[Mike Kelly]

Relining steel bearing shells with new babbit, it is possible to achieve good results with basic equipment . Some of the vintage car people with rare cars ( replacement parts not available ) have successfully relined steel bearing shells with new babbit in a home workshop . You need to find the correct flux and some new babbit . I'm not saying its a quick and easy job but the other option is to pay somebody 300-400 bucks per shell.

With babbit rods, if you have a lathe with decent throw, after the babbit reline you can bore the rods to size. Make a mistake, no problem , go back to the beginning and melt out the babbit . Try again .

Years ago at the Melbourne Showgrounds swap, they had a line boring demo setup, an old chap had the block set up and the cutters slowly went through each bearing .