Stupid Engine Tricks

When tearing down an engine, I like to go into forensic mechanic mode - you know, try to figure out what the other guy was thinking or did wrong when building up the motor.

Got a good one yesterday...

Poppin' the pistons outta this 8RT, and on the first removal, the top compression ring clatters to the floor in a half dozen pieces.

???

I'd been able to get the piston out with just a couple of light taps, so the ring was broken in the motor - I think...

Pop out #2 - same story. Busted ring Ditto on #3...

WTF?? I've seen a stuck ring, occasionally a broken ring, but never this many in one motor; after pulling all, 6 of the 8 top rings were broken.

the PO knew he had a problem methinks, on account of the oil in the pan was heavily laced with STP. Closer inspection revealed something I've never seen...

The engine had been built up with 'narrow' top rings on the six sick pistons. Narrow rings are all the rage these days in modern motors; narro low ring tensions mean less frictional losses, better sealing, increased HP and better fuel economy. They only WORK, however, in pistons designed for narrow rings - NOT on a fat ringed piston!

Betcha the damned things never sealed, nor lasted 20 minutes B4 fluttering and shattering. Motor had stock cam, ford stroke, relieved with big chamber 8RT heads; the combination of low compression and poor sealing means this motor prolly made less than 80 HP after it was screwed back together.

No wonder the PO ditched it.

Any other stupid engine tricks?

 

I bought a 400 SBC that kept blowing headgaskets.

Upon dis***embly, we found that the previous owner had installed .040 over domed pistons with angle milled closed chamber heads. The pistons were beating on the inside of cylinder heads and loosening the bolts...causing the head gaskets to fail. The dumb*** had changed at least three head gaskets and never noticed.

When we had the crank polished, they magnafluxed it and found that it had hundreds of hairline cracks in it, from the stresses of trying to drive the pistons through the heads.


Some of my own "mistakes":

Improperly aligning keyways on a timing set with advance, retard, etc... that motor ran like **** until we figured it out.

Screwing up valve adjustments badly enough to bend about half the pushrods on start up.

Once we decided to modify a later model TBI intake to accept a carburetor. We didn't know it had a water jacket running under the injector unit. When we went to start the engine it was "hydrolocked" from water pouring straight through the intake runners.

Not a mistake, but we had a SBC that had half the cylinders at .030 overbore and half at .040 overbore. We had bought the short block and were told it was .030 over, after about two seasons of racing, it broke. We found some used .030 pistons in a swap meet (expensive racing lightweight pistons that we didn't want to buy new). When we went to put the motor together we found out that the shortblock was really .040 over. We had some of the bores sleeved to .030 and put it together...still runs great, but we'll never freshen it. Run it til it blows!

 

My second dragster was a 217" rear motor Super Comp style car. It was a mess, front to rear. Engine was a DZ 302 block (legit), Large journal 327 crank with rod throws taken to small journal size,aluminum rods, full roller kit, 292 turbo heads,Enderle injection for alcohol,13:1 pistons. EVERYTHING on this car had blue rtv sealant holding something together. When I pulled the "homemade" dragster style oil pan I found a RUBBER DENTAL DAM in the pan (?).This car was running 8.15 E.T.'s. Why it did'nt plug up the oil pump pickup I'll never know. I completely rebuilt EVERYTHING on this car from rebuilding the back half (had been lenthened and was'nt plumb) to repairing the mess of a motor and trans and enclosed trailer. Should have bought a new car to start with. RUBBER DENTAL DAM!(?).BUTCH.

 

It seems that Michael Waltrip likes to pack the intake walls with STERNO. He says it burns hotter and after the race all of the evidence is gone??

 

The first engine I ever 'rebuilt' was a '56 Royal Enfield built Indian, back in the early 60's. When I put the crankshaft in, I never noticed that the spacer on the end fell off and was laying in the crankcase. I finished putting it together without ever checking the crankshaft end play, started it up and drove out to the end of the field. When I turned around, the air was full of blue smoke, so I shut it down, walked it back to the shop and tore it down. The spacer was bent up like a pretzel. I still have it hanging above my work bench to remind myself to slow down and double check my work.

 

Some pals of mine were helping me put a stock flatmotor together for my 50 Shoebox.
for the most part they drank beer and I wrenched.

I was going slow, checking stuff and they got impatient.
They locked me out of the garage, slapped the heads on and called it good.
Looked ok to me, they left, I ran the head bolts for proper torque and found it ok.

Put the engine in the car, got the radiator in, put water in the radiator only to see it pour out of the engine.
The idiots had put one of the head gaskets in backwards.

So there I was, Sunday night at midnight, my go to work car needing an R&R on the head.
Just what I wanted on a cold and foggy coastal night in Ventura, California . . . and staring a 33 mile drive to work in Santa Barbara in the morning.

