Albuquerque Antique Auto Engine Rebuilders

Posted by MRR on January 08, 1998 at 10:46:21

Well, it's been a quiet week in my hometown (but I digress).

Your friendly roving reporter (that's me) was in Albuquerque on Tuesday on business and based on the report of the existence of Pete's Auto Machine, Inc., I decided to check it out.

First, let me state that I have no interest (financial or otherwise) in Pete's business, my interest lies with eventually rebuilding a certain '31 Ford engine that currently resides in my garage.

I met Pete and his purported son John (according to Pete)(but I digress again) at their Old Coors Road establishment.Their shop has a variety of aged engines in various stages of renewal.They were just finishing with a Packard straight 8 when I arrived.That thing looked big enough to power the Titanic.They were also rebuilding various customer's Ford engines ranging from a 8N tractor to the A engine on the workbench.

Pete gave me the nickle tour of their approach to A rebuilds.Now don't all you purists (I consider myself one also) jump on me.I'm only reporting what I saw.Besides, how many people are driving cars with metal clamped in valve stems (but I digress).Anyway, Pete explained several of the improvments that they put into the A engines if a customer wants them.These include; putting in modern one piece valve guides and non-flared valves to facilitate valve replacement, shortening the lifter guide in the block to facilitate valve adjustment and using modern Chevy pistons so that modern Moly rings can be used.

They also gave me an education on putting inserts into both the mains and rods.By using two inserts where each babbit bearing rod was and carving grooves in the appropriate place, they are able to insert the engine and maintain the original oiling system.They claim to have 80,000 mile insert A engines out there running around.They also had some very attractive cams that had been reground and they took them a step further by polishing the reground cam to help avoid lifter damage. As an afterthought Pete told me that if you want a straight up babbit rebuild they can do those too.

John was grinding a crank so I got an education on how they do it.This particular crank had been modified by John with counter weights welded in.John explained how by adding the counterweights and taking weight off the flywheel the "whip" on the center main bearing can be significantly reduced.

I'm not an engineer but these guys appear to be successfully implementing some practical ideas.It ain't cheap but it looks and sounds like it will work and I'll let the purists debate whether it's an A or not when Pete is done.As I say, "It all comes down to money".If it didn't, I would probably be crating my engine for the trip to the desert southwest right now.

Hey, does anybody else have reports of similar excursions?Let us hear from you.


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