Windage tray interferance

[73 Mike]

I'm getting ready to close up the bottom end of my 383. I have 2 more cylinders to clearance a little. I came up with a very sophisticated way of checking clearance fairly accurately. I'm usning a piece of .065 line frm my garden trimmer. I checked it and it varies from .055 to .061. If this clears, I should be fine.

In any case, I dry fitted the pan and found that it hits significantly against the front two windage tray bolts. In order to clear, I'd have to cut off around 3/8 of an inch from the threads and go with a short (or flat ground) nut to hold the tray.

To verify everything else, I pulled out the front two windage bolts and put back the main cap studs from that journal. What I noticed is that there is very little flex fron the formed tray even without these front two bolts.

Can I simply do without them? I don't know how much load is on the tray and don't imagine that it is that high BUT I would also think that if the tray flexes into the counterweigts, it would be bad.

 

[Twin_Turbo]

I had a similar problem fitting a (bolt in..yeah right) milodon pan & tray to a 502 block. I ended up cutting the studs and then I ran some nuts up the threads, bolted the tray in place and ran the nuts down so that the tray can not touch the rotating assembly. The nuts keep it from moving up. It's wedged tight between the nuts and the pan when all is bolted up.

 

[73 Mike]

I had better get 100 HP out of this

Thanks TT.

Milodon 32100. To be fair, not intended for a stroker.BUT..

I decided that cutting corners at this stage wasn't wise. As TT did, I cut the top half of the threads off the interfering (front two) bolts. I also gently masaged the pan with a ball pean hammer. Took care of that interferance.

Then I attached the tray. The curve of tray on both the front and passenger side of the tray heavily interfered with the tray seating. The front of the tray was fairly easy to fix as I just bent it at approximately the same slope as the pan. The curve was much harder to fix. It essentially shifted the pan 3/8 of an inch past the bolt holes. It happened that the curve of the tray was the same diameter as the 1 inch pipe that my clamps used so I simply increased the curve to just past a half circle. The slotted holes were still in a good position so I hoped that the functionality wouldn't be affected. Bolted it back on. Pan fit great. BUT

Turned the crankshaft and three connecting rods hit the curve. Back to the vise. I bent the lip back into itself essentially changing the curve. Everything bolted up nicely but I still have to grind down a pair of nuts to hold the front of the pan to the bolts.

I think I've put more effort into this pan than the rest of the assembly. If I don't get 100 HP from this tray, it probably won't be worth the effort.