Hey, new here. Got 2 questions. 1, any body tried putting mech gauges in original 51 panel? Also, am rebuilding 226 in my 51 F1. Ran into problem. Cam brng placements are .082 inch too big. Am solving problem by sleeving placements but was wondering if anyone had run into this before.

 

Hello and welcome to FTE.

Cam bearings I'll leave for the flathead guys.

As far as using the works for mechanical gauges installed in the stock housings and using the OEM faces, then yes I have done that and it worked well.

Are you doing this because you have converted to 12 volt or just prefer the reliability of the mechanical gauges?

I have a write up on how to do this and lots of photos. If you would like a copy of that write me an e-mail at babbiebuddie@***.net (unless you are Dale and I already sent it to you tonight)

Here's a pic of mine after conversion. The telltale give away are the needle stop pins and the temperature gauge rests on "C" instead of "H" as with the electric gauge:

 

Are all the cam bearings' shells 0.082" too large OD, uniformly? How do you plan to sleeve? Something sounds off there...

 

Yep, all brngs same. Brng have no # on them just a brand. It's stamped Lincoln in script. As to repair, I have an align boring bar. Bought a cast iron sleeve 2.253 X 2.320. Bored placements to press fit sleeve and then bored sleeve to correct size. Only thing I can figure is in 51 factory bored placements to big and instead of junking block, had special cam brng made. According to my dad (87yrs), in 40's ford had leftover small crankshafts for V8 ftatties and had special brngs made for them.Could't buy brngs for them. Had to buy new c/s. Thats all I can figure.

 

Wow, that's handy to have that kind of equipment around! Don't the sleeves need oil holes?

I've heard of the small bearing V8 cranks, seems like there was more to it, tho.

 

Oil holes are drilled thru bus line holes(remove plugs and bypass) w/ long 1/4 bit

 

welcome to the site