Surprises tearing down an engine......mine are good, yours?

Yanked the pistons outta the Flatty tonight. I started last night but was not into it. At first, I noticed the engine was clean, and the bearings were pretty nice............then it hit me. This is a 59AB, each rod had its own bearings! Wait, is it? YES 8BA rods in a mill that may just need a light hone and new gaskets............!

This is the cleanest flatty torn open I have ever come across! Thanks GV!

Only downside was when I thought it might be a 4" crank and realized it wasnt.Thats OK, the bearing surfaces are choice. I am happy anyway.

The Knight Brothers are 2 for 2 this weekend, SentinelT's CB500 turned out to be primo with a 3mm overbore kit in it already............Kharma rocks.

What have you guys found?

 

I havnt found anything trick yet, BUT I saw this 59ab flatty that eldomike was selling for 200 on the for sale section with older offenhauser heads.. I realy want to dig into that block and look for goodies.

 

Me and a buddy pulled apart a sbc 350 I traded a sub and amp for. Was told it had a light knock to it before pulled, was only 6 months into a fresh rebuild when the knock started. Pulled it apart and found that everything was perfect, didn't need anything. That's when we noticed the loose flywheel bolts! A new gasket kit and the motor is back to new!

 

Ummm I've found parafin:



Rust:



Pistons:



Rods:



Rings:




And a family of spiders that I had to evict.....but I didn't get pics of that, was too busy landing on my ass and doing a backwards crawl.

SO who in this life or a past have I picked on??

 

I was not so lucky.. i tore down my "Rebuilt" flatty last weekend and found 2 cracks under the intake mount in the valley. It was rebuilt but I guess the rebuilder didn't see the cracks. I am kinda pissed as it was a 3/8 - 3/8 engine. I have another block but it needs to get checked for cracks also.

 

Damn Brandy!

Hate to report the latest news........wiped down the walls and it still has crosshatching! Really hoped to find adjustable lifters but no luck........

 

I like my engines like I like's my mens......challenging.

 

Story of my life..............BTW, found out the Cam gear is an afterrmarket Aluminum!

 

I've found chunks of valve springs in the oil pan of a "ran when i pulled it" 383 mopar, and 5 bent rods in a 360 mopar with rebuild heads...timing chain popped, bent the rods and valvetrain so the guy put used valves and springs into the broken valve guides...and a 400 poncho that was never touchedafter it was pulled, but somehow every bolt was loose...But I'm not bitter...hey Trent, care to send some good voodoo my way? hahaha

 

bought a 425 nailhead from the hamb that was rebuilt but stuck. Opened up to find fresh bearings rings and one piston that was so stuck it had to be chiseled out of the rusted cylinder. Ive thought about sleeving it back to std. bore as its already .030 or just salvaging what I can and looking for another one. Im already 5 bills into this one with a s/p of unknown condition ...

 

I recently went through a series of engines for my panel truck

First was a '65 283 - pulled it apart found it was .060 over, and had an exhaust valve that was about to evict itself from the head. The valve seat was beyond repair, the oil pump pickup was in the pan, and there was strange scoring in one cylinder.. so on to the next...

Next was a '67 327. Pulled it open to find it .060 over and very rusty.. got rid of it..

Last was a '75 400 that was too cheap to pass up.. pulled it apart and it is beautiful. Not even going to bore it, just a quick hone and clean it up and the short block will be going back together.

 

When I took ownership of my Super Comp Rear Engine Dragster in 85', during the tear- down-and-rebuild-everything process, I found a RUBBER DENTAL DAM in the oil pan. The engine, and just about everything else on the car, had blue RTV sealant holding things together. The car had at one time been lenthened, and whoever did it had'nt "strung" the car, the rearend was'nt even straight in the chassis. I put it back to it's original wheelbase and redid everything. Before I bought the car it was running 8.15 E.T.'s!!!! It's amazing what some people will do, and the risks they'll take.

 

How about this, I bought a 1959 Cadillac hearse a few years back over the phone.i asked him if it ran, he said it was not running. When he delivered it ,there was no motor or trans! GO FIGURE?!%&?^?$@?#@?

 

Too right, how about the top tube of a TA/FC chassis with a butt splice,right about where the drivers right wrist would be beside. Ironically the NHRA tech sticker was straddling the splice!!! Yes, we changed the tube, all the way from the front motor plate all the way around to the other side of the plate.

 

i tore apart what i thought was a 307 SBC and found a blown and Hilborn injected 392 HEMI inside!! ...ok, maybe not.

 

I just got a reconditiond 8ba from a guy that put it together about ten tears ago, he couldnt remeber if it had a 4" crank in it or not, I got it turning again with some penoil and mesured the crank....4"!!!! YaHoo!!! score....Paid $100. I'm putting on a matched pair of Eldo heads from the 60's on it that are premo and a Ducoil dizy pluss a two carb intake and its going up for raffel for a buddy of mine that had a car stolen by proxy! the person who stole the car$$$ will probly get to give back $20 a month for the rest of said life, my buddy will be long gone by then........Roach.

