Mustang Sally Restoration: Block painted and Plastigauging the crank and bearing clearance

 Progress continues on the Sally 302 engine rebuild. The block has been painted black.

The brass freeze plugs are also installed.

Using a front and rear bearing only, Pops uses a dial indicator to check crank runout. It measured about 0.0002", amazing for 271,000 miles of wear and tear.

Here's the plastigauge strip laid down on the crank. 

The plastigauge kit comes with 2 sets of gauge material. The green material is in the range of 0.001" - 0.003" bearing clearance gap. The red set is from 0.002" to 0.006". Inspection results look like about .0035-.0037" range. The high-volume oil pump will fill that gap nicely.

Here's 2 inspections of a red strip. Looking like its between the 0.003" and 0.004" range. This is a really cool technique. It's very simple and manual process that provides very precise measurement information.

Here's an underside view of the 302 block for reference. I was asking dad how the crank gets supplied with oil. The crank journal webs have oil passage drilled into them. You can see the 2 holes in the middle and top side of the bearing journals.

Here's a close up view looking at the side. The one small hole in the crank journal area goes up to the cam bearing journal to provide oil to the cam bearings.