I received my 6/1 from Sam Crosby on the 15th of march, Couldn't contain my self so went into it from the bottom end.. It was very clean, no sand, I poked with the needle probes in all the corners, and mirrow up into the piston.. no sand..
I removed the rod bearing to inspect the crank journals, and found them very clean and polished, the oil borings matched the insert bearing holes. I didn't plastiguage the clearance as it "felt very good" . Â
The mains I inspected very carefully as much as I could without pulling the crank, they were clean and smooth. My Steth positioned close to both ends of the crank, revealed a tone, like a continuous bow drawn over a violin string where the main seals were dragging on the crank ends.. , Rather than pull the crank, I tipped the engine on eacc side for 4 hours with some 5 wt oil to seep into the seals to Quieten them down. It worked..
The timing idler gear is a cast gear with more than what I consider acceptable back lash, and is the loudest noise in the engine when turned over with compression release.  The lifters rotated immediately with hand cranking before even starting..
SInce the bore was so clean inside when viewed from below I did not pull the head, but did look carefully for sand in the castings from the outside and found none. Align ment of the rockers to valves was good though I thought that the oiling, (very small manually oiled holes, one on each side of each rocker) was a bit too primitive and bears watching.
I set it up on 2 timbers 6 x 8 and lag bolted it to them for a no-load start..
After bleeding the injection lines to all the way to the injector, once everything was tightened.. I cranked it over 4 times to get up momentum in the flywheels, and poped the compression release.  It started first time..Â
VEry quiet when idling, the loudest noise again is the timing gear lash.. so I am a candidate for an adjustable timning gear bolt assembly.
The pepper can muffler is ok when idling, but under any load it has a very stark CRAK CRAK and will need some major additional muffling.
I ran it for 5 hours under modest load, (electric space heater off of my ST15 and it slobbered from the muffler continuously. Â
Lower end inspection showed no wear on the insert bearings or journals, the cam set up was very oily when examined so seems to be oiling very well from the dipper.  Oil color had turned from a golden honey to a slightly darker honey.. My magnet had no particles on it, and no sand in the sump. So I put the oil back in the crankcase and have run it for another 20 hours or so. No oil usage as determined on the dip stick, and the oil is getting darker but is nowhere appearing nearly as black as I had anticipated, considering that it is still slobbering out the muffler.
I have a 20 HP baldor 3 phase motor using one leg synced into my individual power grid using it as a back up when peak loads are too much for "Bertha"Â . Bertha is my 28 HP "Changfa clone" powering the ST15 for 18 hours a day to keep the boss happy.
Since I didn't pull the head, I do have a question for other Metro owners:Â Is it ID in IDI ?
Thanks
Steve