The Ford Barn

Dick Steinkamp · 05-13-2016, 01:33 PM

I pulled the pan and started checking bearing clearances today.

The rods don't have any shims left, but the bearing material (at least on the cap) still looks good. I Plastigauged #1 and there is about .0025 clearance.

The Mains still have some shims left. I plastigauged the middle one and got >.003 clearance. Removing a .003 shims from each side gets me to about .003 clearance with one .002 shim left on each side. So it appears I can get the mains back into spec if the other two are similar.

My question is, how bad is .0025 clearance on the rods? Will they knock? Hurt the crank? Be OK for a while?

05-13-2016, 01:33 PM	#1
Dick Steinkamp Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: Bellingham, WA Posts: 1,163	"Acceptable" bearing clearances I pulled the pan and started checking bearing clearances today. The rods don't have any shims left, but the bearing material (at least on the cap) still looks good. I Plastigauged #1 and there is about .0025 clearance. The Mains still have some shims left. I plastigauged the middle one and got >.003 clearance. Removing a .003 shims from each side gets me to about .003 clearance with one .002 shim left on each side. So it appears I can get the mains back into spec if the other two are similar. My question is, how bad is .0025 clearance on the rods? Will they knock? Hurt the crank? Be OK for a while?