Factory incorrect
Re: The Loose reds, blow n blacks letter in a prev ious issue, I remember, for some reason, a good friend overhauling a Holden red si x (not sure of size) many years ago, probably t he late 70s. He pulled it down and t hrew a set of standard-size main and big-end bearings at it. But when he started it… low oil pressure.
After much head scratching, he pulled t he engine out and dismantled it, measured the mains and big-ends and found a couple of main journa ls were .010” undersize. As far as he k new, t his was t he f irst time t he engine had been dismantled. Big-ends were f ine. By the way I have had many batteries go f lat quick ly on concrete.
Neil Englund,
Morley Says...
YEP, THAT’S precisely the sort of story I keep hearing when it comes to dissecting Holden red motors over the years. And it would absolutely not surprise me to learn that Holden was grinding cranks that were undersized from the factory.
The tooling and casting gear was so far past its use-by date by the end of the 70s, that all sorts of weird and less-thanwonderful stuff was going on. We’ve talked before about Holden’s problems with core shift and having to measure pistons and blocks to match the ones that were closest in size to each other. And just a couple of issues ago, Geoff D, a former NRMA patrolman told us that his experience with red motors showed that a lot of them had one undersized bottom-end journal which required an oversized bearing when rebuilding them. Matches your story nearly word for word.
There’s a strong rumour that Holden switched to the Nissan three-litre inline six for the VL Commodore because it couldn’t justify the investment involved in making the old red six run on the upcoming unleaded petrol. That’s probably partly true, but if you look at the evidence, it’s probably equally true that Holden knew the red-six tooling was stuffed beyond redemption and the cost to re-tool sufficiently to produce a serviceable version of the old girl was just way beyond the pale.
“THE MANUAL COULD RE-EMERGE. LORD LET’S HOPE SO”