After 4 months on backorder the cam finally came in last week, so Dave (69Bee) was able to get the cam bearings in and make sure there weren’t going to be any binding issues. That was the last thing to do on the block before I brought it home.

After the sonic check the block was square decked and line honed then bored for the 354 pistons. Dave had already bored the step out of the freeze plug holes so I could use cup type freeze plugs instead the factory disc plugs.

With the block home I chased all the threaded holes, got the pipe plugs in, painted it and installed the freeze plugs. It sure looks a lot better than the rusty lump I started with.

354 block by M Patterson, on Flickr

Dave doesn’t do crank grinding or balancing so the rotating assembly is out for those 2 jobs. When it comes back I’ll assemble the short block. Who knows Dave might even have the heads done by then. I’ve also got a couple of parts from Hot Heads that I’m waiting on anyway.



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