The first thing one DOESN"T want to do.....is buy anything used from Lional Stone.
I bought a supposedly rebuildable 289 from him. Got it home, took it apart only to find a piece if one main cap register was damaged. While it "may" have been usable for a fair queen or a around town car, it surely wouldn't stand up to any spirited driving without comming apart all over the ground.
I called Lional, told him the problem, he said bring it back. Good so far! A long time friend of "his" helped me get it back to Lionals house.
Now comes the hard part......If someone buys something from me....and then wants to return it because of damage...I sure want to see this damage. So...the engine was left apart. When Lional saw it he came "unglued"........ "Get that thing outa here", pluss more bad words. So we reloaded and left.
Fast foward about 5/6 months........
I bought another (full flow 259) engine that is in fairly nice condition One head has a crack in the ehxaust port, but I think it'll be ok....!
So...I now have 14 of 16 rods, one has bad pits and rusted away metal (Lionels), one is cracked adjcent to the bolt (the 259)....and this is BEFORE they've been magnafluxed. Lionals Crank "appears" usable. The 289 heads "appear" usable. So I started to port Lionels heads, big intake valves, stock exhaust valves. I went to Ross Pistons with a stock, used up, 289 piston in hand. Hopefully in two or three weeks I'll have a new set of modern, forged, 3.625" dia. pistons. I'm modifying the stock rods to lighten them a little and not use the pin locking stud, along with cleaning, polishing, shot peening the beams.
I ground, cut, removed, hacked away any metal not being used on the block to remove as much weight as possible. All that will be taken up with added weight from a few R2 Avanti parts!!! I've got an Avanti pan to copy the very nicely designed baffle and Avanti breather tube...both kinda heavy!!
Back to Lionels 289...when removing the crank and rods, I noticed that the entire main web on two mains are completely trash, unusable, broken cast iron. The main bearings look fairly good...except...for near the parting edge, copper is showing........! Someone really new his stuff when assembling that the last time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blameing Lionel for this damage, just for not giving me my hard earned money back! So I chalk it up to expensive crank, heads and 7 rods!!
Well, that's about where I am now. I'll be getting the rods magged tomorrow, along with some hot rod porting work I'm doing on a set of heads for a guy with a Lark.
Next update to follow.