05-14-2020, 04:53 PM
(05-14-2020, 02:21 PM)ted johnson Wrote: It's funny to what lengths we go today to put the pin into the rod carefully. I remember in '59, Pop took an oak block and cut a hole through it and a concave surface for the piston to sit in. He took an old 1/4" drive socket extension and turned it down to fit nicely inside the wrist pin. He simply shoved the pin in and out with the vise and those crude tools. I was still using that same tool in '78 to install the pin in my open 101 engines, after I modified the radius of the concave surface to fit the bigger piston. It always worked, and I never had a pin failure on my B Limited Macs. I wouldn't think of doing that job today without the "proper" tools. Of course, I don't use a press, simply a GEM piston tool. We "made do" back in the early days. I would not be surprised that if you were to dig through Charlie Craibe's old boxes of stuff that came from Pop, you might find that oak block tucked away in among the old Mac parts. Ted
I'm going to have to "Make Do" for sure. I'll get it. Thanks for the responses.