 

You mean a 307 inside a blown and injected 392? hehehe...

 

bwahahahaha......to funny!

 

a couple of years ago I was running a late chevy van with a 350 in it, on the way home one night it started knocking a lot. though it still ran.

The next day I dropped the sump and checked it out couldnt see anything to start with until I noticed that you could move the front two journals forwards without the rear moving!!

turned out I had broke the crank and cracked the block right up the middle to the deck!! amazed it still ran!!

 

I picked up my 327 block from the machine shop and the guy behind the counter couldn't wait to show me what they had found in the oil galleys while running brushes through the block.... it was steel wool that had been packed into a tight bullet shape of almost solid metal....I'm guessing that gave the previous owner a headache or two.

 

6.2L diesel engine in a hummv in iraq the breather had come off and they decided to ignore it. by the time they came into the shop complaining of a lack of power the oil was as thick as molassas with all the sand and dirt in it. every surface on the inside of that engine was trashed. we took at all apart powerwashed it and then used parts out of a 6.5 do rebuild it. it was one of the fastest truck we had after that. oh yeah, and we turned up the injector pump and governor on it. so it was only the fastest for about 2 months before all hell broke loose in there.

 

back when i was messing around with small block mopars....i went to a guys place to look at some x heads....guy said that the motor and blown up ...and the heads & intake were all that were left that were good.....ended up buying the heads and a victor 340 intake from him....i asked about the short block ...and he says its sitting at the end of his road and if i wanted it ...pick it up....boogie down the road and we load it in the truck...i couldn't get out of there fast enough.....this thing had a set of big dome pistons , probably 12.5's ....fluid dampner, and stick shift flywheel.....ended up , the block was cracked....but the goodies were well worth the free price....and the top end was worth the 100 bucks..... brandon

 

You just have to have faith. The old book and it's cover trick. It wasn't very pretty on the outside.



Not all gunked up in the VC area.



Very clean inside for a 50 year old engine. IMO



The bearings look good.



The water jackets needed some help.



A bath, a shave and a haircut and it looks better now. I'm pleased so far. It really has tried to kick my ass but I ain't givin' up. It won some battles but I'm winning the war.

 

Pulled one head on the 455 Buick in my 31.
Looks promising, can't find a ridge, not a lot of carbon, std pistons.

I'll pull the other head & pan and take a look.
I may get lucky here, the engine was way back in the back of several rows of engines in a big shed at the junkyard.
Guy commented it had been there for a long time.

My pal finds good junkyard/donor car SBCs all time.
He usually opens them up and afterward cleans and paints, but doesn't do much more than rings & bearings.

Heads are checked by pouring kero or sovent in the combustion chamber and seeing how fast - if at all - it leaks out.
He ain't real fussy here and if the leaks not bad he uses the heads as they are.

Last one he had he ran a compression test on the stand, it passed, got a cam & timing gears - he likes the whiny and lumpy sounds - stuck the engine in and drove away with no probs.

If my Buick looks good I'm gonna run it as is while I build a more serious engine.
Regardless, I'm not gonna run those 7.9 CR heads.
Not a typo, seven point nine is the CR.

Lookin' for a better set of heads.
A pair of 70-71's would be nice, got numbers if you have some heads.....

 

Kevin Lee, what does the 99 signify?
Sounds advantageous.

 

Your description doesn't make it clear as to just where those cracks are. Are you sure they're terminal? Normally, cracks leading from a valve seat into a cylinder wall, cracks in a center main web, and cracks along a pan rail are considered fatal-others can be repaired.

 

Dragged home a bunch of '49-'52 Ford trucks (and Mercs--Canada y'know) and a half a dozen had 255's. One is a factory rebuild, .030 over, hone marks still visible.Runs great! All were free!One that we dismantled has a cherry standard crank,too. Lotsa pistons, a few crack-free blocks,two sets of hi-comp. "altitude" heads,etc, etc. Sometimes lucky is better than smart!

 

I picked up a '56 322 a couple months ago, mainly because it had a standard shift setup on it. Like Tommy's Studebaker engine, the outside was anything but exciting; it was rusty and scuzzy, with stock intake, valve covers, and distributor, and basically looked like a 600 pound Chicken McNugget. When I got it home and removed a valve cover, I said, "Holy shit, adjustable rocker arms!" I removed the rocker shaft, and pulled a pushrod out, only to find that it was very short--HMMMM, only one reason I can think of for that. After removing the intake and valley cover in record time (ruining a 1/2 inch socket that I pounded on a rotten 9/16 bolt in my frenzy), I was greeted with an Iskenderian roller cam!!! The .125 over Jahns pistons were the icing on the cake. Not bad for an engine that looked like it belonged on a scrapheap.

 

One of my freinds had a chevy truck with a 454 on day there was a loud bang we figured out he had a broken cam shaft when we took it apart there was a 3/4"x14" center punch in the engine. Some how someone left it in there and it broke the cam