Oh man!! Check out the orange, rusty nastyness coming out of the water jackets on this block!! I did this, switching around a bit, for about 15 minutes and it was STILL spewing orange...and that was just one side... The driver side, which was the side that had gotten REALLY hot, was the worst of the two...what can I do to get rid of all that crap inside the water jackets and channels???
Heads look a little better, and the same ugly orange rust-water came out of them as well... All that blasting, and it barely cleaned out the corrosion that had collected in the water jackets behind the timing cover... Cleaned everything else out pretty good tho... And there's STILL a layer of burnt oil on the 2 cylinders where it was getting the hottest...
Man i'm jealous at how sharp that Lesabre looks. At least I know the outcome of all my hard work. I've been doing some research on your Engine Code problem and found a few helpful charts but im sure its something you already have in your manual but i'll post em anyways. Looking good man, keep up the hard work!:TU: 1963-1975 http://www.buicks.net/shop/reference/engine_ident_63_75.html 1976-1982 http://www.buicks.net/shop/reference/engine_ident_76_82.html
A couple shots of the piles of parts and junk that were taken off the engine... The chrome valve covers are actually off my old engine and will be getting reused... Engine VIN...
That pretty much gets everyone up to speed on where I'm at now. I've gotten a few parts in and I'll snap some pics of them and post when it's time to install them. For now, I'm trying to clean up and restore, repair, repaint or just plain improve as much as I possibly can, which brings me to my next question... I want to trim all the excess cast away from the lifter valley, but I'm unsure how much to trim and how much to leave for lifter bore strength. This pic is of two of the areas I want to clean. I marked the border of where I want to trim to. Looking at the area marked on the right side of the picture, is the upper left portion and the lower right portion too much trimming? Will it affect the strength of the lifter bores? Here is a close-up of the area on the left of the last pic...I think the area i marked should be OK to trim...
Thanks Dru, I'm trying my best! That chart for '75 states that "AF" is the only 455 engine code, which would make sense...except that's the only thing I've seen that has the "AF" code for a '75 455. Weird, but hey, it's more of a lead than I've had thus far! :TU: Other than Jim & George at the start of this thread, you and I are about the only ones commenting on it...and there've been almost 350 views...maybe I started this thread in the wrong section...
I don't get it either man, I've read quite a few threads on here and your doing a pretty good job with the pics and detail. I figure If I keep replying it keeps your thread close to the top. I'm waiting for all the Buick Guru's to start flooding it any moment. Maybe theres no love for the 70 Lesabre guys? Maybe we should go buy a GSX or something o No: -Dru
Thanks RegalBegal, at least now I know for sure. Man! 455's really lost some friggin HP between '70 & '75 didn't they?! My '70 was rated at like 370HP if I remember correctly...
That's for sure!!! In my experience, true LeSabre 455 Hardtop Coupes are kinda hard to come by...you'd think that alone would get some attention. No biggie tho, like I said at the beginning of the thread, I just figured some folks would be interested or get a kick out of watching me go thru my rebuild. If I've got questions that don't get answered, then I'll just post them in FAQ or something and see if I get a better response.:TU: Now if I were doing a thread on rebuilding my '58 Roadmaster, I'm sure that would spark some interest in the community. It certainly worked for member Smartin and his awesome '58 Limited...:beer That guy is doing one really great job on that car! 1958 Limited Four Door Riviera - Page 6 - V8Buick.com
Thats wild, My uncle has a 55 roadmaster he restored back in the 80's. I swear that car is his wife, he wakes up and goes to the tent to work on it. He is currently trying to get the original windsheild washers to work. I'm going to add his buick to the website once I get some pics and info on what he's done to it. I ask him all the time, make sure I get that car when he clocks out. I came up around older cars.. Always been my dads and uncles thing. My first car was the Lesabre, my sisters first car was a 69 pontiac tempest which we still have at my dads and my brothers was a 72 Ford Ltd which is sitting in a junkyard somewhere in georgia. My dad has a few wagons a fairlane and a country sedan with a 429. I just talked to him and he's watching a listing on ebay for a 1970 Plymouth Fury 1 Police Interceptor Sedan 440... what a cool project that would be. Anyways sorry to hijack your thread...:spank: -Dru
Sounds like a pretty sweet run of vehicles Dru! I grew up much the same way. My grandfather (Charlie Ritter, Jr.) raced stock modifieds and the like at most of the local dirt tracks waaaay back in the day. He even raced AJ Foyt a few times...good stuff, wish I'd have been around to see that!! As far as the thread goes, it's no prob. It looks like this rebuild is going to take a little longer than I had hoped...our washer went out last night, so i may be spending the rest of the project money on a new one...that is, if I can't perform surgery on it and get it working again...we'll see!!
