removing the engine back in Summer 2008, then I re-touched them while trying to get the clutch inspection plate to fit this last Fall. EDIT: In case it wasn't crystal clear, I was joking ironically about the "implemented" and "re-touched" verbs.

As I remember it, there's a mysterious physical incompatibility between my spacer plate and the clutch inspection cover. And this mystery was compounded when the headers entered the scene, since in its unmodified configuration, the collectors prevented the removal of the clutch inspection cover!

This time, I'll be sure to make sure everything's straight and goes together properly before installing the transmission and setting it in the truck! And I'll leave the inspection cover off until I've installed the headers, so I can trim it as required to clear them (which seems much easier to do while it's not "trapped" behind the collectors).

ToughOldFord and 70_F100, thanks again for your superb replies!
Robroy

[robroy]

Good afternoon!

Today Midway Engine Rebuilders completed the flywheel and pressure plate balancing job! I'm not sure how much confidence I have in their work, so I'd really like to hear your opinions. You can click on any of these photos for much higher resolution versions.

Their charge was $85, which seemed OK to me. I heard that the balance was roughly OK, but that they improved it.



Here's the front of their shop. I heard from Steve (he seemed to be the boss) that it's a two man shop, and that they don't have a Web site or anything.



Here's what the area of town looks like.



And here's the pressure plate. I heard from Steve that the guy who did the work (it must have been his shop partner) removed material from the flywheel only. But I can see that around the corners their balancing machine scraped some paint off of the pressure plate (no big deal I suppose).



They stamped a zero in to the pressure plate and flywheel to indicate their relative positions--I'm supposed to line up the marks when putting them together, since they balanced them that way.




Here's the flywheel surface they didn't modify. It has a bunch of little scratches in the surface now, which probably won't hurt anything at all, but make me think they might have been a little rough with it. I've always handled this brand new flywheel with great care myself.



Here's the surface they did modify.



Here are the two places they drilled. I'm not experienced with flywheel balancing, but it looks like they removed a significant amount of metal! What do you think?





So what do y'all think? Does it look like they did an OK job?

Thanks very much for the super helpful guidance!
Robroy

[Alvin in AZ]

Hey, but they got a Ford flat head out there in front. :)
They can't be -all- bad. ;)

Here's what the area of town looks like.

Robroy

Yeah, see how you are? ;)
Showing off all that nice looking California stuff to make us poor-dumb "fly overs" envious! :/


-----------------------------------


I had my flywheel balanced at -one of the best- automotive machine shops in Tucson.
They drilled -one- hole about like that one in mine. :)
And said... "told you it wasn't going to be out much ;)"
Mine was the original and it'd been resurfaced more than eight times.
They balanced only the flywheel tho.

Alvin in AZ

[robroy]

Good evening Alvin, thanks for replying!

Hey, but they got a Ford flat head out there in front.
They can't be -all- bad.

Good point! I didn't know what kind of engine that was, but I guess it looks like a flat head now that you point it out!

http://www.robroygregg.com/Number50/IMG_6288x.JPG

Yeah, see how you are?
Showing off all that nice looking California stuff to make us poor-dumb "fly overs" envious! :/

You got it!

http://www.robroygregg.com/Number50/IMG_6298x.JPG

I had my flywheel balanced at -one of the best- automotive machine shops in Tucson.
They drilled -one- hole about like that one in mine.
And said... "told you it wasn't going to be out much "
Mine was the original and it'd been resurfaced more than eight times.
They balanced only the flywheel tho.

Oh okay! Well that's interesting.

I suppose unless anybody sees anything obviously suspicious, I'll just move on! It must be hard to judge the quality of the job without independently testing the balance.

Thanks very much for your excellent reply Alvin!
Robroy

[sport71]

Robroy I just watched your videos, I must say "You asked all the right questions" I was pleased to see how you are doing on your build. Congratulations on those numbers...

