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Tinkering with Deerslayer

DEERSLAYER LINKS including vendor sites for parts and tools as well as sites for old truck and hot rod organizations

TINKERING WITH DEERSLAYER chronicles the day-by-day maintenance and improvements episodes for Deerslayer, a '37 Chevy farm truck hot rod.

CRUISIN' WITH DEERSLAYER Roadtrips, cruise-in's and truck show stories and tall tales.

TONY'S DUNGEON Tony Pascarella's forum entries at OldGMCtrucks.com regarding Deerslayer, particularly the 302 GMC engine build in his farmhouse basement.

DEERSLAYER MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for Deerslayer, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PROJECT NAILHEAD Chronicles the rebuild of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster 322 nailhead engine as a future replacement for Deerslayer's Jimmy 302.

50. Rotating Assembly

June 29^th 2021 Put tools away from the nailhead block painting and cleared the deck for the next operation - pistons and crankshaft. Disassembled piston assembly one and spent some deep ponder mode thinking on how to go about cleaning the various components.

I am at sea since I haven't done this before and was concerned about removing the wrist pin retainers because I couldn't see them. Turns out I couldn't see them because there aren't any. The wrist pin is held against movement by the connecting rod pinch clamp.

Examining the piston showed a chunk missing behind the oil ring. I could see the oil ring from inside the piston. That can't be good. I went back into ponder mode again as Cream's Disraeli Gears played in the background.

June 30^th 2021 Hunted up my dial bore gauge. micrometers and dial caliper and commenced to measuring the nailhead cylinders so I can order rings and maybe new pistons.

Fumbled around for awhile as I'm new to this and my OEM eyes don't help much, but I eventfully came up with a WAG of forty thousandths oversize pistons and bore. I'm going to keep at it until I'm more comfortable with my findings and I'm going to see if my machinist friend, John, will swing by after Sunday coffee to check my measurements.

I would like to find '56 heads, pistons and rods for this build but, I've been unsuccessful in that search and I may have to live with what I have. The only certain thing is that more research is in order. Beer of the day was Free State Brewing Company's Ad Astra Amber Ale.

July 7^th 2021 At four inches, my biggest mic is too small for this job, so I ordered a five inch mic, one day delivery. Cleaned the number one rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in an overnite Evapo-Rust submersion and fiddled with the piston some. The rings are flush and corroded. I couldn't budge any of them.

I took the piston to the Sunday coffee cruise-in. John didn't make it but Dave Sexton told me the marks on the thrust sides of the piston were from knurling and they were still pretty fresh. I took a look at all the pistons when I got back to the BillyBob Shop and they all have the knurling.

Continued to measure the pistons with micrometer and cylinder bores with dial bore gauge and telescoping bore gauge until I had confidence in my measurements. Have decided to stay with the pistons I have.

Got the corroded, stuck rings out of piston one with MAP torch, Kroil penetrating oil, small pick and needlenose pliers hand-to-hand combat technique. Background music was Jimmy Buffet's Banana Wind.

July 8^th 2021 Cleaning no. one piston assembly. Figuring out what works, what works better and in what order. When I establish a procedure, the other seven will go quicker. That's the theory anyway.

Dragged out my Dad's ancient piston ring groove cleaner and tried to intuit how to use it. This arrived on my doorstep a few years ago, addressed to "Mr Nimrod". My brother's short note that accompanied it, said it should come in handy in three or four years when I got around to BillyBob's stovebolt engine, the last engine Dad used it on in the eighties when my brother owned the truck.

Did some initial cleaning of the piston with Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel motor tool after knocking the worst carbon off the top with Scotchbrite cookies in an air angle grinder. The piston was marked with 040 on the top. The beer of the day was Hanger 24 Craft Brewing's Betty West Coast IPA.

July 12^th 2021 Developed a procedure for the nailhead piston assembly cleanup: 1) Remove the rings; 2) Clean ring grooves; 3) Submerge assembly in Oileater parts washer for an hour; 4) Disassemble piston assembly; 5) Submerge piston in Chem-Dip; 6); Go over all parts that need it with the Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel tool; 7) Submerge all parts in an ultrasonic cleaner session; 8) Submerge rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in Evapo-Rust; Give all parts a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil and reassemble loosely. This procedure may need fine tuning. We'll see how it goes for now. Background music was Pink Floyd's Meddle.

