Closing out on this thread. After a painful tear down and a complete inspection on this Engine we found that when it was rebuilt by a shop here in Florida the shop didn’t do a few basic steps:
-Didn’t Remove the end plates
-Didn’t Boil the block or flush ALL the oil Galleys
-Didn’t Clean the block of all dirt and old metal
After taking this block fully apart I found some really old 40+ year oil that still had lodged in the galleys, a few old washers caught in the oil passages in the end plates and more metal shavings than I cared to count. All of this wound up in the bearings, wasted them and created some minor scoring on the journals as well.
Lesson learned – no matter what recommendations you have, inspect the shop personally and look over them as they rebuild the engine. These short cuts could have been avoided if I just visited a few times while they were rebuilding this Engine and called them on it.
Next Steps: Totally Rebuilding and balancing the Short Block, with all new bearings, pistons, crank regrind and a rear seal kit from DWM. Hope to have this back in by Christmas
