[70oldsW30]

Misinformation happens. I work as an engineer and I have little patience for misinformation … or, unsubstantiated claims, for that matter. Besides that, I moderate on a rather large website (more than 108,000 members to date) and I have to deal with misinformation every day in a venue where there can be much more at stake than an Oldsmobile block. Somehow I manage to do it with a smile on my face as opposed to a sneer. Rather than snide comments you might consider that the original poster, myself and every other of the countless thousands that might read this page are better served by a simple explanation given your opinion or knowledge.

I have never align bored an Oldsmobile block and do not intend to do so. I used the term align hone deliberately. I might note that it was you that interjected a “bore/home” into your version of my reply. What came to me as simply lore from ol' Joe when I was 18 years old that I have never had need to question further is that if it cannot be honed straight then it is too much to go. I cannot provide numbers such as tolerances or anything else specific because I really have never had to much deal with such a problem. And/or I’m just a simple guy that manages to get by on what little I can squeeze out from between my ears. Since we have established that you know more than I do - which is no real big trick - perhaps you can actually provide us with some tolerances beyond which a block should never be align honed or the tolerable distance between centerlines of cam and main bearing saddles that cause too much slop in the timing gear. This would be very constructive input and would substantiate your comments.

Since I have had an Oldsmobile block align honed and the thing is still going with no noticeable issues (or sloppy timing chains) after tens of thousands of miles I have a hard time simply writing off the align honing machine operation as a grossly stupid act given no more than a bare statement of fact with no proffered support. It is quite plain that this was your intent since your comments provide no room for even the possibility of performing an align hone on the block under any circumstance. However, I am not a proud guy. I am always ready to learn and will be the first to thank you for your help.

Back to the original burr under your saddle. You still allude to things that you know that others do not and it seems that you deliberately withhold this in your posts. You claim to have corrected misinformation but actually all you have done is poke at me. It is really much more helpful to say what you know rather than sit back and snipe. I have rebuilt a couple of dozen Oldsmobile motors in the course of enjoying a hobby and maybe it has been because I have been good at marking the parts before disassembly that I never needed to figure out how to tell the difference between those main bearing caps that do not obviously (to my poor brain) fit one place or another. Or, if I ever did need to know and figured it out then I have forgotten all about it. Sucks to get old, I guess, but simple fact is that my motors (five that I rebuilt and still own) are still together after a lot of years and I simply haven’t had to open them up and replace anything in a long time. Anyway, main cap number 3 is pretty easy for anyone to figure out and number 5 cannot be misplaced in the block. I do remember that much. Perhaps number 1 is distinctive, I don’t recall. I do not have the benefit of an olds block in front of me to study and I cannot say off the top of my head how to tell 1, 2 and 4 apart. Hell, maybe they all have the numbers cast into them and it has completely slipped my mind. Anyway, simply putting them in the correct place is what you propose to do (and I would fully agree) should the caps be mixed up without first being marked yet you say nothing about how to do so. Why is this? Please simply post the information and we will all be better Olds men for it.