Rebuilding a 360
I'll toss a second endorsement to the Germantown Rd Car Quest.
I had them press the bearings onto a set of Moser one piece axles. When pressing one of the bearings there was a problem. Joey - who ran the shop at the time and might still well be there - fixed the problem right away. He got the micrometers out - took some measurements and went into the parts house side of the store. He came out with a new bearing retainer - turned it down on a lathe. No problems - no extra cost.
They did the machine work on a 360 for me. They did everything but the heads. The heads were done somewhere else. The engine dropped a valve via a broken valve stem within minutes of completing the break in run. The top of the piston was toast. I went back to him for advice. He rebuild my head, got me a new piston, head gaskets and such - without any problems. Heck - I'd gotten a quote 6 months before the work was actually done. He remembered me from the quote - let me know that shop prices had gone up but that he would honor the quote.
Some of the other things they did - I bought a Federal Mogul Premium engine kit on his recommendation. He asked me what the engine would be in and what it was going to do before making the recommendation on the engine kit. I wanted a double roller timing chain. They pulled the single chain out of the kit - gave a refund at the retail price for that chain and then sold me the double roller at the retail price. So my upgrade to a double roller cost like 15 bucks.
I can't say enough about how the great service. I rarely recommend any business - but will recommend them if Joey still runs that shop.
As for the assembly of a AMC 360- the Chiltons and Haynes have about everything you need to know. You could get the rest of the information here. For example - to make good oil pressure ensure that the clearance on your oil pump gears and the pump cover is in tolerance. Make sure that the timing cover housing (where the oil pump is housing is) is not worn and scored. DO this oil bypass - the picture from fuzz401 shows it. There is also a way to add additional oiling to the timing gear on the distributer. Both of them are good setups to put on a AMC 360. Another thing to do if running a stock intake is run the full valley pan gasket. This one runs across both sides of the intake and helps reduce the amount of oil hitting the bottom of the intake from the intake valley.
