Hello,
I was wrapping up my short block assembly over the weekend and all was going well until I tried to fit the oil pump and noticed that it would not locate correctly all the way in and would thus not make proper flush contact with the block face.
After trial and error I found that the offending item is a steel ball about 5mm in diameter that sits inside the cam slot (let's call this the femaie side) and when the oil pump slot (let's call this male) is inserted it does not allow it to go all the way in.
Here is a photo of the slot in the cam where you can see the ball:
Camera 2020-06-21 at 16.20.19.jpeg 111.5K 4 downloads
I checked the old cam that I removed from the engine when I started the build (two years ago!!) and there is no such ball in the slot.
Camera 2020-06-21 at 16.20.40.jpeg 34.97K 2 downloads
Anyone know what is going on here? Am I doing something wrong or maybe there is a parts mismatch?
Obviously one option is to somehow remove the ball but tried to pry it out a bit with no luck.
Another solution I have thought would be to remove just enough material from the oil pump slot (male side) so that when it sits in the cam slot it does not foul on the steel ball. I am confident that this would not have any impact on reliability since there will still be ample area in the slot mating surfaces (male on female contact).
Thx for any help,
Nik