Bearing clearance and measuring

[chimp007_uk]

Evening,

I've finally pulled my finger out and sorted my garage so I can bring my cars up. Will only put one in there for the time being. I want to sort everything I need so I can crack on once the cars are up.

Now, I need to strip and rebuild the engine, or the spare I have, the engine is a C20XE.

Firstly what is the main and big end bearing clearance ranges? I can't find the trusted (:wtf:) Haynes manual...

Secondly, whats peoples thoughts of plastigauge? Not used it before, so all opinions welcome. Based on the bearing clearnaces, there's 3 different colours:

Red - 0.025 mm 0.175 mm
Blue - 0.100 mm to 0.250 mm
Green - 0.175 mm to 0.500 mm

All advice appreciated!

Cheers
Chris

[MK999]

Plastigauge is pretty much an industry standard for measuring clearances and is spot on. Only place you seem to be able to get it any more is eBay though for some reason!

If it was me I'd be changing the bearings anyway though if you're rebuilding it, they're not expensive to swap out and then to check what size bearings you need you wanna mic up the crank and obviously check for any scores etc you have on it. Scores = grinding and oversize bearings.

If you've still got my number give us a bell tomorrow and I'll get the crank sizes etc for you, or if you've not got a mic etc I'm sure I can sort something out to measure it all up for you and get it ground if needed.

[chimp007_uk]

Plastigauge is pretty much an industry standard for measuring clearances and is spot on. Only place you seem to be able to get it any more is eBay though for some reason!

If it was me I'd be changing the bearings anyway though if you're rebuilding it, they're not expensive to swap out and then to check what size bearings you need you wanna mic up the crank and obviously check for any scores etc you have on it. Scores = grinding and oversize bearings.

If you've still got my number give us a bell tomorrow and I'll get the crank sizes etc for you, or if you've not got a mic etc I'm sure I can sort something out to measure it all up for you and get it ground if needed.


I'm rebuilding the complete engine, so will be changing the bearings hence why I was intrigued about plastigauge. At uni we used a micrometer and dti gauge. I'll have to check if my micromemter will go big enough for the jornals. What size are they? Engines are still in cars, one is st. Albans and one is Wolverhampton. MY spare engine is in Stone lol

[MK999]

just under 2 inch and just over 2 inch iirc (everything at work is from WW2 lol), but I'll check tomorrow, just ring me or drop me a text to remind me as I have a memory like a sieve.

[philip]

Use the imperial plastigauge .0001-.0007thou, Ill dry build with new bearings but aim for about 2-2.5thou main and 2-3thou on big ends, if at 3tho, I'd maybe put few washers behind oil pressure spring to raise pressure abit, but ideally 2.5tho on big ends be spot on matey