Thanks Loth, great thread! First 265" I was given... Truck went off a bridge, Drank her fill & bent a rod. To get that one out I persevered. Then saw rod end threads impressed into the crank throw. Flat file gingerly, ever finer papers backed by a paint stirrer plank. Had good oil pressure, never rapped.
My dad shopped the WW2 surplus sales all the time. That's where our bulldozer and power wagon came from. His lathe and his valve grinder, boring bar, and his in the frame crank grinder all came from army surplus. Most of the stuff was brand new in the box that he paid penny's on the dollar. He used the crank grinder on a lot of inline engines over the years. If you can find an old See Bee machine shop trailer from the Vietnam era they have all that stuff in them and a really neat trailer. When I worked for the Govt, we got one from Mississippi . everything in it had never even been uncrated. All brand name heavy duty tools.
There was a lot of cost cutting done years ago. In chassis crank grinding was one of them. I worked for a very reputable shop here in town in the early 80’s that would rather in chassis overhaul than take the engine out put it on a stand and do it the right. Roll in a set of mains, hone the cylinders (some cylinders you had to hone from the bottom side of the cylinders were partially covered from the top side by the A/C plenium) that was fun having the honing solvent run in your face. I absolutely hated to do in chassis overhaul work.
Somebody mentioned toothpaste tubes. They used to be made of soft lead/tin, so they probably would make a decent babbit material hah! During War World 2.0, consumer goods of all kinds were rationed. Metal of any kind was in high demand. Even pennies were made of steel for a time. In order to get a new toothpaste tube the old one had to be exchanged, so the metal could be recycled.
I was on a pipeline job years ago when the track hoe , popped the engine , 14 ft deep and @ 14* temps. . The company called the manufacture , it was a rented hoe . The manufacture sent out a mechanic , he had a surplus 5 ton 6x6 repair truck , machine shop equipped as has been spoken of . This guy built a frame work and plastic tent over the ditch and busted track hoe . The back of his truck opened up in a huge clamp shell with a diesel fuel heater in it . He kept the heater running all day while working in the tent . He welded the crank , reground the crank , installed new sleeves , bearings , pistons , rings , and reground the valve seats, basic total overhaul all in the 14 ft deep hole . In 3, 12-14 hour days it was running , he was torn down and gone . Never one refuel of his truck was needed . I was amazed , I was thinkin I guess we will just bury this broken mule in the hole and keep moving installing 26 “ gas main . I guess this is what we term as the Good Old Days . It was all in a days work , I thought I was in heaven , never had to get out in the elements for 3 days and was getting paid , it didn’t get any better than that !
^^ Wow! On a smaller scale, I decided to investigate the rod knock on my 1959 Massey tractor about two years ago. Continental gas 4 banger. Pulled the pan and rod caps, sure enough one was spun. The journal looked great except it was worn and .006" out of round. Pulling the crank means busting the entire tractor apart. I tried to find someone with an in the car crank grinder, no luck. Bought some .002 under bearings, stuck one in. I use it mainly for the drag box on the back. I don't use it hard, keep the revs down, still going..
There's a local guy with one, and does mostly truck and dozer stuff, gets paid pretty good. On a dozer, you have to pull the bellypan and the oil pan etc for him. Removing the bellypan on an old D8 or D9 is a chore in itself- and as much oil as the old ones leaked, there might easily be 300 lbs of oil-soaked dirt on top of it
Amen on the belly pan. My daddy put me on a 1957 D8 when I was 14 years old. That was 1977,,,, I worked on it ( ran it ) many years. I also helped him repair it as well,,,,,he could fix anything! Tommy
Double Amen on pulling a belly pan on a big dozer. Worked at the Grand Canyon as a heavy mobile equipment mechanic and had the pleasure of having to pull the belly pan off a D-7 on top of the dump when it broke down . Fortunately it was winter and the garbage was frozen.
Although NOT a Vietnam era Vet, I ran one of those shops when I was in the Seabees.(1980s) LOTS of good memories and OJT!
I've read strips of rawhide or leather were used to shim up bearings on Model T more than once on the side of the road. Anything to keep them going.
The Jalopy Journal