Tore it apart, fixed, never asked the idiots for help again.

Don't see too much of them nowadays, they're nice guys, but I feel a lot safer with them not around....

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If you read the California Hot Rodder book, those are the same clowns that put a hot solid lifter cam in a 56 Ford, fired it, ran it around the block revving the snot out it.
Cam was bad when they got back.
No small wonder, when they left there was in excess of .125 clearance on every valve - done for the rocker shaft install and they just couldn't wait to hear the rumpty idle....

 

The worst offender I ever encountered was a 350 small block that I got in a car I did some horse trading for. The motor was supposedly a fresh rebuild, but it ran like ****, smoked bad, overheated and rattled...but had good oil pressure!

I pulled it out of the car and tore into it and found that he'd spent some money on good parts here and there, but totally ****ed it up in the machine work and ***embly steps!

A**** the mistakes were:

1. Aftermarket solid lifters on a stock hydraulic cam!
2. Ceramic rings in cylinders honed for iron rings.
3. Seven forged flat-top pistons and one cast flat-top!
4. Line boring so bad that even a new timing chain was way sloppy!
5. Margins cut WAY too thin on most of the valves.
6. Stock valve springs with big shims for who knows why?!
7. Standard hardware store nuts on the rocker studs!
8. Deep sump pan with stock oil pump pickup.
9. Cheap chrome pulleys that let the belts slip and caused overheating
10. Blue RTV silicone packed inside of both carbs???
11. Vacuum advance removed from stock distributor with advance plate locked in one spot!
12. Chrome plated (yes CHROMED!) tunnel ram with the top on backwards!
13. Inside of lifter valley painted same orange paint as outside of motor (no glyptol)


But, I did find a good steel crank that had been turned .010"/.010" and cross-drilled, a set of reconditioned "pink" rods with new bolts, a true roller timing set (for all the good it did!), and a set of nice angle-plug heads with 2.02" valves and some decent mild port work done to them, despite the other goofs his cylinder head guy made!

I managed to sell off the good stuff and threw the block and junk parts into the trash pile.

Sometimes you just can't believe what some people will do to a motor till ya see it yourself!!

 

This isn't a stupid engine trick but, it was the koolest forensic engine tear down that I've seen so far. A bucket truck company left the 4cyl. S-10 that it was towin'in fisrt gear and towed it across the turnpike for about 130 miles. It was pumpin' oil and worn out with no heat. The block was worn about .080",piston ring lands were thinner than the rings,valve springs had just enough tension to hold the retainers together. That thing was doin' some Formula 1 type RPMs.
Have fun,smokey

 

I bought a big unfinished basket case the other day that included a fresh "spare"engine other than what was in the car..when I got ready to use the spare engine for the second car I realized the guy that built the engine had forgotten an important step..the engine, 1600 Austin four, is the type that the flywheel bolts on with bolts that come through the backside of the crankshaft flange against the block. which means the bolts have to be in place in the flange as the crankshaft is being installed, he had forgotten to put these bolts in place, realized it way on down the line, and did want to break the engine back down again. There simply isn't enough room to nut the bolts from the other direction..Sooo, if I want to use this engine I'm gonna have to break it down again....

 

Way back in my college days (60's) I needed a low cost engine for my '55 Chev daily driver. I ***embled a 327 with 4 flat top pistons and 4 domed pistons because that's what I had on hand. It ran suprisingly well.

 

The only oddity I’ve encountered when tearing down a engine, was finding a dead mouse in a cylinder.

 

Holley 1-BBL on my $300.00 '75 Dart S6 had almost every screw in the whole thing replaced with some size of sheetmetal screw.

Another project that never went anywhere, took a fender off, couldn't find a replacement, let it sit around, sold it for $150.00...guys letting it sit.

Found a cheap set of Fibergl*** Dart Fenders on ebay about 20 miles away, almost bought them recently. Then realized the car's torsion bars were ****d. Had a good drive train though...quarters...eaten.

 

Not stupid machining or building, rather a seemingl stupid engine "stunt", I hadda stock 216 inna 50 chevy, upon taking off from a red light at approx 5 MPH the engine let go, windowed the block BAD. IE the size of a 6'4" 225lb dudes hand (me). the funny part was it was still running, alibiet like chit, but running none the less. I hopped out, lifted the hood and saw the inside of the engine rotating with all the oil and coolant running all over the ground. I thought, "well, seeing as the engine is toast anyway, and its still running, ma as well try and make it closer to home (8 miles). well the ***** lasted the entire 8 miles, and pulled into the drive smokin, rattelin and screamin...shut it down and the engine was so hot you could see the S in the head and see through the cast exhaust manafold (red hot...thats how we roll ) took about 13 hours for it to cool down enough to get near the engine, went to start it up and the engine was seized 9no surprise), hooked a truck and a tow chain on it an dpopped the clutch once and the blasted thing broke lose and fired right up.....

