<VV> SNIMTA

[Tony Underwood]

At 12:53 hours 11/23/2004 -0600, Dave Morris wrote:
>I have to chime in here, because this may be some encouragement for you.
>
>A bunch of us airplane builders are "rebuilding" Corvair engines to go into 
>our airplanes.  What we're doing is buying new cams, lifters, pistons, 
>rings, gaskets, seals, etc., and letting the pro vendors do the valve jobs, 
>cylinder boring, crank regrinding, etc.  Thus for $1900 you probably could 
>actually have an engine that is "rebuilt", not just "overhauled".    



You said the magic word...   doing the major work yourself and letting
jobbers do the technical stuff like bore cylinders and grind valves etc.    

Doing your own assembly work can save a boatload of bucks and turn an
overhaul budget into a rebuild budget for the same money spent on an
overhaul if you had paid somebody else to do it.    



I've overhauled a number of engines, including other marques (mostly Mopars
and one Ford and a Fiat) with a couple of Chevy V8s in the mix.    I've
only actually *Rebuilt* one engine and it took ~2 weeks to do it all.   It
got pistons (reused the perfect original cam) and cylinders and heads and a
batch of other stuff all gone through.  Cost a few bucks, had to save up...
 but it did well after I finished with it.   It's a LOT cheaper to simply
overhaul one...  *IF* it's a candidate for an overhaul and doesn't require
a batch of new parts.   Cars can do this, airplanes can't risk it.
Reusing an old original piston in an engine slated for aero use might not
be wise.   But it's perfectly OK  in a car engine if the piston still meets
specs.   Like the old adage says, all cars run on used parts.    

The difference is determining what's  used and what's worn out...   ;)    



tony..