Hey der, Looking for advice from you cat fans that have been here before! Parts car last year yielded engine "A", bought the car right because seller forgot to add antifreeze and cracked her behind starter about 10" long and it was buckled. Drove it home 15 miles after filling up the water, 95k original miles. The late 1966 401 started, ran, and drove nice. Stripped car, put engine and tranny on dolly in garage for a rainy day. Along came a spider, seasoned hot rodder with a Nailhead filled '35 Ford passed away, son clearing out heated garage found a plastic wrapped '66 401 shortblock strapped to a dolly. Covered with thick oily soot, bought engine "B" right, with an idea. Oil pan had RTV blue gasket, timing cover/dented oil pan/valley pan in place. Stuck it in the barn to keep engine "A" company. Checked the numbers and found they were both "MT"s about 375 units away from each other. Pressure washed the shortblock today and dropped the pan, nice and clean inside, lifters in place, little sludge in pan bottom, carbon ridge/ring in all cylinders, cross hatch pattern in all cylinders, no vertical marks or wear areas in any cylinders, pistons have "Buick" cast into bottom, flywheel end of crank looks new along with cam plugs, cam has some varnish on it here and there. Water journals have some sediment in them but not bad. WD40ed the cylinders and can turn the crank around with both hands and effort. Here are my beginner's questions: #1 The oil pump cover has a metal tag on a bolt stamped with "20G". What does that mean? #2 How can I tell if this has been all apart, ground or polished anywhere? #3 What would your next steps be? Thanx in advance for any advice!
pull the heads from engine A and send them out to be checked for cracks and freshen up. How much money do you want to spend and what are your goal of the engine. Are you building something that you want to idle at 700 rpm and make nice power. Put the shortblock on a engine stand drop a main and rod bearing just to make sure everything looks good. Look at the rod caps for any indication of numbering. sometimes they punch the actual number of the rod or put dots with a punch. Make sure to take lots of pictures to document your build. Paul
Engine A may not be trash. Talk to Tom Telesco. He has a repair involving epoxy and stitching the block that has given him excellent results.
"Thanx I needed that", Sorry I missed some basic points on my initial thread, it was getting a little long! Goal: Nice reliable driver for my '66 Wildcat Vert is the primary thought. It will never be a race car, but is a nice comfortable cruiser for family and friends. The previous owner put a used 65 engine in it so putting a 66 back in is appealing also. Budget: Any power mods would be subtle at best, based on a low cost and that I'll be in there anyway! Running cool and reliable is important as it is an A/C car. The radiator was just recored before the oil burning/leaking issues came up in the '65 engine. Hoping to spend $500 to $1000 max. Can a short block be hot tanked without dis-assembly, or is that not common practice?
Hi John and Paul, Thanx for your responses! More details for evaluation, Engine "C", the used '65 in the car, has Pertronix, good rebuilt carb, and refinished valve covers, intake, valley pan, more recent water pump. But all the paint looks to be cooked off the motor, heads, and crossover. Cracked engine "A" was looked at by a few folks who have tried the JB approach and deamed to be too far gone to try without pulling everthing apart. The block is not only cracked but the freeze deformed the casting, kind of burst the metal out and opened up the crack a good 1/8". The rediator was also froze in that car, basically it was just a coolant filter on the ride home! I figure with three engines there should be enough good parts to create a healthy '66.This area freezes deep in the winter and the car was reportedly outside. Shortblock "B" was saved and wrapped up (I assume) for a reason. The kid told me his Dad was planning on using that motor when a rebuilt 425 came up so he put that into his rod instead. The '35 Ford was a nicely built street rod and there was a shelf of cool Buick parts there at market prices, AL valve covers, Chrome valve covers, dual carb AL intake, etc. So my estimate was this guy kind of knew what he was doing. But the kid just wanted the shortblock out of his way. I'll plastigage and check the caps soon to report back! Thanx again!
First off,not very many places "hot tank" blocks any more because of EPA reasons. The newer method of cleaning a block is a 3 step process that starts in an oven that cooks all the grime out of the block after that the block is transfered into a bead blaster machine that looks similar to the oven. Because they both spin the block while those processes are being done with the block mounted on a spit. After the bead blasting process is complete,most shops will magna flux the block while it is still in the bead blaster because the block can be rotated and easily checked. The final step is the block shaker,the last machine will shake the block while it spins to get most of the bead shot off of the block. Now the block is ready for any machine work that needs done,after all macining is done the block will be jet washed and blown dry and the oil passages brushed out. So absolutly NO,the block has to be completely stripped down to be cleaned,that means all and any plugs that are in the block need to be removed,cam bearings removed,basically if it is attached to the block and not part of the casting,it needs to be removed before cleaning the block. I hope this helps,GL. Derek
Thank you Derek, I love the straight forward answer! Now onward.... I pulled the #2 main and found the bearings really smooth, no grooves and really clean. Took some pics, hope they can be seen. Side note, I have been spraying this down as I go with WD40 in case anything gets dry. Anybody have a negative on this? Here are some pics, have a good 4th, I'll be back at ya soon!
clean out the sludge.. install a set of head with best headgaskets .. not felpros because they leak and put a intake on it and fire it together. I really think everything will be fine. make sure you set the balancer on top dead center compression stroke so the distrubtor drops right in. With the head off you can watch the cam lobes to see the opening and closing of the lobes on the cam. when looking at the motor you want to be looking at the third cam lobe on the pass side from the front of the motor and once it passes the lobe look for the timing mark on the crank pully and that is top dead center compression stroke. paul
Thanx 66larkgs, I was leaning that way too. Good to know about the FelPro head gaskets because I have the full gasket set from FelPro, any of hte other gaskets questionable? But while it was open, Plastigaged the #2 crank main and 4th rod cap back from the HB. (Pics of rod crank/bearing/cap attached) #2 Main looks to be between .0015-.002" #4 Rod looks to be .0015-.002" also, but has marking. What I am not familiar with is the discoloration on the rod bearing. What is that from? Niether bearing has enough of a mark to be detected with a finger nail, they feel smooth. Should I check all the main and rod bearings with plastigage? Heads are going in for a check-up on Monday. I welcome any comments/advice!
I'd pull the crank and have it inspected and polished and install a new set of quality bearings. I'd also rebuild the heads with new guides and a fresh valve job and call it done. Well, maybe a new timing chain/sprocket set....its hard to know where to stop. WD-40 has a lot of good uses, but it is not a good rust inhibitor (I assume that's what you were using it for?). I believe it will also wash the oil off of the cylinder walls and bearing surfaces and you don't want that on start-up. I use fogging oil that I buy from marine dealers in all of my engines/transmissions/components that I intend to store for long periods.
