Dowel Pin Problem - need advice

[73Dodge]

In tracking down the cause of a prematurely worn out main shaft bearing on my A833, I am working on aligning my Quicktime bellhousing which was out of spec for both Parallel and concentric on my 440. I have Parallel dialed in to .003 and then found my concentric alignment to be out at .027 TIR. I ordered up some .014 ROBBMC dowel pins and pulled the old dowels and that's where the trouble started. The PS dowel pin hole is perfect, but the driver's side hole had been bored open rather sloppily to about .544 ID by a prior owner and of course a standard dowel pin is just swimming in that opening. The dowel that was in there was smashed down till it bulged and then just shoved in the opening, doing nothing good for the alignment and easily removed with a locking pliers. So now I'm struggling for ideas on how to repair, workaround, or somehow adapt that bored out hole to accept a dowel so I can align the bellhousing and get on with my trans refresh. Would seriously appreciate everyones ideas and input, thanks!

[RUNCHARGER]

Ugh: Cut an appropriate feeler gauge or shim stock to the correct length/width to shim the hole between the block and dowel. It would have to be just about the right thickness (remember half of the total needed) to make a nice tight fit.

[1 Wild R/T]

Often the reason a pilot hole is oversize is because it was misaligned & the machinist rather then using an offset dowel simply bolted the bell housing on with a couple bolts lightly snugged & tapped the belhousing around till the runout was within spec, then tighten the bolts, rechecked, add & torque the other bolts & finally use an oversized bit & drilled for oversized pins......  Your best option may be to do exactly that...

https://www.mcmaster.com/dowel-pins

[Chryco Psycho]

My first thought is tap the hole & grind an offset on a bolt  , you can rotate the bolt in the threads like a dowel pin to get the line up correct , you might have to grind down 2-3 bolts to get it right .

[73Dodge]

Thanks for the quick replies and suggestions. Looks like the shim stock idea is going to be the way to go, I have plenty of shims from the bellhousing alignment anyway. The hole is likely the result of someone trying to drill out the old dowel pin at one point, it's out of round and a bit ragged. Messing with some different shapes and thicknesses of shims, I'm able to get a pin to sit firmly enough for now and should be able to get it solid once I get the RobbMc pins.

Quick update - Got the .014 dowel pins installed (the quality on these is really impressive) along with some shim stock I cut and rolled to surround the pin in the oversized hole. A few adjustments and the bellhousing is dialed in to within .003, well within spec. Next up, get a fresh clutch and throwout bearing on and the freshly rebuilt A833 back in so I can keep on rolling.