[robroy]

'Evening Ruben, thanks for replying!

Robroy I just watched your videos, I must say "You asked all the right questions"

Thanks! I suppose I had some solid experience with neglecting to ask the right questions before, so I was prepared!

I was pleased to see how you are doing on your build. Congratulations on those numbers...

Thanks Ruben! The build is going well now that the engine's squared away. And the numbers look promising!

Here's tonight scenario. I'm starting to have an eerie feeling that I've done these things before!



Thanks again for your excellent reply Ruben!
Robroy

[Ranchero50]

Hey, any machine shop that serves cocktails is ok by me. The balance holes are good, couple grams out, maybe? The stamp on the flywheel and pressure plate is a really good sign. The balance holes are out of the clutch loaded area.

Looks like a decent job.

Jamie

[DuckRyder]

On the flywheel, it doesn't look like they took that much off.. (it isn't that uncommon to see 5-6 similar holes) and while the scratches might be annoying that it appears they didn't treat it with a great deal of care, any on the engagement surfaces will disappear in the first few uses.

[robroy]

Good morning Jamie and Robert, thanks for your outstanding replies!

Hey, any machine shop that serves cocktails is ok by me.

HA! That's a good sign isn't it? I guess they also serve 7-UP.

The balance holes are good, couple grams out, maybe?

Okay, fantastic! Thanks for letting me know.

The stamp on the flywheel and pressure plate is a really good sign.

Excellent!!! Steve (the Midway Engine owner), made a special point out of those stamps.

The balance holes are out of the clutch loaded area.

Indeed, I think you're right!

Looks like a decent job.

Great! Thanks very much for your advice.

On the flywheel, it doesn't look like they took that much off.. (it isn't that uncommon to see 5-6 similar holes) and while the scratches might be annoying that it appears they didn't treat it with a great deal of care, any on the engagement surfaces will disappear in the first few uses.

Okay! Perfect. Thanks very much for this advice! The scratches on the surface aren't very deep at all--you can't even really feel them with a finger nail. I guess I'm just used to handling all of these parts like they're mystical, gold eggs from the top of an invisible temple on the moon! Probably paying the parts bill has something to do with this, but I have a deep appreciation for these beautiful new parts--they amaze me.

Jamie and Robert, thank you both for your reassuring advice--you've allowed me to move on with confidence in this balancing job!

Robroy

[robroy]

Good afternoon!

I couldn't bring myself to leave the back of the block bare, especially since it looked like the POR-15 metal prep had made it appear "bleached." I brushed Rust Bullet Automotive on, taking great care to keep all the machined surfaces clean. I'm happy with how it turned out!




Here's what my work area looked like. It was actually sunny for a while today, but it's raining now.




After an hour and a half the Rust Bullet was dry to the touch, so I began putting the bell housing on.




I had to bump the Browell Bellhousing alignment tool gently with a rubber hammer to start the ring over the cylinder. While moving from Palo Alto to Salinas, I dropped the Browell tool on the concrete and put a ding at the end of its cylinder. OUCH! I'm hoping the tool's still good (more on that soon).



And I slid the ring up the cylinder to the bell housing face, and the alignment is looking very bad!!! Yikes. I didn't have the bell housing torqued down, so I'm hoping that it will adjust itself better when I do that. Or the Browell tool could have gotten bent in its fall!

In this photo, the ring is actually making contact with the bell housing on the bottom--you can see the big gap at the top. Something's not right here.



My plan is to loosen all the bell housing bolts, pull the housing free from the alignment pins, then put it back together again and torque the bolts. Hopefully it will straighten itself out then!

If not, I may have to have the Browell tool checked by a machinist to make sure it's still straight. It's a pretty heavy tool, and after the accidental drop, I realized that it would benefit dramatically by having a plastic storage case. Oh well!

Thanks very much for the fantastic guidance! I'll let y'all know how the alignment investigation goes.

Robroy