July 15^th 2021 Moving along with the piston cleanup. Meanwhile, the block paint has been curing for almost three weeks. Both the Bill Hirsh engine paint and the Glyptal insulating paint will benefit from heat treatment prior to running the engine. With that in mind, I rooted around in the dark recesses of the BillyBob shop until I found my Powder coating curing lamp. Went about setting the lamp up to bake the Glyptal paint at about 260 degrees F for 2 hrs. This process takes awhile as you have to move the engine block from time to time to concentrate the infrared rays on different areas. Beer of the day was Nebraska Brewing Company's Brunette Nut Brown Ale.

July 19^th 2021 Nailhead piston assembly operations continue. This is cleaned assembly two compared to untouched assembly three. Something else to observe about these two assemblies is that the "ears" just above the crankshaft end of rod three are almost ground away whereas there is still plenty of meat in the ears of rod two. Rod three also has a beefier cap than two which might account for some of this. I'll weigh things down the road to see what's what.

I've got three and a half assemblies cleaned at this point and I've modified the procedure as well. The procedure was revised to clean the piston top carbon. Scotchbrite cookies were too aggressive and Dremel buffs didn't cut it alone. A brass wire wheel in an electric die grinder did the trick. Dad's ancient groove cleaning tool tortured me more than it tortured the ring grooves. I got better results with using a broken ring as a cleaning tool. The ultrasonic cleaning session leaves aluminum dull and ferrous metal slightly rusty so the Evapo-Rust dip was moved to the last step before lightly oiling with Marvel Mystery oil. and the piston gets a shine up with wire wheel again. Background music was Steve Miller Band's Sailor.

August 2^nd 2021 Took longer than I thought it would to clean the eight nailhead piston assemblies but I've always been over optimistic regarding deadlines. The piston assemblies are now clean and will be set aside. Updated the procedure for the nailhead piston assembly cleanup along the way for future reference.

1) Remove the rings; 2) Disassemble piston assembly; 3) Submerge all parts in Oileater parts washer for an hour; 4) Submerge piston in Chem-Dip for thirty minutes; 5) Remove remaining carbon on piston top with brass wire wheel in electric die grinder; 6) Go over rest of piston with the Scotchbrite buffs in the Dremel tool; 7) Clean ring grooves; 8) Submerge all parts in an ultrasonic cleaner session, 99 minutes 80 degrees C; 9) Submerge rod, cap, wrist pin and bolts in Evapo-Rust for up to twenty-four hours; 10) Shine up the piston again with another, shorter, wire wheel and Scotchbrite buff session; 11) Give all parts a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil and reassemble loosely.

Beer of the day was Madtree Brewing Company's Happy Amber amber ale. Background music was Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's Live on.

August 3^rd 2021 Crankshaft, main bearings and caps are next on the to-do list. Cleaning is first, then measuring what we have. I'm in deep ponder mode and taking some YouTube continuing education courses. Beer of the day is Nebraska Brewing Company's Nebraska PILS Pilsner Lager and background music was Cream of Clapton.

August 4^th 2021 Started with the main bearing caps, using an abbreviated procedure that I used to clean the rods. All these caps are stamped with a number and arrow so I can batch clean them without worrying about mixing them up. Segments of the rear seal were still in the sides of the rear main cap so, I have to dig that out first.

My friend, David Kerry, a professional performance engine builder and fabricator, had several concerns after viewing the pic of the crank and mains.

That crank needs micro polishing, the oil holes need chamfering please tell me you are not using those old bearings ? The wear pattern indicates the block needs line honing.

I'm gonna try to address those concerns but probably not to everybody's satisfaction, 'cept mine. Easiest first. When I got back to the shop, I located and blew the dust off my Starrett straightedge along with my thinnest feeler gauge (0.0015"). Tried to slip the feeler gauge under the straightedge in four places (both sides, front and back) of each main bearing journal, It didn't go under anywhere. I'm happy with that result.

Chamfering the oil holes was under my radar. I hadn't thought about chamfering the oil holes so, I'm researching that now but polishing my crank was always part to the program. The jury's still out on the bearings, both mains and rods.

Beer of the day was Madtree Brewing Company's Lift Crisp Golden Ale. Background music was Duane Allman An Anthology.

