King main bearing clearance issue

[BLstangin]

Just thought I would update this. The line hone was fixed and it turns out the rear one was at the correct size and the rest were small. Now i have .0034 at the rear and .0028-.0031 on the other four.

[wyrmrider]

now even better- thanks for the update
line bore and hone maintenance- all of the tooling is important
we had a mill that tilted the table if you went too far one way
what fun
could not easily fixed it so it got a stop

[cgarb]

I always thought the clearance was built into the crankshaft? The specs (Mercruiser manual...very handy for engine specs) I looked up called for a smaller main journal on the thrust bearing.

[modok]

Probably it was in Ye olden days, but not on the more recent ones.
This is made more noticeable by king being very afraid of running the thrust too tight, and I don't blame them.

[Zmechanic]

I know it's moot now since the issue is all explored and fixed...

I think I'd be more worried about excess clearance at the front mains than the rear, being at the end of the oil gallery and having more of a risk to bleed off pressure from the other mains. Obviously within reason...

[Pro-SeriesFab]

I know you got the bearing issue sorted out but I ran into the exact same problem when I freshened up my blown 355 dragster motor last time.

King had goofed the thrust bearing up. I set my clearances up a little more (blown alcohol/50wt oil) so I was at .0035-.0037 on the front four and .0056 on the thrust.

I noticed the upper clamshell sat up higher and switched out the king bearing to an extra clevite thrust bearing I had which brought me back down to .0038.

Didn't do anything except swap the thrust bearing out.

[BLstangin]

Im glad to hear I'm not alone on my engine building struggles. I find more stuff wrong that shouldn't be than even I can believe. I wonder how many people just buy all the parts and bolt it together and it runs forever?

[FC-Pilot]

In my early days with my dad and brothers all we did was buy the parts and bolt them together. Knowing now what I know I would have kicked our rear ends for having done that, and shaken my head for the fact that the stuff stayed together and ran fairly well all things considering.

Paul

[induction apprentice]

I too would embrace the extra clearance on the rear wide main with thrusts begging for oil. G.M. worked out the extr half thou for a very good reason.

I find King bearings to be by far the most accurate of all the common brands and have had no problem with any of them fitting correctly. So far. And they are kinda sinister looking

[modok]

I keep hearing that, but for what? I tried some in a subaru and just had to give up. Crank in spec, case in spec, locked up. Put in clevite and all is well. accurately locked solid

What kind of king bearings are you guys using that you find good, is it just certain apps, or some kind of premium series?

[Alaskaracer]

King bearings only in my race stuff.....never an issue.....

[induction apprentice]

Well, fair question. I have never used king in an import yet. I rarely build import engines. But gen 1,2,3,4 SBC and BBC's and SBF so far in a couple versions of their coated bearings I have had very good success with and fellow racer / acquaintances with some hard hitting turbo alcohol stuff and promods have reported better results and less jurnal surface wear, scuffing, scoring, pounding out etc using King bearings in direct compairison to clevitte. By the way. I used various Clevitte bearings for ever. For years they were the typical choice for me. I still would not hesitate to use them as well as FM in some cases with their 270 deg Hemi mains. I liked those in 440's and they had about a thou extra vertical oil clearance built into them which was often a better fit for what I was doing. I have used some ACL with good luck too. But at some point clevitte they seemed to switch up their coatings to something I felt is lesser quality and is often to thick causing tight oil clearance issues. Yes workable / fixable but a bit extra hassle. I find the Kings are really consistant. Atleast for me they have been excellent. So although I would not hesitate to use a clevite H or P in something still. I personally think king has them beat right now.

[modok]

I see,
so ironically it's best to use American bearings in imports, and import bearings in American v-8.
No wonder I have problems, I've been doing it backward. Only get king in the ITM kits. MG, toyota, subaru, all were memorably terrible. Lots of wall thickness variation. For the MG the exterior of the shells was covered in dents that I had to file down. The bearing material seems good tho.

[MadBill]

I wonder if the Import and US model bearings are from different factories with different QC standards?

[Cubic_Cleveland]

I wonder if the Import and US model bearings are from different factories with different QC standards?

Not too sure, but we have the same problems down under so at least it's world wide

I see,
so ironically it's best to use American bearings in imports, and import bearings in American v-8.
No wonder I have problems, I've been doing it backward. Only get king in the ITM kits. MG, toyota, subaru, all were memorably terrible. Lots of wall thickness variation. For the MG the exterior of the shells was covered in dents that I had to file down. The bearing material seems good tho.

I too have come across these issues. Sometimes the wall thickness variations bearing shell to bearing shell help getting the same clearance on each journal, sometimes on rare occasions the thickness variation is on the one shell, and not in a helpful way! Also king bearings seem to always be packaged "dirty", with swarf embedded on the bearing backs.

Most of the time you can easily work around these problems, and I've never had a failure directly related to an inferior quality bearing, you just have to be aware and spend the extra time with Kings. I personally prefer ACL race series where available.