by Preston Brown
A bunch of progress in the last week or so.
First, I got my crankshaft and rods shipped off to Ollie's in Santa Ana, CA. Should be back some time in early January. I have a feeling the crank is going to have to go 1st under, at least on the mains.
I shipped my camshaft and cam followers to Tim Berardelli in Alexandria, VA to have them reground. If I had known he had a full machine shop, I would have sent my crankshaft there as well, but I found out too late.
Finally, I got the car flat-bedded over to Don Mill's place. He has a pretty nice shop space, and a large paint booth. He is getting to a pausing point on an old Jaguar, and feels he can have time to start on the 356 either this week or next week. He is happy to have me work with him, so I'll be doing that.
Finally, I've completely torn down the '59 leak-monster Normal motor that came in the car. Outward appearances aside, what I found inside was more or less pleasantly surprising. The pushrod tubes were leaking a lot of oil. Both crankshaft seals appeared to be leaking, I have to assume they weren't installed well because the surfaces of the case aren't gouged up or anything. These places seem to have been the majority of the sources of the leaks.
The heads themselves may or may not have been leaking, I can't really tell. They were caked up with a lot of carbon, but the pistons and cylinders themselves look almost Brand New. The rings look like they were just put in. I have to assume that the engine was torn down and rebuilt sometime in the recent past, if not in years, at least in mileage on the engine.
The cam also looks perfect. No wear on the oil pump drive slot, and no pitted lobes at all. The crank and rods look equally good. The single split-shell main bearing journal on the crankshaft measures out Standard, and there is no scoring on any of the lobes. I believe I'm going to leave the crank assembly together and simply clean everything up and do a resealing job, because that is all it appears to need. I'll then rebuild the carbs, and get the engine tin sand blasted and painted. Finally, I'll either keep the engine as a spare/back-up or sell it.