And now its going to get fun!!!! Block is home. Bolted it up to the engine stand. Sprayed it down with brake cleaner and wiped it down with 100% cotton rag (No dust). After this, I took a can of WD40 and sprayed down the whole block liberally. Journals, Oil galleys, caps, etc.
Finallly, my plan of attack (using Jays 519" build as a guide, I started with the Cam plug for the #4 cam journal. Using a seperate 100% cotton rag, I rubbed out the cam bearing. I wanted to make sure there was no dirt, grease, "smutt", etc. Anything that would get sucked up into the heads during the oil feed. Once this was done (using nitrile gloves.... just feels like a super sterile environment where these would be needed), I unwrapped the cam plug Jay was awesome enough to machine for me.this is a 2 piece plug. One side of the blog is inserted from the back of the block, the other from the front. When sandwiched together, there will be a thin passageway as the two halves do not touch. This leaves a space for the oil (Side Oiler), to come up through the oil feed hole in the journal, pass through the oil hole in the bearing, fill up the space between the plug, and pass out the top oil feed hole in order to supply oil to the head.
Following Jays lead as best I could, I wiped down the plug with brake cleaner to remove any debris. The 2 plug halves are held together by a small bolt and nyloc nut. To ensure the oil does not seep out from around the plug, RTV sealant was applied in a very thin bead where the halves touch the block (Ensuring not to get any on the inside face. RTV sealant was also applied to the bolt head as well as under the nyloc nut. I wanted a tiny bit more security, so placed some extreme hold Loctite to the bolt threads as well. Once I tightened it all down (I didnt want to strip the bolt\nut, so I tightened it until it was fairly hard to tighten any further and stopped (Thats why I felt goood about using locktite).
When all was done, I used my finger to smooth out the RTV that squished out (only a little) around each half as well as run my finger around the nut and the bolt head to ensure even coverage. Step one complete!!! Its finally happpening. Now I want to let this dry before moving on. I feel like with my inexperience, going slow will be my greatest ally. Gives me time to post on here as well to get feed back. I knew that I would not be able to reach the plug location once the Crankshaft was installed, so wanted to start here. Tomorrow I may take down all of the measurements with the main bearings in place as well as measure the crank journal diameters.... I am hoping I do not need to buy extra sets of main bearings to make the proper clearances.... Finger crossed. 1 part that has me a bit nervous is the rear main seals with the 2 side seals. Any feedback on making this a smooth and effective seal would be greatly appreciated. See Below for pictures of the block and the cam journal plug in place.
