Tearing down a 1971 455. Taking pics of the process. Cylinder 2 looked a little crusty in the heads. Just posting for fun and conversation, no emergency here.
Ive seen crustier. One time,I pulled an intake off,and you couldn't even see the lifters.It had that much crud.I was basicly shoveling it out.The engine ran and was quiet,so it was something I never would have expected.
These engines went right to my home garage. Wish I would have power washed them first. Now I'm taking them apart and cleaning pieces individually with purple power and power washer. It's very time consuming. I live in town so it's been a pain as I do it on the lawn, moving around so I don't kill the grass. Any suggestions?
You'll be there for a month of Sundays trying to clean that cast iron stuff at home! Only takes a couple hours at a machine shop with the correct equipment to make the cast iron clean as brand new. Should be a couple of day turnaround to have the block and heads cleaned depending how busy your local shop is. If you plan on doing your own porting, that is a good way to go, starting out with clean cast iron, its messy enough grinding on the stuff. The shop I use has an oven that rotates the block while it is cooking all the grease and oil out and off of it. From there it is transferred into the bead blaster that rotates the block while it is being blasted by steel shot(tiny balls of steel) that cleans the burnt oil and grease, basically soot now, off of the block or heads or whatever is mounted in the roller cage to be cleaned. After that it is transferred into the shaker that also rotates while it is shaking to remove the steel shot that may be left behind. After that you end up with a brand new looking hunk of cast iron.(brand new used) Usually after the above is done they will do the magna flux process to check for cracks. A good idea to have done before you spend any time or cash on the block so you're not working with scrap if its not reparable. Doing the job at home you could build your own rotisserie and cook the block over and open fire to burn all the oil off of it, would be easier than trying to scrub that soaked in mess you're dealing with, man that thing look nasty! Depending on how hot you cook it at home will determine how easy the soot will come off. Cook it hot enough and it will just be ash that is more grey in color while only cooked to soot will be more black in color. The grey ash can mostly be blown off with compressed air, while the soot will need a bit more scrubbing. Be careful not to get the block or heads so hot that the block is glowing red because you don't want it to get distorted. Would probably take more than red hot to distort the block but better to be on the safe side. Happy cooking!(if you can do that where you live?) I would rather just take it to the machine shop and have them clean that stuff if it was me, not that expensive and results will be impressive from what you're starting with. Derek
You'd need to go much hotter than a household oven to burn that off, don't go down that road unless you are serious about building or cooking many. Mix up water with lye, found at the home store as powdered drain cleaner. It will remove any grease, and destroy aluminum. Google for more research. The only thing stronger is costly business with industrial chemicals. Most don't know that the most profitable part of the shop is the cleaning. Most wouldn't want to be known for that.
Ya, a month of Sundays for sure! This is crazy time consuming work at home. And everything is getting grease on it. And I don't have a big enough BBQ pit for that.... Thanks guys. Do you just bring in the entire engine or do you take off the intake, heads, etc. and bring it there in pieces? Also, what type of charges are involved with the cleaning and magnaflux? Do you paintnit immediately after to keep rust off?
Soaking the motor that won't turn with tranny fluid or diesel or k1 on the rings will help loosen then up. Kerosene also does great at keeping rust of cleaned parts b4 painting and easily cleans off with brake cleaner when ready to paint
If you can get the pan off, rods and mains loose on the ones you can reach, and a wood4x4 and a sledge hammer can do wonders on the top of the piston. Be careful swinging a big hammer. It can do damage to you or the block if you miss the 4x4.
Thanks. I put a 50/50 mix of tranny fluid and acetone down the spark plug holes for now. Time will tell
I would break it down fully and bring all the parts to the machine shop to have them cleaned... All the parts are normally hot tanked and the block baked... Might as well get them to give you an estimate for what machine work is needed while they are at it. I normally just drop off the complete engine there at the shop and they charge me $150 for year down and cleaning and they do prime the parts like the oil pan, heads, etc. once they are clean.
Wash them on your neighbors lawn? Seriously though. I'd leave them greasy, unless I was going to be working on them. The cast iron will start to rust after a while, if you bake & blast them.
