Hi everyone, haven't posted in while. I'm considering pulling out my 350 of my 72 coupe due to it has 118k miles, never been touched internally, and has been making some ticking noises, as well as some leaks from multiple gaskets and is covered in oil. My question is should I attempt this by myself, having never done an engine rebuild, nor pulled a motor before? Do I even have to? I've done heads and and head gaskets and other engine work on my jeeps in the past, is this a very technical job if I'm just replacing what's there with new, no boring or machining. I have been gathering information and specs of the job and watching many videos, but I'm leaning toward waiting until I can pay a shop to do it, I don't want to buy a new one, being that it's original. What's ur thoughts, I promise you won't hurt my feelings. TIA
If you have a warm clean place to work on the engine, and you have time to wait for parts and machine work, you can do it. Once you take things apart, the project can grow. Even if the engine is still working now , there is likely some machining to rebuild it. So you will need to find and understand how to communicate with a machine shop. There is a lot of info here on v8buick.com about how to do this properly. If you decide to pay a shop, make sure they know what they are doing. There is nothing worse than paying someone else to mess up your sh!t.
Having been on here for awhile, I'm sure you have seen the joke about projects growing. If your concern is about the mileage - don't worry. Buicks go for much longer than 118K. If you have legitimate bad noises coming from the engine, try to figure out what they are. Ticking could be valve train or something external. Once you figure out where the noise is likely coming from, make a plan to fix it. No need to pull the engine for a rebuild when a oil flush would resolve the issue. Clean the out side of the engine and see where the oil is coming from. Maybe it's just a valve cover gasket. As you can tell I'm in the camp of "if it ain't broke". But if you want the experience/pleasure of doing an engine rebuild, by all means go ahead!
I enjoy doing these types of projects but as others have mentioned these projects grow in both time and money. I picked up a used motor cheap, like $250, and rebuilt that one while I was still enjoying my car, then once it was done just swap um. One thing I did learn is that rebuilding a small block Buick can be very costly as there is not much aftermarket parts support. for the money I have in my 350 I could have, and should have upgraded to a big block.
I would first determine if it actually needs a rebuild or not. If it has decent oil pressure and it passes a compression test, I'd leave well enough alone. Back when i was at the machine shop, lots of folks brought perfectly fine running engines in for rebuilds. It was a waste of time and money. Pulling it out and resealing it isn't a bad idea though.
