Ruffuss Rebuild

[clintonddk]

I am sure a few of you knew that Ruffuss had some issues last fall. Well, Ken was kind enough to let me tackle the job of opening his engine up to rebuild and do a few upgrades.
First thing first I am going to post what I have found wrong then I will post the new parts and any upgrades I do.

Enjoy,

All the pistons looked like this, First and Second rings were stuck in their ring groves. A good sing that things had got hot.





Number three pistons starting to burn up




This is the head off of three and four. Number three was definitely lean



A look at the intake manifolds, looks like they were leaking. I had notice that the nuts had loosened up some.

[ghiastein]

Well that may explain the hard starting and the pinging that I thought was the valves out of adjustment.

[Dustin]

Wow Kenn! Is that a sign to slow down a little? Haha you cooked that baby good.

[VDub63 ( Steven )]

Ha Ha Ha do you know who you are talking about?

[Ruffuss]

That's why Clinton is building it and adding webers, headers and all the other stuff to go slow??? Yeah Right!! Once a hot rodder always a hot rodder. Now I'm really going to need disc brakes on the front and maybe on the rear?

[dansam]

Very interesting csi stuff. Keep us in the loop on the repairs. So do you think that the leaking intake/ one cylinder lean issue is what did it in? I always check that stuff at oil changes and am always amaZed when I ifind fuel pump nuts and intake nuts loose everyone beware! Check yur fasteners (nutz) . For loosness!

[Ruffuss]

I thought I had? Had it all put up for winter, went as far as fogging the cylinders(1st time) Filled the tank and added stabil. Changed plugs, oil, filter and even oil bath air cleaner. It was covered up and on jack sands. Had dryer sheets in the interior and mouse food (decon) under the car. Then someone said lets go for a cruise and after a 2 1/2 hour back road trip decided to go home via 131, thats when I lost power, more and more until I stopped to check it out. Shut it down and it wouldn't turn over so towed it home(Thanks AJ and Steven). I wasn't driving it hard or fast just driving. I didn't hear(deaf me) any noise or see any smoke until I stopped. Thats the story! Kenn

[VDub63 ( Steven )]

Feb 11, 2010 10:50:18 GMT -5 Ruffuss said:

I thought I had? Had it all put up for winter, went as far as fogging the cylinders(1st time) Filled the tank and added stabil. Changed plugs, oil, filter and even oil bath air cleaner. It was covered up and on jack sands. Had dryer sheets in the interior and mouse food (decon) under the car. Then someone said lets go for a cruise and after a 2 1/2 hour back road trip decided to go home via 131, thats when I lost power, more and more until I stopped to check it out. Shut it down and it wouldn't turn over so towed it home(Thanks AJ and Steven). I wasn't driving it hard or fast just driving. I didn't hear(deaf me) any noise or see any smoke until I stopped. Thats the story! Kenn

And he is sticking with it.

[81pumagtc]

Kind of a disastrous trip to the Coney place. That's when I broke a rivet on the Puma top and had to drive back to East Lansing with no coat other than a sport jacket, the top down, and could only go 50 mph without freezing myself to death. Really no heat at all in the Puma...

Ken, of course, killed Ruffuss that night.

I vote we never go back.


Dave

[clintonddk]

My machinist just informed me today that the decking was way off.
One of the things I want to do is check the deck height with the old pistons. I have a feeling that the compression might have been on the high side. My guess is between the cool air, intake leaks, high compression and restrictive header/muffler all may have played a factor in this fatality.

[MadMike]

Pulling a boat around proly didn' help it out

[clintonddk]

Ruffuss gets the welded treatment



Full Flow oiling ;D

[clintonddk]

Fresh Decking. My machinist had to deck Ruffuss case .035" to get the deck to clean up. The red arrow is pointing to where the last guy decked this case. Still trying to figure out what he used?





One thing to look for on a decking is the case savers. I have seen several times to where the case savers are higher then the decking surface. The last thing you want is your cylinders resting on the case saver and not the decking. Yes, Ruffuss case had several case savers higher then the decking.

[clintonddk]

Here is one more thing to look for. I will skip step one since it is just the same thing as what I am going to show you but minus the center main bearings. I do this check on an engine cases before I take it to my machinist (step one only) to make sure that I am taking him a good case, then do it again before fitting the crank. What I am checking is that the case will pull together when torqued down.

The first thing you need is a little flash light.




Install your center main bearing.




Install the other center main bearing in the other case half then fit the case halves together. I usually start out by just lightly tightening the two center main case nuts. Then I will check to see if the case halves have pulled together, if they are not I then torque the case halves down to 25 ft pounds. If they are still apart I will then continual to torque down to 32ft pounds. If they are not together by 38ft pounds then there is a problem.



This is what you are looking for or should I say what you do not want to see. By inserting the flash light in the flywheel side of the case and place it up against the center main bearing saddle. Now by looking throw the pulley side of the case you are going to look and see if any light makes it way though the case halves.





What you want to see ;D Now it took 36ft pounds to get Ruffuss's case to come together, see this is where some people could get in trouble since I believe the book says to torque to 26 or 28ft pounds. If you were to over look this step and the case halves did not make it together you could wind up having low oil pressure at idle. I normally torque all performance engines to 32 to 36ft pounds.



After doing this check I like to trail fit the crank and see how it feels. I will install all six main case nuts plus the two 13mm nuts that hold the case together over the small main bearing. I have get stung one time by not doing this and had that small bearing on the tight side I didn't notice it until after sealing the case halves up, So back apart it had to come . What I look to see is if the crank rotates freely and slides back and fourth easily.



Now I set the end play and flywheel run out. Doing this I have notice that Ruffuss's flywheel run out was at .012" which is too much and this would cause the flywheel to pound out the rear main bearing case thrust area or worst have the flywheel come loose. This is maybe why Ruffuss case needed to be thrust cut. Notice that Ruffus crank and flywheel are now eight doweled ;D.

[MadMike]

That will buff out ;D ;D I know what u mean It's getting harder to find good cores