August 9^th 2021 Main bearing caps and bolts were submerged in the Oileater parts washer soup for an hour. That revealed paint overspray and rear seal remnants still in the rear cap so they were dug out and wire wheeled with the Dremel tool, then another session in the parts washer. The bearings themselves got an hour's session in 100% Oileater, not the Oileater/water mix in the parts washer.

Then, the the caps and bolts got a session in the Ultrasonic cleaner at 80 degrees C for 99 minutes and that was followed by a dip in Evapo-Rust for the caps. No rust on the bolts and they were set aside.

The bearings also got a separate Ultrasonic cleaner session. They came out of the Ultrasonic the worse for wear, not looking as good as when they went in. I lightly buffed one of the thrust bearing halves and took it with me, along with the unbuffed half to the Sunday morning coffee cruise-in. The consensus among my fellow Senile and Surly Club members was that the bearings were serviceable, but new ones would be better if available. I lightly buffed the remaining bearings and put them aside with the main caps which got a light coating of Marvel Mystery Oil.

Beer of the day is Fulton Brewing's Lonely Blonde American Blonde Ale. Background music was Glenn Miller Chattanooga Choo Choo The #1 hits.

August 10^th 2021 Went over the nailhead crankshaft with Oileater. A couple of the counterbalances had red and yellow paint marks. Found a shard on one of the counterbalances from machining that almost drew blood. Looks like both the machinist and the builder missed it. I took it off.

Decided to take the rust off the crankshaft by submerging it in Evapo-Rust so, I cleaned up my tire leak testing tub that is just the right size for this job. Required 12 gallons to submerge the crankshaft.

Beer of the day is Hamburg Brewing Company's Two Two Mango Mangolicious Ale. Background music was Rolling Stones Exiles on Main Street.

August 13^th 2021 Pulled the crankshaft from the Evapo-Rust dip after twenty-four hours, misted it with Marvel Mystery Oil and started setting up to polish the journals. Cut sheets of 800 and 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper into strips as wide as the journals and cannibalized my oldest pair of PF Flyers for shoestrings to provide motive power for the polishing. WD-40 to wet the paper and Blue Magic polish for the finish.

Got Dad's '59 Chilton Manual out to check the specs for main and rod journals and commenced measuring the crank journals with a 3" micrometer. I was confused by my initial readings as my precision measurement Kung Fu is not strong. I will recalibrate the mic and go again.

Beer of the day is Fulton Brewing's 300 IPA Hop Royalty. Background music was Always in my Heart Classic WWII Songs Volume Two.

August 16^th 2021 Was a little bit under the weather over the weekend, probably due to barometric changes of Fred passing by and blowin' the stink off us. I relapsed into lazy for most of the weekend. I did get started with the nailhead crankshaft polishing and ran into pitting of the rear main seal surface. Spent some time pondering the best approach to fixing that problem.

Beer of the day is Hamburg Brewing Company's Southtown American Style Stout. Background music was LeAnn Rimes Blue.

August 19^th 2021 Polishing the nailhead crank journals is taking some time. Ops went a little faster once I established a rhythm. Almost finished with the first pass of 800 grit paper.

My friend, Dave Kerry, asked about run out and offered that he had the v-blocks and precision dial indicator to check it. Decided to take a timeout from the polishing tedium and do an initial check myself.

Since I don't have v-blocks to support the crankshaft, I oiled main journal one and five bearing halves and installed them in the block, then the crankshaft followed, touching only the two bearing halves. I set up my dial indicator to measure the run out at main journal three. First time I've used the dial indicator and I fumbled around a bit setting it up. It didn't come with instructions.

Measuring the journal, front and back, resulted in readings of .009 and .0085 inches between low and high points. I haven't researched run out yet and my WAG is that some of this could be due to journal out-of-round. My next step, after polishing operations are complete will be to check all main journals for run out and to mic the high and low points to check out-of-round.

Beer of the day is Uinta Brewing Company's Sum'r Ale. Background music was Johnny Winter Lone Star Shootout.

August 26^th 2021 Hot August nights sapping my energy in the shop. It's a broiler, even at midnight. I slacked off for a couple of days but then got back to it before I lost my momentum. Finished the nailhead crank journal polishing with 800 grit, 1000 grit and Blue Magic passes. Cleaned the oil passages with nylon brushes, Oileater and Hoppes number 9 passes.