As it was nice on Sunday, I had a day in the garage. Years ago I bought a freshly rebored 1700 crossflow block. I hava an old engine to be stripped for donor parts (crank, rods etc). The thing is, using the main shells from the old engine (just for a test fit) the crank doesn't sit fully into the block. The shells are marked 0.015 o/s and are original Ford ones. Is it possible the old block has had its mains bored out at production and oversized shells fitted?
as far as I can tell, the crank has standard sized Journals and the big end shells were marked A_A.

Yes during re-manufacture it was not uncommon for the mains to be line bored and shells that were over-size on the backs fitted.

Thanks for the confirmation, I thought that must have been the case. Just need to make sure I use the main caps from the newer block come build up time!
Need to get the crank tickled a bit to make sure it is round and buy new shells then put it all together

dont use different mains caps,use the ones that came with the block.
as above,they are line bored and should never be mixed and matched