Quick update...
I got all my parts back from the machine shop, again. I had them check to make sure I didn't knock any of big rod ends out of round by using the brass hammer. They checked out fine. I had to order a new piston because one got away from me and hit the ground.
So it then didn't want to go back into the bore smoothly. Seems it was out of round. I had the new piston pressed on the rod. I also managed to buger up the rod journal during pre-assembly because the rod caps were hard to get off. So I had it polish and it pretty much got rid of the scratch. Last but not least, the machine shop figured out why I couldn't get the #3&4 pistons on the rod journals. I had the wrong bearings. Apparently you have to have narrowed bearings because of the extra fillet machined on the journals that give it extra strength. I wasn't too upset I had to buy another set of bearings because I now have some Clevite 77 high performance mains / rod bearings now rather than the cheap Summit bearings.
This thing is now going from a cheap project to an expensive one. LOL!
So all those problems were taken care of. This past week I took the engine block to the car wash to give it a good bath. I wanted to make sure I got it super clean just to be sure there's no left over metal in the block from machining. I had some help from my fiancé's brother.
Austin wiping the bores down, after hosing it with a can of WD-40, giving it the "paper towel test". I cleaned the block with an engine cleaning brush kit.
When I got the block back from the machine shop I had them leave it bare. No plugs, cam bearings, nothing, because I wanted to install everything myself so I can learn. Months ago I bought a cheap cam tool from summit (summit brand tool). So I gave installing the bearings a try. Well, I managed to ruin a set of bearings and had to remove them because I was using the tool wrong, I think? To remove one of the stubborn bearings I had to put a screw driver through the oil hole and bang out the bearing that way which bent the bearing into itself. Needless to say, I got some bearing shavings in the block. So I had to the load the block back up for another wash. I then had to buy a new set of bearings, which is fine cause I bought a better brand / set (I had a summit bearing set), and I then modified the cam tool. It worked a lot better and thought it should've came the way I made it work. ;D I'll take some pics and show you the mods.
Any who, cam bearings are in, I masked off the engine and painted the block black, knocked in the freeze plugs, and trial fitted the cam. So far everything is going smoothly, for now. ;D
This weekend I'm going to try and have the short block assembled and sealed up. Just like the machinist told me, "You might accidentally get this thing together after all!"