I can also confirm , I recently used rubberised cork gasket for sideplate and rocker , clean any trace of oil or paint any thing off the side plate and rocker surface where the gasket sits , use silicone sealer to adhere the gasket to the surface of the tin ware , on the rocker I put a couple of long thin strips of wood along the gasket and a few bull dog clips and left for couple days before fit ..DONT PUT sealant between gasket and cylinder head. I did however put sealant both sides of sideplate gasket ..DONT OVER TIGHTEN ...Vern ..

Rod ..You have been extremely careful with the rear main seal , lets hope it all works well for you ...dont forget to centralise the timing cover seal on the front of the crank before you tighten the cover , use a dual lip seal with a bit of grease packed between the lips ...Vern ..

Rod ..I too have chosen to use the old seal material .it is wedge shaped if you look end on , the narrow edge in first , what ever seal you choose soak it in oil , and good drop on assembly as you do with your bearings ..I put the crank in 3 or 4 times , pain in arse , but less pain than a leaky seal ..when you first put seal in and work it in with a curved tool , then the crank flattens it a bit , if when you first put seal in measure it and say 10mm , after crank in and out it has flattened and say 12mm and wont push in any more that indicates crush on the seal and crank should turn by hand ,if it drags ,it a bit tight ,Vern 

The car looks great , huge satisfaction for you , congratulations , I went into my tyre guys a while ago , and they brought out some Rema Tip Top ( they make tubeless tyre valves and stuff ) tyre cleaner and cleaned my white walls , just brilliant , you cant buy it , they are going to decant some into a spray bottle for me from their bulk stock ..Vern .. 

Hi Rod ..Sounds like your J block is shaping up ok ...I stuck with my "L" block cause I just wanted to , and it is not as close in tolerance as yours , when I assembled it I used Perfect Circle rings , with the solid segemented oil control ring , bad move , I took engine back out and fitted 4 piece oil control rings from JP down in SA ..4 pieces , spreader , expander, 2 rails .. and new compression rings ,very happy now , 130psi in all 6 cylinders ....and not burning oil ...Vern ..

When I was working on mine , with the strip it disc , I could smell fish oil occasionally , in my opinion it did what it was supposed to do ...Vern ..

Pete ..I got a pile out of mine same places , dept of Ag in Orange said it is typical soil of the Milthorpe area near Orange where the car was supposed to come from originally ..Camerons Motors were the Holden dealers in the day , son of owner said our car is not in their records ,in the 1950's there were Holden dealers in many towns in Central west ..the old Ferropro kits you had to drill a hole in sills to get oil in and then put a rubber or plastic blanking plug in drill hole..Vern

Hi Rod ..I have been away for 2 weeks ..Simpson desert KTM bike run as a support vehicle ..The best way is to have a crankshaft grinder finish the thrust faces in journal , but it is not a high powered hi performance engine , you could clamp your two bearing halves together and on wet , Kero or Diesel or WD40 , wet and dry paper on a face plate or piece of glass , carefully reduce the flange thickness evenly on both sides till correct ..with regards your rings , the thin spacer bands are used where compression ring clearance in the ring land is excessive , usually the top compression ring , it must be machined on a lathe , a little off each side of the land ..cheers Vern

Hi Rod ..Just a couple of comments ..have you checked your pistons ? Apart from eliminating serious faults , if they look good , and if they are genuine original style Holden pistons or Repco or ACL which were OEM ,check the measurement of the skirt just below the oil control ring 90deg to pin ,if ok that's peace of mind , if bit of " slap" in bore you can get some shops to use piston expander ...using a crank from another engine is not a problem , years ago you could buy exchange reground crankshafts with bearings over the counter ..providing your old crank was re grindable ..it is imperitive the block you are going to use has its original main bearing caps , mixing main bearing caps is a NO, NO unless you line bore them ..As you state you have a good crank with bearings from another engine , I would fit it up using "Plasti gauge"..two strips per journal , NO rear main seal in when doing this ,great piece of mind  ..Vern ..

Rod ..If a " J " engine number is not a problem for you and it is a good block , then why bother with a suspect one ? ..Vern ..

Rod ..I agree with Rob , seems far too straight to be a conventional crack ..petrol in the water jacket will certainly leak through ..maybe its an old scratch mark that wasn't evident before you honed , like end of a broken ring ,did you hone it yourself with a three or four stone drill driven hone ? stopped at bottom and then pulled the hone straight up and out , and part of the tool scored it on way out ..I may mention a good cross hatch hone pattern is desirable ...Vern ..

Trevor ..I'll just add a bit to what Rob has observed , a good engine really shouldn't be too fumie , but we know Holden greys can be , and the extent of oil fumes is caused by several things , engine temperature , grade of oil , combustion gas blow by , thats why Holden designed the engine with a breathable oil filler cap and a road draught tube ..that is clear evidence that fumes were expected and how to deal with them , when car is in motion and even fan air when standing , that air is supposed to enter mouth of filler cap go down and scavage the oil fumes , but it can gather oil mist also in the sump and push it out the road draught tube ,it is cut at an angle to help with a type of ventury suction also ..then they thought of PCV valves ..
IS your oil filler cap clean ? , wash with kero every 5000 miles  . the book says ..Is your road draught tube clear ? ..have been known to be blocked off ..How is your cylinder compression ?
Those gasket rings in back of side plate around spark plug holes are a bugger , no easy fix , they can move ,to do a good job its side cover off , and that is not a quick job , I had one similar problem , the side plate was distorted , don't ask me how , it just was , and had to gently work it till it was even and we dry fitted it couple of times using chalk to check contact ..keep well Vern .

Hi Alex / Terry ..That certainly looks it , same as the image posted as it was auctioned ..Now I recognise Fair Deal motors ....Vern .

At auction last Sunday , A lot sold that the auctioneer stated that was the original roof top neon sign from the Holden Building on Parramatta Road ..Sydney ..Not sure where that building was , any way he stated it was original 1950's and was 5 meters long ..Sold to a Sydney buyer for $38,250.00 ...

Gents ..who do you go to for your choice of main jets ? ...thx Vern ..

Hi all ..I am building a Holden Grey engine on a portable steel trolly for display at our Museum at Fagan Park on open days ..Has someone got , and preferably in Sydney , and even more so North West Sydney , steel fuel line complete ,the one from fuel pump , up around front of rocker cover to the carby ..also exhaust engine pipe , just the first bit ,including fitting collar, from manifold just past first bend say 800 to 900mm long ,will pay fair price ...Vern ..can call me 0405 703 413

Good on you Peter ,badge looks great, wonderful gesture , put some pleasure and trust back in a old lady's life , she will look at her EH again with content , not worrying about the badge some bastxxxd stole ..keep well go safe Vern ..

Hi Trevor ..You are welcome any time ,Happy to help , I am pleased it was quite straight forward ..You told me you are going to clean the flywheel where the timing marks are , and seems like yours may be one of those that was not stamped well in the factory , you may see some thing you cant read clearly at the appropriate area in the flywheel. as the engine rotates normally , you should first see the embedded ball in the flywheel , followed by the letters UC , followed by a slot , looks like the letter I ....The ball is where number one should fire with NO vacuum advance .. The mark is " upper center " often known as TDC " top dead center " on number 1 ..
My particular flywheel is quite faint also ..keep well Vern .

Hi Trevor ..have you found and solved your engine not starting problem ? ...cheers Vern .

Wookie ..I might be wrong on on testing incoming wire on outside of dissy just with ignition on with dissy in any position , I have tested there with test lamp , but engine was running ,arcing the points with cap off is best ,..in any event please post what you find was the problem ..Vern