Here's the final color, it's suppose to be Ford Blue (dark). I was going for period correct 1972 200cid. Looks really close to what's in my car now but I don't think its an exact match.
I don't think its required either, the block was nearly bare when I got it and there was a lot of surface rust on it. It was really visible after the hot tank process. That's why I hit it with some rust converter and used primer. Just adding a little extra protection.
Made some more progress today, installed the freeze plugs, front galley plug and the drain plug. I used aviation permatex instead of JB Weld on the freeze plugs. After using both I really think it comes down to preference. See pic's below!
Got a little further this weekend, cam bearings installed but had one slight hiccup. I had to pop out the 2 -1/16th freeze plug at the rear of the engine to get the number four cam bearing in. No biggy but I hate doing twice the work! For today’s update I included a short video of the bearing alignment after the install, since I bought an inspection camera a couple years ago I thought I might as well use it and verify the oiling ports. http://youtu.be/jW9Yybk5ytE
Weird… So I’m finally making some progress and noticed a slight oddity. The number three main cap appears to be mismarked? Looking at the arrows, they should all point forward, I noticed the number three arrow is pointing backward so I swapped it around so it would point forward. I went ahead and plastigage the bearings and got an odd clearance on that main cap (see results below). Comparing a picture at the time of tear down, sure enough the number three main bearing is pointing backward with the digits lining up with all other main cap digits. I think this is likely the cause of the odd clearance measurement but I didn’t have time to verify it before I left for work. Regardless I think it should go back in exactly the way it came out but I will check the clearance again after it’s positioned the right way and see if I have a different reading. If you have any insights I would appreciate them, I think it’s extremely odd that it’s stamped backward.
