I was checking my crank mains and rod diameters and they are .003 under.This seems to me to be at the max but I don"t want to do a regrind. I haven"t ordered new bearings yet and the journals are .010 under. I was wondering what you guys thought about it. If I find the clearance to be greater than.003 when I install the new bearings I might discover some cap stretch. I have some tapered shims that I can use. Years ago we used them all the time. There wasn't any plasigage back then and we just put a small piece on .002 shim stock on the throw and torqued it down. If the crank was bound we figured we were good. If the crank turned we tried a thicker shim until it did bound, then we put in the required tapered shim and rechecked with the .002 shim piece. I think I cam keep the .003 clearance . Is that too much clearance? I'm building a show truck, not a dragster, but I don"t want to do it over. Thanks.

 

According to Ford documentation in my library:

The main bearing journal clearance is 0.0010 - .0025

Connecting rod journal clearance is .0008 - .0033

 

Thanks for that information