The ongoing saga of the TR7 Bearings From Hell.
Well, I may have lucked out. I took my crank to T.Hoff in Raleigh. I
thought maybe this was a good place when I saw a collection of good-looking
Chevelle SuperSports, GTO's and a fancy dune buggy.
Real nice guy named Brad helped me. The shop was clean, well lit, very
orderly, and finished jobs where in thick plastic bags waiting for customer
pickup. All that was missing was a blond receptionist with a beehive hairdo.
Brad took me back to see the machine that grinds cranks -- an enormous beast
that looked like something out of the industrial age -- runs in the
neighborhood of $150,000?
I got a real comfortable feeling with the place. After inspecting the crank,
Brad didn't think there would be a problem grinding and polishing it. As for
the nicks, he asked if I wanted them to keep grinding until they were all
gone -- he indicated that a small indentation wouldn't be a problem if they
ground less. I told him to use his judgement.
As to the grooves and ridges that were on the mains, but not on the rods, he
suggested two problems. One, that the crankcase made be warped, and the
journals not lined up. He told me to take a straight edge and lay it across
the bottom of the journals and see if it "rocked," indicating that they
weren't lined up. I did and there wasn't any rocking I could notice.
His second thought was that the main caps had just been tightened down too
tight -- and indeed when I took them off they were REALLY tight. I had to
use a cheater bar to get them off. He thought they should torqued about 60
lbs. or so, and I'll check my book to make sure before reassembling, but they
sure felt like they were tightened a lot more than that.
Anyway, assuming they don't have any problems, the regrind will cost $65 and
should be ready today/tomorrow.
I'm trying to get some pictures up on the web so y'all can advise further.
In the meantime I'm off to take pictures of a Rest Home for Studebakers in
Snow Camp, NC for the paper I write for. Should be interesting...
Bruce
1980 Inca Yellow TR7 5-speed convertible
Chapel Hill, NC
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