Alrighty, the cam and crank are in.  Time to move on to the rest of the rotating assembly.  I cleared the workbench of cam and crank stuff so as to have room for the piston and rod stuff.  I'm using a set of original pistons with a new set of Manley "H" beam rods... at the recommendation of Dvorak's machine shop.  I laid out the rods, pistons, ring sets, bearings and pin locks on the bench for a kinda inventory... all there... so it was time to start.

I washed the timing chain and spockets in the parts washer so I could get those installed.  I knew I didn't have the 3 bolts needed to mount the cam sprocket so I had ordered a set.  They still weren't here yet so I had to use some temporary bolt in the mean time.

Next was the chore of gapping the rings.  I've done this once before and my recollection was that it wasn't all that fun.  16 rings have to be filed down a little bit at a time to get the desired gap when installed.  The other time I did this I was able to borrow a ring filer from a neighbor.  That was a good 10+ years ago and he isn't my neighbor any more.  Knowing I'd need one, I bit the bullet (make that the 642nd bullet I've had to bite) and ordered one online.  I mounted it to the bench and started the process.  The paperwork that came with the rings had a chart showing the recommended gap, per inch of bore, depending on the fuel/induction setup... easy enough.  The first one took forever as I wasn't sure just how much material I was taking off with each spin of the grinder.  Around the 8th or 9th ring I was hitting it pretty close on the first try.   I'll confess, a couple of rings have a bit more gap than recommended... oops.  About 3.5 hours of grinding and checking was what it took to finish that job.  I put them aside and moved to the next step.

The rods and pistons have been sitting on shelf for a few weeks.  I thought it best to rinse everything off in the parts washer.  I ran a cleaning brush though each pin just to make sure.  With the parts on the bench, I snatched up a rod and a piston and a couple of spiral pin locks... this was going to be a breeze.  Well, let's see, the lock goes in like this.. "BOIIINNNGG"... wait, maybe if I hold this... "SSPREEOINNNGG"... no, I'll hold this with some needlenose..."TWWIINNNGGG"... DAMNIT.  I fought with that first freakin lock for a $%!&$ half hour!  What a thing to get hung up on.  I did a search on the web for some kind of spiral lock installation technique.  One did come up but it sure as hell didn't work for me.  With a deep breath I stepped back and gathered myself.  I dove back in and tried some more.  After a few more minutes I somehow got one started and was able to work it in gradually with a small screwdriver.  I kinda ran the mental tape back in my head to see if I could "see" how I started it.  I was able to figure it out and after a couple more locks I had the technique down.  I had the rest of the rods/pistons together in like 15 minutes.  However, for whatever reason, I didn't pay attention to how the rods were turned on each piston.  At first glance, the rods didn't look different from one side to the other but after looking a bit closer, it was apparent that one face of the big end was different than the other.  I sent a quick question out to the knowledgeable Mopar Mailing List and in less than 15 minutes, I was reminded about the fillet on the crank and the beveled face on the rod... DOAH.  Hey... with 8-10 years between engines, you can't remember everything!  All the rods/pistons were assembled at this point so I had to determine how many rods I had to flip.  Luckily for me I only had to do one.  UUGGG, I now had to REMOVE a spiral lock... DAMNIT!  It took a few tries but I was able to work one out without too many hassles.

With the rod/piston assemblies done, I used my handy ring spreader and got all the rings installed.  I tried to make sure that the gaps were opposite each other and perpendicular to the oil ring gaps.  After removing the rod caps, I pressed the bearings into place at the rod and cap.  Everything was ready to be installed in the block.  My ring compressor has been waiting patiently in its drawer to be called to service.  I washed it off in the parts washer, re-familiarized myself on how it worked, :-P , and got to the job.  I filled a plastic coffee can with oil and dipped each piston in it just before using the compressor.  Each piston went in smoothly as I was very sure to be positive that each was being installed in the right direction and that the rod was on correctly.  I measured the first rod bearings clearance and it was at .003 in.  I couldn't find the first piece of literature in my garage that had the tolerance for clearance at these bearings.  I'm going on my hunch that it is comparable to the mains and that .003 in is within the range.  Once I got a rhythm going, all 8 pistons went quickly.  I tightened all the rod bolts to 75 ftlbs each and that was that.