No problem Bud, I also threw a link on the website, hope it helps get some traffic through the thread and maybe some feedback to help you out. Like I said, Us Lesabre guys gotta stick together. :beer -Dru
It was said earlier but I'd just like to restate it. Try to use the earlier heads from your '70. The later heads have much bigger chambers they only had 7.5:1 compression. The '70 heads will get the compression into the 8's at least. You're giving away some extra HP if you don't use them. If you can't use the originals I'd get to a yard and find some 67-73 BB heads. Don't waste money having the '75 heads rebuilt. You wasted too much time even washing them.:error: Watch out for the thrust bearing. How was that? They were notorious on the later engines(painted blue). I'd use the Performer intake and go with a mild cam. Don't get carried away with the cam. A TA RV12 or 112 will work great with the low compression engine especially with a heavy car, no gears, and no converter. You need all the low end you can get. It used to be great back in the "old" days when you could just go to the yard and buy a complete running engine for $150, stop at the car wash and clean it up some and a quick coat of red, maybe a couple of gaskets, and slam it in. These days though you just have to expect to have to tear them down and do a mild rebuild at the minimum as you're finding out. You might have done better putting this in the "Street 455" forum. Also putting the pictures in as thumbnails might have helped because it takes a good while to open the full thread with all those photos even with a reasonably fast connection. Good luck and have a good time.
Mike, Thanks for the input...I've been told that those '75-'76 heads are only good as boat anchors. :laugh: I've got an old '70 block too, that I was thinkin about using...but that block was bought with intentions of using it for the stroker project. There is a guy I was talking to in my area with a dismantled '70 motor (less crank), so I might see what he'll let it go for and use it. Would there be any problems or power loss using the rods, pistons, & crank from the '75 on a '70 block & heads or should I be ok there?? What other ways are there, other than grinding away excess cast and port & polishing, that I can do at home that will improve performance and overall operation of the engine?
the 70 was rated at the flywheel with zero accesseries attached in 71 and later they were rated with all accesseries and the trans attached kind of like flywheel hoesepower compared to rear tire horsepower 70 was 370 71 was like 285 in real life they were almost the same....... 75 76 were the lowest hp rated motors(low compression) your car looks sweet here's mine scott
Well, that makes a little more sense now...and unless I've misunderstood, it's the heads that makes all the difference, right? BTW, that is one AWESOME Wildcat!!!! :TU: Man, I've got to get me one of those!!! I would love to have some buckets and a console shifter in the LeSabre...p
There's no problem using the '75 engine block, just the heads. You can use the crank, rods and pistons in the '70 engine but there is no need for it. If it was me I'd use the '70 heads you have in your hands now and just get another set for the future "dream engine". If you can reuse the '75 pistons because the block doesn't need cylinder boring then have your machinest deck the block about .030". They are usually down in the bore over .050". That will get the compression about .5 point more. If you have to have the block bored out get some '70 pistons, either the cast or forged. That will bring compression up into the low 9's and then have the block decked .010" or so to true it up. Have the heads milled .030" to also bring the compression up. That will get you into the mid 9's. Here it is in a nutshell: '75 pistons: deck .030", heads .030", compression upper 8's '70 pistons: deck .010", heads .030", compression low 9's Don't forget to get the intake side of the heads milled .020-.030 so that the intake fits with all the milling going on. Whatever your machinest says they will handle. As you can see you want to bring the compression up whatever way you can. If you are able to use the '75 pistons more decking will have to be done to raise it up. If you're nervous about doing all that milling when it is at the machine shop at the minimum get .010" off block and heads for cleanup. If you're doing a berry-ball cylinder cleanup in the garage just have the heads milled .030". All compression numbers are estimates. I'll see if I can figure compression better with some numbers I have here. For general use you don't want more than 9.5:1 however because then it gets tricky with pinging/gas selection. The higher compression would allow you to bump up the cam selection a little bit. I'd still stay mild because of the stock gearing and converter. Have the stock valves backcut for some extra performance and have some fresh Stage 1 springs installed. Not much you can do with a grinder that will help. Removing the flashing in the lifter valley helps oil drainback but not really performance. Port matching intake and heads is not even worth the trouble in a low performance situation. Unless you can line them up on a built engine you just may cause more mismatch.The real bottleneck in the heads is under the valve where it necks down just past the valve seat.
