Was looking over a 300 i got in the wagon purcahse becasue im going to sell the engine and noticed a crack in the ex-manifold. And noticed that one valve cover was dented too. Do you think this engine fell or is the cracked manifold common? When i rotoate the engine @ the fly i also hear air escaping and all the spark plugs are in.
Cracked manifolds seem to be common on 300s. Mine had two previously repaired cracked manifolds when I bought it, and they both cracked again. I'm on manifold number 3 on the driver's side, but I broke an ear from the head pipe flange on the second one, so I don't know if that really counts as a crack.
Sorry. I have DSL and sometimes the images don;t upload if i hit "post" too soon. Has been a real b*tch lately. Posts take 5 minutes to hit the server, so sometimes someone posts similar response, then it looks like I came along and posted the same thing like some yutz. the 32 ft squared is terminal velocity of a dropped object. The image (that I re-posted) shows what looks to me, like impact of it being dropped and likely cracked the manifold. I have the complete 300/2bbl engine I pulled from my 1964 Skylark, so if you cannot find a manifold, let me know. Unlikely anyone wants the engine anyway, but I hate to break it up, although if it helps a brother out, who needs to by cools stuff for the little one...
Dented valve cover is probably from a chain lifting the engine which scratched the rear of the manifold also.