V12 Engine rebuilding tips

[Guest toyopet]

Over the last 20 years I had the chance to rebuild more than a dozen of V12 from 1936 to 1948 from Ron Souters 37 and Roy Thorson 1936. I have seen a lot of issues when I took these engines apart so I will be posting at time what my findings were. To start off when you are ready to install the distributor make sure # 1 you line up the slot of the distributor to the cam slot if not you will break the edge of the distributor also do not use to long of bolts to secure the distributor otherwise you will hit the cam gear I have seen this one on an engine I took apart there were gouges all the way around on the cam gear. The other issue I found and this one was an article I had given to Dave Cole to publish 15 years ago or so it had to do with the rear oil drive gear cover ( gasket ) the gasket that you have in your Felt Pro kit is the wrong gasket for this cover. I had contacted Felt Pro at the time and told them of this. So double check before you assemble this one. Earl Brown jr has the gasket for this. I also recommend using the rear crankshaft main seal Ford conversion you will have to have the crankshaft oil slinger one of them removed for this application. The other thing I recommend is to remove all of the head studs and replace them with new ones, some of these studs will be in the water jacket areas, what I have done is to put a small amount of silicone sealer so that you do not have any water wanting to find his way to the top of the studs. For everyone who is planning to build their first V12 take your time and ask question if you are no sure. More to come tips on the V12 engine rebuilding.

Thanks

Frenchy

[Packard0820]

Do you still rebuild 35 v-12 Distributors Bob rlplkp@comcast.net

[abelincoln]

Keep up the great advice.  I've made a few of those mistakes also.

Abe