Quote:
Originally Posted by dmac
Is this something that would be caught by any basic shop assembling/installing a rotating assembly?
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Most likely. But, if I am reading this post correctly, a shop did not assemble the engine, the forum member did.
That said, and not to be mean, there are things that many of us who want to assemble our own engines after the machine shop has done all their work, can miss or not even know what to look for. I myself have learned mostly from a lot of hands on assembly, and yep, screwed up. But, I wanted to assemble my own engines as well. So there is a learning curve if you don't do this daily and most times you won't encounter problems such as this.
I do a lot of reading and have many books covering many brand makes of engines to include Pontiacs, that go over "blueprint" practices for those high-performance and race engines. You can pick up a lot and even apply some of that to our Pontiac engines.
I know to check my bearings at those edges that will meet the radius/fillet found on the crank. The radius is important and having one makes the crank stronger. Race engines having race type cranks can have a very large radius just for that reason. So it is important to verify that if your crank has a good radius that your bearings have a chamfer so as to clear the radius or use a narrowed bearing. Some makers offer main bearings with the radius already cut into them. Rod bearings are the same thing.
But, if I did not know to look/check for this, then why would I? You buy all new parts, have the machine shop do the needed machining, and then figure they just need to be assembled doing all your basic assembly checks as the original member did. So nothing was really done wrong, it was just that something that would have never caused an issue with a stock crank became an issue with an aftermarket crank.
I think the lesson is that anything aftermarket really has to be taken to a machine shop who can them really give it a 100% inspection/check and even go as far as blueprint it to make sure the item is within spec and not just assume it is because it is new and right out of the box. Sad that has to be said, but quality does not seem to be what it used to be anymore.
Luckily, no major harm was done to the engine and all will be well and up and running again in short order.
Just my 2 cents.