Hot Rods The all inclusive,almighty Y block thread

In my experience, it may be a good running Y block, but when you tear it down you will find it is badly worn. My 312 ran good but was slap worn out. I mean the block was worn, the cam was worn both on the lobes and the journals. Found a crack in the crank, cracks in two rods, rockers and rocker shaft worn badly. With everything new it now runs real good and has for the past 10 or 15 years.

 

Knowing my luck and how this car is fighting me, the whole power train will be shot. But at least I will have everything-unlike I do now. While I still live in Ca. I am going to take the engine to Tim the Y block guy in Hanford. Might as well have the expert work on it. Although it will be stock as I am not going to race her.

mike

 

Ok, here it is guys and gals. Dirty on the outside but clean on the inside. I can't verify that it is a 312 until I pop the tranny off. Carb is a Ford 4 bbl (replacement), starter and gen included. Plus about a gallon or two of antifreeze. I am going to hope and be optimistic that the engine still has life left in it.

 

It has the 57 and up exhaust manifolds and looks to have the 57 and up distributor and if is a 57 engine it should also have the good rocker arms.

 

Well I found the little aspirin on the crank flange. So I am pretty sure I have an unopened 312 with about 47K on her. I will verify her main caps later this summer when I check the bearings.

 

47k or 147k? What seems more likely?

 

I know I’ve posted before, but I just can’t help myself; here’s my 292

 

Truck,

I hoping 47.L. At least that is what I am choosing to believe. As far as I can tell the engine has me never been opened and the car’s odometer said about 47k. That and the plate I got said it was last registered in 97. Either way the heads will come off and go in. But I am hoping this bodes well for the bearings.

mike

 

@1930artdeco

Have you fired it up yet?

The valve rockers, rocker shafts etc., look really clean. That's a good thing. Are the undersides of the rocker shafts galled up, or show scoring? That's where they get trashed, due to poor oiling generally, because that's where the load is concentrated.

Can remove the cotter pin, "wavy washer" and loosen up an end pushrod and slide off one of the rocker arms completely and take a peek. Or just loosen up rockers in the middle and they will slide over and out of the way. Maybe use an inspection mirror to look at the underside of the rocker shafts. Also look at the rocker arm tips, where they contact the valve stem.

If it cleans up, compression is good, oil pressure is good, rockers getting good oil flow I'd sure not be in any hurry to tear it all apart. Y-blocks are a little bit different, they have their idiosyncrasies.

 

C2AE rods. ain't they pretty? mag'd, checked for straightness, peened, ARP bolts installed and resized on the big ends. i have the bushings but am waiting for the pins from the custom pistons so they can be honed to fit.

 

Thought I would post a couple of more recent photos of our 32 with Y-Block build. Again, doing this on the cheap so not a lot of chrome but trying to do a lot with paint. Sanding and painting is cheap compared to chrome and we have lots of hands to sand with!

 

Propane engine out of a 3 TM trackmobile,SAE bell housing,big clutch..looks to be a reman,gonna tear it down measure it out,freshen it up and put a top loader 3 speed behind it,stuff it in a '48 pickup

 

Railcarmover : Interesting that the oil filter housing is parallel to the block rather than sticking straight out like most automotive units. Is there room in your '48PU to keep this orientation, maybe change to a "spin-on" filter?

 

Yes.it uses a right angle adapter to face the 'can' forward,might just keep it this way,should have more filter media than a spin on..Ive got the adapter to use a '39' top loader,going to see if capitol clutch can hook me up with a big disc and small hub,reckon I get that right ill never need another clutch.Got it steamed off yesterday, turns out its a reman..cautiously optimistic,logic says it shouldnt be a low ball long block,it was assembled with a new oil pump,starter and water pump..wont know till I tear it down.

 

I believe that’s an engine out of a larger truck. It has a rear sump pan also.

 

3 TM trackmobile rail car mover brother...

 

I put one of those in a '46 truck and the steering and oil filter didn't like each other.

 

Okay, a little further along with the Y-block powered 32 build. This picture is from a week ago along with the build guru, Jeff Foster owner of CJ's Hot Rod shop now retired. That is his personal 425 nailhead 32 project in the background that is NOT being built on the cheap. Thanks to Jeff for providing the space and knowledge for our charity project build.

 

I was invited to view a private car collection with some really high end cars in it and saw the Y-Block that was the nicest and probably most expensive I have ever seen in my 70 years. Even the block was body worked to be as flat and smooth as the rest of the car. Two blowers, and everything else they could throw at it! Amazing! Sorry the pictures are a little fuzzy, my phone camera isn't great. Mark

 

The HAMB crowd never disappoints!






Bones

 

^^^^ Now that's what I call Zoomies!^^^

 

Those exhaust manifolds are so nice…

 

Well, just to keep the ball rolling on our project car we fired up the 292 tonight for the first time. This engine last ran some 15 years ago so we had no idea how it would run. No coolant and no mufflers but it fired with 50 lbs of oil pressure and didn't sound too bad. We didn't run it very long. Tough old engines these Y Blocks.

 

I need to pull my 292 out of the 55. I would like to tear into it and see how much wear it has.

 

I’ve shown mine together and not with the 1956 NASCAR mandated air cleaner so I’ll include that photo and a few others. I spent 2 weeks under and over mine with an oiling #6. Didn’t identify the cause but so far made a repair with a new rings set and all is good.

I took the left head apart while it was off and found the intakes really coked up after 10K miles and removed the right head too. The other 7 piston tops were really carboned up so with brushes, razor blades, and a vacuum cleaned everything up.

Cleaned the valves and lapped them. The seats and valve surfaces looked great. Hardened exhaust seat have been installed along with new intakes which I took some time to blend since who ever installed them didn’t.

After talking to Ted I installed viton seals instead of the moving umbrellas after borrowing the tool from a friend. Checked everyone for clearance and I also ground smooth the oil path on the bottom of the heads.

The engine has never run smoother or sounded this good. I hope I’m done with in-the-car engine work as at 77 it’s getting harder to do.

 

Great work! Glad you got it done. Makes my back and neck hurt just thinking about leaning over there to get it done. I feel for you.

 

I posted some pictures a while back (April 21) of a Y-Block powered 32 roadster we were building as a group. Been a while so I thought I would post how it looks today. Almost done, interior is in, baffles in headers done, need some work in tweaking and touching up dozens of little items when building a new car. When car is completely done we will be putting it up for sale, donating any profits to local charity's and starting the next project this next summer. This is the fourth car our group has built, don't know how many more we can do as we are running out of good knees and backs! Great way to spend Thursday nights with like minded friends and a great way to give back to the community!

 

Hi everybody! Our Y-Block powered 32 is finally done and up for sale, I have posted pictures here before with the story of our builds. The proceeds (profit) of the sale go to charity, we pick local ones that don't have much overhead. It is posted on Facebook as many people have followed the build there. https://www.facebook.com/jeff.foster.779857 $25,900 if anyone is interested, contact Jeff Foster.

 

That’s cool and good on you all for donating the proceeds!