Thought I would give an update on my project. Many of you will remember the thread that I started entitled "Failed U-Joint". A little more on this car, I rebuilt the engine and rear end in this car about 7 years ago, It has been driven a lot since then, I would estimate 3-4 thousand miles per year. I pulled the engine to look for the noise I was hearing when I found the U-Joint problem. The engine has always run very well with no engine noises but I thought that because the engine was already out of the car that I would open it up and check everything out. I'm glad that I did. All transmission drums looked good as did the rest of the transmission Kevlar bands holding up very well. Main bearings were in great shape with no need to remove any shims and crank shaft thrust was within specs. I did find some problems with the rod bearings however. This is what made feel good about tearing the engine down again. 3 of the 4 rods were missing babbitt around the edge of the rod looking like the rods might not have been tinned properly before the babbitt was poured. I installed 4 fresh rods and caps everything adjusted a new aluminum head, 280 cam, aluminum intake manifold, straight through NH. Engine is now ready to put back into the car first thing in the morning.
U-Joint that failed
One of the rod bearing nearing failure
Preparing for new aluminum head
Engine after all work done and ready to install in the car.