On my project 350, i am cleaning the block myself.

I pulled the lifters and after reading a thread on here, i want to clean the lifter bores. TO make sure they are maximum satifaction.

I have a set of brass wire brushes. Sorta what you clean a bottle with, but brass bristles sticking out in a circuilar pattern.

Can i stick this into the iron bore without having to worry about scratching or messing up anything inside the bore. To my knowledge brass isn't as dense as iron so therefor it cant scratch it right? So cleaning the bores with this method will clean and not hard the block right?

 

Most of....wait, -all of the engine block brushes I have are nylon, they have never left a scratch. I think if the brass bristles are of a small diameter it wouldn`t harm the bores, if they are flexiable I`d say it would work fine. Better to clean those out than to neglect doing it at all, right? I always brush out the passages that run from the rear to the front of the block too...that brush is about 3 feet long

 

Yeah i have nylon brushes as well. They came in a engine cleaning kit i got at the flea market.

It have brass brushes that seemingly were made for lifter bores.

It also has brushes for coolant passages, valve guide holes, and everything.

Very cool kit for $8.

 

If you'll be using a flat tappet cam, the bores might need to be honed.
Cams can go flat from lifters that aren't free to spin in the bores.
With a roller though, no such problem exists.
The cost of a lifter bore hone is about equal to the cost of having a shop do the work for you.

 

No problem using the brass/bronze wire brushes on iron. I've used gun bore cleaning equipment on several ocassions. Be sure to blow out all your oil galleries with compressed air when you're done just in case any stray wires may have broken off.

 

I completely understand the lifter bore idea. But the block and all its machine work are only 12k miles old. The lifter honing previously done is perfectly fine. I just want to make sure that the bores are still clean. And all friction surfaces are clean for that matter.

 

i've used wheel cylinder hone on more lifter bores than i can count without a problem.

 

i went to sears today. And i purchased a brake hone for $7.88. Awesome deal.

IT can hone bores from 1/2in thick to 2-1/4" thick. Should work perfectly eh?