I thought it was pretty amazing....

 

My parents bought a parts car for the daily driver, meant to have a strong 308 Holden motor in it. Problem was the right bank was getting real hot while the left was OK. Took off the rocker covers to see how it was oiling, none on the right hand side!!
Had to tear the ****er down just to find a cigarette **** filter had been jammed into the pickup branch for the right cylinder bank then had the pickup tube and filter bolted on!!

 

I found an uncirculated 1966 quarter in a 1966 caddy oil pan once.
Other than that, only stupid thing was when I tripped over the flywheel after I had reinstalled the engine/trans in a truck !

DOH!

 

Good friend had a '79 toyota 4 banger. He blew the head gasket and was puking coolant out the tail pipe. Car only cost $400 so we said **** it and decided to drive it to the S**** Yard (15 miles away) and if it broke down let'em come get. So we did everything you could think to that damn car and kept on running. It was smoking like Granny at a tueday night bridge game. Popped the hood (damn near got burnt) the manifold was so hot it was bulging and flexing. the head was damn near white. Walked in got $85 bucks for her, and called a friend to come pick us up...... I still don't understand how that ****in thing kept goin' but it was one tuff sum *****

 

The first time I worked on an engine besides changing fluids was to replace the heads on my Cadillac. I was very nervous and tried to be very careful but when I put it back together I had one of the head gaskets flipped over and one of the oil p***ages was half covered. Oil came shooting out on to the fan and proceeded to coat the entire engine bay in oil by the time I figured out what was happening.

Felt pretty good about that one.

 

Thought of one I did. I was completely new to working on cars and had what else; a 1956 Chevrolet 210 2 dr. Sedan, 265, powerglide. Noticed gas leaking one day from 2 holes in the top of the fuel pump. Could'nt have that so I put in 2 sheet metal screws with some sealant on them. Worked great, no more leaking gas. A week or so later the oil was way up on the dip stick (?). Quickly figured it out and drained the oil, changed the filter, and replaced the fuel pump. Ran fine for another year or so, then one day slowing down for a red light it shattered a piston and wrapped the rod around the crank. Bought a friends 57' with a 283 taken to 292 and a stick setup and I've been stuck in this hobby since. BUTCH.

 

One I saw at my friends engine shop:

He built a pair of 454's to run on natural gas a backup generator engines for an apartment building a customer owned. He built them to the owners specs - 4000-4500rpm peak torque and strong. 4 bolt blocks, steel cranks, 7/16" rods, forged pistons, closed chamber large oval port heads with stainless valves and true hard seats, a big marine hydralic cam, huge dragster style oil pan, and big compression for the high octane natural gas (its something like 108 octane). The engines made something like 570 ft-lbs of torque right at 4200rpm. These were not inexpensive engines, epecially the marine style water cooled exhaust manifolds!

Well the engines were broken in on the dyno, and delivered. They were hooked up at the site and fired up and tested. Everything was good. They ran them overnight to make sure they had no issues and the ran cool and fine.

Next day they hook the gennies up to them and fire them up and start putting a load on them until they are at full throttle right at 4200 rpm and the gennies are humming at full output - putting full load on the 454's. They do a power cutover test and everything is going good. They leave the gennies on at full power overnight to make sure everything is good. It is. We leave since everything is setup and working great, and the gennie guy will cut the power back to outside power in the morning.

In the morning the generator guy comes in, and cuts the power back to city power. This suddenly cuts the juice to the generators fields, and all that load against those screaming full throttle 454's is suddenly gone.

Can you say side by side ka-boom? I have a rod twisted like a pretzle and an 8000rpm mechanical tach with the needle bent from one of those engines.

The next pair were near stock tall deck 427's that made about 150 less ft-lbs of torque and were half the price. He did want a rev limiter however for this pair of motors. When electricity was real expensive here and natural gas was cheap in the summer, he would run them instead of city power to power his building - it was cheaper!

 

Pulled down a Chevy 350 one day. The piston did not go to the top of the deck. ??? 327 piston in a 350. The guy said it ran fine. It probably only had about 5 to 1 compression.

 

we just rebuilt a 289 or a local mustang turn out it was a 302 with one 2v low compression head and one 4v head abnd it didnt run that bad but now we got a set of gt40 heads and a little hoter cam

 

I pulled the intake off of a 265 in a 57 chevy and found a screwdriver!.
I bought a rebuilt 327 from a buddy who got it from his brother who worked at a rebuilder. Not trusting the run of the mill machine shops ***embly I tore it down to find cardboard between one of the main bearings and the journal where it had previously spun a main!