Finished adjusting the remaining valve lifters this morning. One valve guide was so tight in the block that forcing it back up after lifter adjustment actually took some of the bounce out of the valve spring. By pure good fortune, I had a second set of springs handy so I swapped it over and threw the damaged one into the scrap pile.
With that pain in the neck out of the way, finally, I flipped the engine over and did a test fit of the crankshaft. This was the first time I have taken the three main bearing caps off, and I found that each had a quantity of crusty cosmolene under them and around the cap studs. Everything went together well, and crankshaft spun freely after 40 foot pounds of torque on each nut. From memory, I got more than 2 rotations of the crank, when it was spun by hand. That assembly lube is good stuff!!
Following a written procedure to test crank fore/aft movement (? referred to as 'thrust'), I found clearance against rear bearing was very pleasing. I couldn't pass a .0015 thou feeler gauge between them. That is very encouraging. I have now been able to confirm functionality of valvetrain, cam, and crankshaft.
What wasn't so encouraging, was the debris that fell out of the R) side water jacket, when the engine was turned upside down. Look closely at the muck and you can see portions of a deceased cockroach, and the once expelled contents of it's digestive tract (cockroach shit!). This development caused a lengthy delay in progress while I fired up the compressor and blew everything clean again. How do I know that it's clean? I looked around inside, using a borescope with a little angled mirror on the end. A verh useful tool, but some of that functionality was lost, thanks to my slight tremor when trying to hold the scope steady. There was a 'throw away' statement in my Flathead rebuilding book which recommends that the engine be wrapped entirely in a plastic garbage bag while it is still a work in progress? Guess what is around my engine.......now, anyway?
Next Sunday, the plan is to thoroughly clean ALL the engine again, apply fresh coat of light oil to bores etc, permanently install the valvetrain and cam (other way round would be best), and possibly install the crank again. I have a lot of re-reading to do before the weekend, so I can be sure I have not forgotten anything important with the above jobs. Heaps more reading will have to occur before I am comfortable with progressing to pistons, rings, and rods.
