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Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A TR3 new main bearings

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Your journal looks good to me without polishing. The discoloring is not a problem unless it is an obvious carbon build up. It appears it is not at all, though.

If the crank is out, you can polish it with 600-1200 grit paper...but use a cord to wrap at least one full wrap around the journal to do the polishing so you will not "flatten" a journal. Minimal is the word. It is recommended to polish after a grind to remove the tiny microscopic saw teeth left in the metal after gringing.

John
 
Great! Thanks John for the great advice. The crank is not out right now but will be tomorrow. I made a tool to pull the rear cap so that should not be a problem.

HJR
 
I dial gauged all three main journals and ovality is less than .0005. I will now do some very careful cleaning of all the journals and the seats where the bearings nest in their holders. Of course the crank shaft turns easily with hand torque at the cranking bolt without the top caps on. Soon, hopefully, it will just do the same with top caps on after my meticulous cleaning.

I will use the dial gauge to measure the crank end float and the cam shaft end float since the feeler gauge method is less than optimum.

One other possibility: Maybe I put the thicker thrust washers on the wrong side and made the bearings rub on the journals in a new, not shiny place.

Thanks to everyone for all their help. Hopefully, I can report total success with the next post.

HJR
 
Success! The crank now turns with less than 2.5 ft-lb of torque. I am sure the cleaning of globs of carbon helped but the real problem was that I had installed the centre cap backwards. Yes, it sort of fits backwards. Some other good came out of the reinstall though. I found shellac from the rear sealing pads all around the oil seal and even around the bearing. The Triumph Service Instruction Manual says use shellac on the sealing pad. Guess I used too much or tamped it down too hard. That is not good that two bolts that hold the oil seal are tapped through to the pad area!

Thanks to all for all the good tips. I still have to check all the bearings with plastigage and do a lot of reassembly.
HJR
 
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