1948 Fordson E83W pickup

In the pictures, at least, the bores and valve seats look serviceable. I'm hoping for that when I pull the head off the Stude soon. It's only got 40 lbs hot on #2.....


No broken rings? looks like you did well.
How are the top grooves in the pistons? If they're a bit sloppy, they come up great with spacers.

This is fun to watch.

Bugly, all the gaps are big, but the gaps on the oil rings are huge! LOL.
Don't think they'd be doing to much oil control.

In the pictures, at least, the bores and valve seats look serviceable. I'm hoping for that when I pull the head off the Stude soon. It's only got 40 lbs hot on #2.....


No broken rings? looks like you did well.
How are the top grooves in the pistons? If they're a bit sloppy, they come up great with spacers.

This is fun to watch.

I was lucky with the valve seats and bores I think. The block has had a rebore in the past to 0.030" oversize, and the wear is between 0.002" and 0.003" past that, and round. The Ford workshop manual for this engine says that the allowable wear is to 0.005", so I reckon a new set of rings to the recommended gap of between 0.004" and 0.007" will be OK. The bore will be OK with a quick hone.

The block looks clean bulgy, it should go great with new rings & bearings!

I got a price today "To strip existing white metal, tin bond, cast with virgin white metal and finish machine four conrods @ $250 each". With the work involved remetalling the bearings, I don't consider the price of $1000 to be all that excessive.

But on comparison, I can get four new conrods pre-machined to take bearing shells and prefitted with a new 'little end' bush, supply the big-end shells, and grind the crankshaft journals for under $670. This is the way I will be going.

Gday Bugly, what sort of paint did you use on Clarrys chassis? It looks good, just considering my options for my AR chassis.

Hi Barnyard. With all of Clarry's undercarriage and other bits, I scraped all the crud off and gave it a good wire brush down. I then gave it a treatment of White Knight Rust Converter www.whiteknightpaints.com.au/specialty-p.../prep/rust-converter before a couple of coats of White Knight Epoxy Enamel applied by brush www.whiteknightpaints.com.au/specialty-p...topcoat/epoxy-enamel

The paint is quite hard, and I'm happy with it. I keep a couple of cans of White Knight Epoxy Enamel in aerosol cans for touch-ups and for painting the little bits. Except for the chassis, the rest of the bits and pieces were primed with White Knight All Purpose Primer www.whiteknightpaints.com.au/specialty-p...r/all-purpose-primer

Forgive me if I sound like an ad for 'W-K' :

Yep, sounds like the go, ive used 2 pack on tractors but its brittle and cracks off the heads of bolts as soon as you touch them with a spanner and a lot of people comment that its way shinier than original. I think the epoxy paint would be more user friendly for chassis/running gear.

G'day Bugly, I'm a bit concerned about the ring end gap you have quoted as normally it is about 4-5 thou per inch of bore diameter. If I am wrong then fine, but I would hate to see it cause damage because the rings have expanded and run out of gap.

I was always told .003 per inch of bore in normal engines as well