I'm looking for long bell housing dowels, I know Lakewood makes a set but they are .500" in diameter. Does anybody make .496" dowels? I don't want to break a block with a .004" press fit.

When you say "long", what does that mean ?? Also, do you want offset dowels or just straight pins? I had a friend make ne a set of long pins a few years back to install a scattershield but I was doing some funny things with it. Usually the standard length dowels are fine.

I have some old Direct Connection dowels in two different offsets that I'd part with if they're the offset you need. Otherwise good luck finding the proper diameter.

The holes in your block are probably .500 and dowels are usually .5002 or so. Nobody would make a dowel in your size that I can imagine. Put your dowel in a drill or drill press and file and sand paper to the diameter you want. It will take a minute or two to sand a 0.001 off so measure and sand away. Best of luck to you.

I put a couple of 1/2 dowels in my lathe and turned them down.. took a couple of minutes or you can
just chuck up a couple of 1/2" bolts and run a file on them(simple and cheap)

RobbMc makes .496 offset dowels. Just turn them with a screwdriver to get the proper alignment.

http://www.robbmcperformance.com/products/dowels.html

This site is for Mopars. Take your Chevy comments to a Chevy site.

Why don't you shove your attitude, and then scroll down the page I linked until you get to the Mopar section. Idiot.

The man is looking for info.. what did he say thats wrong

In a weak effort to de-Yellow Bullet this thread I will say the Chrysler sells straight dowels. When I bought some two dealers in town stocked them.

That is standard machine shop practices. I figured all manufactures would do that. So you saying the block holes are .496? "Cause m dowels are .5002 But they are aftermarket I think. Please clarify.

Precisely. And was mentioned in the very first post !

RobbMC makes Mopar dowels. Everyone else sells Chevy dowels which won't fit. You can also have a machine shop make some dowels for you. Just tell them how long and what diameter you want.

I stand corrected. Went and measured my aftermarket, and standard machine shop dowels and one factory dowel.

Standards were .5001-2 factory .498. Holes in trans, 3 of them were .498 to .500. Never had a reason to measure before.

I saw the .496 hole in the first post.

So, now I know, factory, Mopar, made small holes and mopar dowels, Chevy didn't. And, people here can be wise and sarcastic (I actually knew that), and maybe most importantly, can't stand Chevy type tech.

Have a nice day.

I've had trouble removing dowels in the past that were .500". I need longer (and offset) dowels in my current motor. Hopeing to weld fine thread Allen's (head to dowel). Then using a piece of tube , flat washer and a nut to pull them. Tried heat on a previous Mega block and cracked the right dowel bore. Ended up boring the hole. Plugging the hole and reboreing a new dowel pin hole. Dont want to go thru that again.
Doug

Easiest way to remove dowels ... Drill a hole down the middle all the way through. Work you way up to around 3/8". Put grease in the void behind the dowel - the void is pretty big as those dowel holes are deep so filling them with grease is tedious. Once you have them quite full, use a bolt the same size as the hole with the threads cut off to bound into the grease filled void. The hydraulic pressure will push the dowel out.

A lot of after market/standard dowels (including the ones I have) are tool steel and there is just no drilling of those. Interestingly, MIL-SPEC dowels I have dealt with have a tapped hole in them for pulling.

A .002 interference fit is a kinda of a "never meant to come apart fit". This might be Chevy tech so I am reluctant to say anything. I'll stop now.

What's the point of "tool steel" dowels, they do nothing requiring that grade, not to mention the added expense.

Drillin he dowels and filling the void with grease as been a common practice for well over 40 years. Ok, not "everyone" is aware of it bu many are. Never heard of any issues of not being able to drill them.

Any Mopar dowels I have used are NOT interference fit, they fit the holes and still turn with little effort and with offset dowels that's the whole point - you have to be able to turn them to dial in the runout as close as possible. Dowels are not hard to remove because they're "interference fit", they're hard to remove because over the years they've rusted into place.

Riddle me this ... if the dowels are interference fit in the block, are they also interference fit in the bell or trans - because I've never seen anyone have a terrible struggle to remove a bell or trans. So, did they make bell/trans holes slightly larger than block holes? Or did they make the dowels narrower on one end? I don't think so!

The holes in the bellhousing are much larger than the holes in the block. The dowel pins are a slight interference fit (usually a tap fit which would be line to line in machine shop lingo) into the block but are a loose fit into the bellhousing or transmission case.

Here is an aftermarket dowel, or one like you would get from Grainger or MSC. Its .5002.

I checked a mopar dowel and its "soft". Why tool steel? You are right, we don't need that. But a lot of machine applications apparently do.

This has a ground surface for accuracy. I doubt Mopar dowels are that spot on. But I don't know, but as I said, I learned more about Mopar dowels today than I probably need.

I've seen those dowels also and have a bunch. Those are often used to locate two halves of dies as well as a multitude of other uses and yes, those are a much higher grade of steel. In fact, those are what I gave my buddy to turn down to the proper diameter for my motor.