Thanks TeeCat.
I spent some time with the beast this morning. I managed to forget to install the cam chain under the crank shaft when I put the case halves together. No big deal though as I fished it through with some semi-rigid tie wire. This stuff is so great. It has saved my ass a couple times so far in this rebuild. More on that later.
I installed the 8 long threaded rods into the case halves. After fighting with them to thread down to what I felt was far enough, I picked up an M10x1.25 tap and chased the internal threads. This worked WONDERFULLY as the long rods threaded much much much easier with my stud removal/install tool.
I pre-installed the pistons into the cylinders as they were easy to get to. Tip: Install the piston clips on the inside first so you can work from the outside while inserting the wrist pins and subsequently the outside piston clips. Be sure to note left and right piston as well as the orientation of the pistons in the cylinders. For those of you (like me) who have removed the carbon buildup from the pistons and in the process ended up removing the directional arrow, don't fret. Just remember that the exhaust valve is the smaller of the two valves and is in the forward position. Pushing air with the piston is easier than sucking air on the intake...thus the large intake valve and smaller exhaust valve. On a side note, this is why 3-valve per cylinder engines have two small intake valves and one large exhaust valve. Just a tid-bit of information.
I managed to get the wrist pins in place then clipped them with the piston clips (as I mentioned above) from the outside. The cam chain and tensioner weren't a problem to route up through the cylinder block.
I dropped the head into position and ran the cam chain to roughly where it needed to be. At this point I had to install the alternator rotor and stator since I was going to need the TDC position. I could get close just by eyeballing it but this needs to be EXACT.
At this point I have NOT riveted the cam chain together. I got the pistons to TDC and installed the cam shaft. I positioned it left/right by loosely putting the cam shaft seals against the cam shaft bearings and centering the cam shaft.
Now is the tricky part where you need about 3 extra arms but can manage with the two that you have. Align the cam shaft so the indicator dot is level with the top machined surface of the head. This is shown in your repair manual so I won't bore you with another picture. I was using wire once again to keep the cam chain from falling down into the tunnel. I hooked it on the cam chain and gave a good pull on the front of the cam chain to get some tension and looped it over the cam shaft sprocket as the pistons were at TDC and the cam shaft was showing TDC. While holding with one hand I used my trusty wire again and put tension on the rear of the cam chain and got the links to fall onto the cam shaft sprocket teeth. I have not yet installed the tensioner assembly...just the tensioner arm. There really isn't any tension on the cam chain except for the unstretched length it has. I quickly, but carefully, grabbed my master link and slipped it into it's new home. The cam chain riveting tool I got from mikesxs worked perfectly.
The last two pics show where I'm at so far. Just small stuff to install then out to the pole barn where the frame is languishing.
Stay tuned...more to come.
