Maybe not worthy of a tech topic, but moderately interesting, maybe.
After shaviing the upper front mounts to a hair over 3" separation, figured I was about ready to mount the engine. Slow down there, boy! How are you going to clamp the crankcase between the rear mounting plates if the two in-between crankcase mounting studs are sticking up above the plane of the plate landing zone? (Fortunately, realized this before I had the engine in my arms.) Are the new stainless studs not installed to the depth of the 5/16"-18 threads? Are the studs too long? Neither, so what is it? Turns out, the manufacturer was short about two-and-a-half 5/16"-18 threads. Now what? (New paragraph for breath.)
"So," he asks himself, "do I own a American Standard die that will work for this?" I don't own a lot of dies and was pessimistic. Searched the normal spot. Nothing. Searched an unlikely spot, EUREKA! There it was, siiting in the die handle. Would it spin onto the stud thread? Yep (but you knew that). Figured an 1/8" of non-Whitworth thread wouldn't hurt anything. Ran a test on an old stud (one that holds crankcase halves together
). That worked, so, on to the stainless, for which I had no threading experience. A bit surprised that it felt about the same as the carbon steel.
To end the story, it worked. YAY. Another surprise was how critical is the length of those studs and the threading.
RIchard L.