Soon enough all ten bolts were hand-threaded into their new homes:


Partly at least. I was at this point that the wife called me inside to help get the son into bed. I managed to snap a few additional pictures as I shut things down for the night, but this was to be the extent of things for this Friday. Just as well, because I was relatively certain that the studded bolt was supposed to be placed on the #4 webbing, driver's side. However I couldn't remember for certain and didn't have any teardown pictures with me. Thus it was best to just punt on that until I could get inside and verify that location prior to torquing anything down. That is, of course, especially important with these particular bolts, since they are TTY, as previously mentioned.

A few notes if I may. When doing this, be certain to install the thrust washer prior to dropping in the crankshaft. And when you install that thrust washer, be particular about which direction you go about doing that. The oil passages should face aft, away from the block. These are critical to oil flow in that part of the engine.

You'll also want to verify that the thrust washer and flanged cap bearing meetup correctly. This is a view of that from the pax side of the block (though recall that at this point the block is upside down):


And from the driver's side:

And of course you'll want to ensure that you install the caps in the correct direction. In the case of the 4.6, there are arrows that should point to the front of the engine:


So in a very real way, this would be difficult to screw up. In our engine, the caps were numbered (punched) at the factory, saving that step during the disassembly. Those numbers were located on the same side of the cap as the arrows.

Finally, if you decide to attempt this sort of work, I highly recommend obtaining one of these:


Or else merely running them down by hand (literally). I do not recommend using power tools for this stuff, since it would be all too easy to cross thread in the block. Do that and you'll be searching for a new block. So just use caution and don't rush through anything.

As mentioned at the outset, I realize that a lot of this information may be either blatantly or intuitively obvious to anyone who has a decent amount of wrench turning experience. I'm not attempting to advocate for one particular approach. Rather I am conveying my experiences with both the 4.6 and general experiences in an effort to help someone who might decide to do this themselves (and thus perhaps come out a bit ahead financially as a result). Thus this content is partly for educational purposes. I hope that it can be entertaining to the right folk too.

IMHO if you're a gearhead, no matter how many times you've seen the innards of an engine, it's still kinda cool to see one torn apart and put back together again. Usually providing that someone else is doing the work dontchaknow. Kinda like car-tech cookies or something I suppose. You've had 'em before but they still taste good!

And I ask that you recall, as I mentioned many posts ago, that I chose to document this build in the style of a blog rather than of post-worthy events/milestones. Both are equally valid approaches, I simply chose the former because it's an easier read for me.

Anyway thanks!

Just a quick note: there is one potential hitch in our giddy-up WRT this torquing-the-mains endeavor. I failed to mention it last night because I fell asleep at the keyboard. And that is that the 8mm hex socket that I have on-hand (and you may recall it from a previous post), specifically this one:


Is clearly not long enough to torque the jackscrews, as it must pass through the block skirt and the side bolt tunnel prior to even reaching the jackscrews. Thus I need a longer set. I don't think I have that, but am about to go to the workshop for a look-see/verification. I've called the local HF and they have sets in stock, so I may need to brave a trip there if the toolbox turns up empty.

You'll need a set of these if you attempt this build yourself. Just FWIW.

More later...gotta go run down the son who is currently successfully evading mama while running around the property doing his best impersonation of the "mud monster". Yup, covered himself head-to-toe in the stuff!
And I wonder why this build is requiring so much time!

Anyway thanks!

Nope, as it turns out I have a set:


So we're good. I think I bought these on clearance during the closeout sale at the local Sears. Don't recall now, not important.

So the lil' un is running around in calf-high grass though due to the recent rains, so I gotta tend to that first. Then onto the engine build.

Good Saturday to y'all!

I suppose nobody uses Plastigage anymore with all the TTY bolts in modern engines. Do you just trust the machine shop that can't keep track of your crank to get the clearance right?

Question? The images /part numbers of the regular main cap bolts and the" studded " main cap bolt look identical to me. Am I missing something? Thanks.

bobb- Yeah it appears that I posted the wrong link. I'll correct it later tonight. Having mower issues at present. Lol

Thank you for the heads up.

You're correct Stu. Folk don't use that much anymore. Unless you're building an engine without TTY bolts, naturally.

In this case the machine shop did nothing but a polishing. Thus the crankshaft was unchanged. That said, I didn't want to go with blind trust, so I measured the crankshaft again after I took delivery of it yesterday. I should have mentioned that. Slip of mind on my part, apologies.

In summary, what I did to satisfy the don't-go-in-blind thing, was to perform a quick sanity check of the clearances with a bore gauge and a micrometer. The ones I measured were within spec. Even that is problematic with TTY bolts since you can't take them to TTY in order to conduct the test. So I torqued them down and read the values at that tightness setting. However since I found no issues with the bottom end and possibly nothing with the top either save injectors and plugs etc. and since the measurements I took were within spec, I decided to roll with it. Any thoughts on that are welcome.

Thank you for the feedback. Keep it coming, I enjoy the discussion.

bobb- I found a way to do this on my phone. Here is the correct part number image for the 9 regular main cap bolts:

Thanks much Jerry. You make it look easy.

Great info and pictures every step of the project.

I used to think a project like this was more like brain surgery.

bobb

Thank you bobb- Hope it helps. 'Preciate the heads-up, again.

Enjoy the show! Though admittedly, given the condition of Ol' Blue, it rather feels like a circus at times.


Thanks!

What a day. Needed to mow, got none of it done. Equipment issues again. The riding mower's front left axle is (completely) missing its bearing. And dust boot/cover. The wheel wobbles as bad as the cadence of my great uncle's sashay. Ordered new stuff. Pulled the carb, brakleened the jet, replaced it, ran. Stopped, put it all back together, won't start. It's 11, almost 12 years old, so I'm thinking new at this point. I digress.

Did manage to get around to the engine build (sure seems like something in the cosmos doesn't want me to finish this thing! lol) later in the evening. Time would be limited, so the goal was to merely get the mains torqued down. The first question I had in my mind was to verify the location of the studded bolt. Memory told me it was to be located on the #4 webbing, driver's side. Found this picture from the disassembly:


And sure enough there it is.

Can't trust that though, right?

So I pulled out the oil pickup tube:


From the engine parts pile and decided to take the time to be "extra certain" (yeesh). Sure enough, that's where it belongs: