disecting a cadillac motor... what do I have here?

wow these are posting big...

here is a look down some of the intake ports...





and a look at the rocker arms, still no markings on them, but a bit of wear at the valve





there is a ton of sludge in the motor, I am glad I decided to pull it apart.

 

Those lifters look identical to my hydro stockers. Also, i had to use a fuel line pliers with some tape on to protect the lifter to wiggle a few of my lifters out of their bore. the topside type Lisle pullers don't fit in these earlier lifters, and my caddy book shows a specialty plier for the lifter removal.

i believe that you can get the rockers refaced, I've done Harley rocker reface before on a jig from Sputhe, then heat treat and oil quench. No idea if this helps, but maybe a good local machine shop can expand on this.

the ports look like they were gasket matched ported with that bevel, but not worked past that bevelled edge.

super cool find you got there...

hope this helps...

 

pull the little clip out of the lifter and take it apart. shoout us an exploded view.

I have seen Lifters made into what is best described as a "semi solid" lifter...they have had some portions of the stock internals removed and then replaced with (basically) plugs.

 

couldn't this be as simple as flipping the check ball and cap upside down under the piston and reassembling to make it a 'semi-solid'

 

hydro exploded view, from '52 book. sorry for shitty pics

 

I would have the heads and block checked for cracks, seems u have alot of "gray milk" on the heads. Usually means oil and water have come together.

 

the motor is now coming apart to be rebuilt, I had hoped that it was not needed, and the previous owner swears that it ran great....

I am glad I tore it apart.

 

That gray stuff is pretty common on old engines. I have heard it called lead from the gas and all the blow-by these old engines had. Or maybe just sediment from the less than spectacular oil filtering and non-detergent oils.

Engine looks like a good candidate for rebuild, that timing chain is very stretched. The fact it is running shape is good so you know there is no major problems. Just an old worn out engine.

 

back to the adjustiable rocker deal. here in cincinnati there is a restoration shop that restores allards with ardon and cadillacs . this is a very high end shop . they also will restore anything if your wallet is fat enough. well i had the shop manager tell me they had a lady come in that was and original owner of an eldorado and he swore to me that it had adjustiable rockers on it .this car up till they worked on it was dealer serviced . i can not comferm this but it is intresting . this shop has built crazey caddy engines for the owner of the shop. he showed me some one off proto type cnc machined builet cranks they built with roller bearings . they even made there own heads. seams the owner lives in england and must blow them up racing his allard. this is a very cool shop.

 

Gary at Rocker Arm Specialists in Anderson CA can and does refurbish these rockers, has done mine. Great guy, give him a call. Good luck, Dave

 

those rockers sure do look like ford adj. fe's and sixes had them,some one might have modified them to fit.

 

I will be in touch with Rocker Arm Specialists, and I think I have decided who to use for the machine work on the motor.

I pulled the heads off today, no surprises. these look to be stock pistons, am I right?





the bore looks ok, no ridge, and no scoring.




looks to me like a reground cam, the base circle is right against the shaft.


so now to decide how much to bore the motor, and what cam to run.

 

Hey thats the same cam i used to have in my Caddy before I went with a Crane cam. You have a Howards M48 solid lifter cam. with the correct valve springs you can turn close to 6 grand. I recommend 65 Corvette 375 horse 30-30 springs they are a perfect fit with the vette retainers. The lifters you have are hydraulics that were converted to solids they're to heavy, recommend 65 Corvette solid chilled iron lifters but lightly scuff face with wet 600 sand paper when using lifters with a used cam. this holds the oil to break them in. Also the cam is a reground Howards they had to use stock Caddy shafts they could not get new cam blanks at that time. Also the pistons don't look like they're flat but slightly domed which would up compression. If you have any other questions send me a pm, Hank

 

Many engines in the 50's were painted white... and frames, too.

The grey sludge is from the lead in the gasoline although I had buddies who swore only Quaker State oil would cause this to appear (when they used "Pennsylvania Grade" base stocks). We saw this almost every engine we worked on... and many had been using only ENCO Uniflo multi-grade from day one.

Why bore the engine? Check the cylinder taper and you will probably just need a hone job. Few engines "back in the day" were bored because it was expensive... and unnecessary. When piston clearances got too big we knurled the pistons... gave 'em another 50,000 miles of useful life.

 

One more on the oil. back in the 60's had a machinist tell me that I ran Pennsoil (I did) by the grey residue, he said it was the detergents Pennsoil added.

 

The rockers don't look all that bad. I have re-used worse. You can replace them with reconned rockers of several different types, but you have to watch out for the offset / geometry and the oiling setup may need to be modified (push rod vs internal shaft oiling).
New lifters are not rediculously expensive - solid or hydraulic. Most full service machine shops will resurface lifters. May be cost effective, depending on what they are. If you were to replace the lifters, you should use the same kind, or you may find yourself fighting pushrod length problems (there is over 1/4" height difference between the tallest and shortest lifter of that style and OD).
New cams are available (and always have been to my knowledge, except for the occasional backorder issue which usually lasts less than 3 months). One of the 4 grinders we use always has blanks in stock.
If you are re-using the old cam, I would just take the lifters apart, clean them out so you don't get nasty stuff back into the fresh engine, and put them back together. If you are getting a new cam (or regrinding the old one), you need new or resurfaced lifters or the new cam will go flat during break in 99% of the time.

The 'milky' look can be caused by running the engine long enough to get some heat into it and then shutting it off repeatedly. Like a sort-of running project car started tot be moved around the yard every now and then for a few years. Cooling causes condensation (in most parts of the country - anywhere that you have humidity), but if you don't run it long enough for the water to evaporate out of the oil from the last time, a little more gets added to the oil every startup, end eventually you have enough water to milk the oil.
Tetra-ethyl lead is not like lead on a fishing line weight. It does not solidify into a grey solid... Not sure if it could contribute to the grey color or not, but I highly doubt it. It was only a few parts per million (.000001 = 1 ppm) in the fuel, so I would think it would take hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of miles to get enough built up in the oil to affect a color change even if it were grey in color.
Alcohol or even liquid gasoline in the oil can affect a color change - if the carb is leaking fuel into the intake after shutdown, and the engine is not run very long but somewhat frequently, fuel could be the contaminant causing the milky color. But it's probably just condensation.

I don't find the head number in my list, which doesn't mean anything - my list of head casting numbers is incomplete on those early engines - some years I have only part numbers (which are stamped, and different for left or right head, while the casting number is the same left-to-right). The block number you showed is a VIN number or block ID number (or crate engine code), not the block casting number. I have not found a reliable way to decode the block ID numbers or crate engine codes, but there are a number of decoding schemes out there that you could try (just don't put too much faith in the answer, because I have found fault with every decoding scheme I have found). If it's a VIN number, then you can be fairly certain of the year (+/- 1) if it is a non-commercial, or +1/-5 if it is a commercial car.
The block casting number is a raised 7 digit number with no letters, just like the head casting number. It will positively ID the CID, and usually get you within 3-4 years on age (close enough for anything you would need to know outside of a concourse resto).

 

the sludge is nothing worse than I have seen in all of the other old motors I have worked on, but what you can not see is the wax like paste that covers every internal surface.

The lifters, they are home made solids, just a slice of tube inside to hold the cup up. pics tomorrow.

How do the early cads oil the heads? were they all oiled through the pushrods? this one has solid caps on the pushrods, so they are not bringing oil up. Also the rockers do not have provisions for oil from the pushrods.

I have my dial bore gauge here now, so this weekend I will check for cylinder taper.

what was the stock bore on the cad motors?

 

Stock bore on a 331 is 3 13/16, or 3.8125. Even the stock engines had solid pushrods--I think that the oil comes up through a passage in the head into a hole in one of the rocker stands. They were pretty thick castings; I've got a '51 331 that was punched out to 4 inches to make it a 365.

 

Oiled thru the rocker shaft from vertical oil headers, one header on each side and rocker shafts plugged at both ends, 2 oil holes in each rocker bore and at the shaft.

Factory bores are letter coded from 3.8125" to 3.8145"

 

Checked the engine serial no. it's a 53 block.

 

great engine. I'm running a built 365 in my 48 chev delivery. adjustable rockers were about the only thing I didn't do to the engine--just ran out of money. IF they are ford adapted to fit then the c-3 indicates a 63 vintage for what that's worth.

 

oh yeah. if you decide to go the bore route and need the guts I've got a good 365 crank, rods and .030 pistons--I stroked mine with the guts from a 390 that wasn't salvagable. FYI

 

The pushrods should be solid, and the lifters should not have oil holes in the top where the pushrod goes. There should still be a provision for oil to the pushrod cup, though. Oil is supposed to travel through the rocker arm to the pushrod cup to lube it, or it will wear really bad. The adjuster screw should have an oil hole through it lengthwise, and then the threaded area should have a recessed ring with a hole in it that lines up with the hole int he rocker arm thread area. Kinda like a Banjo bolt.

The attached oiling system diagram is representative of all Cadillac '49-'66 331-365-390-429 engines at the top end. Obviously, the bottom end of the system is different on the '62 and earlier engines because the oil pump is at the rear inside the pan instead of on the front in the timing cover, but the part that is relevant to this question is the same. The '67 429 is different (more like a 500 - oils the rockers through the pushrods, etc.)

 

thanks for the input and info everybody.

the pistons are not domed or dished, that is just the camera... are flat tops stock?

here is a shot of a lifter opened up.


so does anybody make a solid cad lifter?

the height between the pushrod cup and the face of the lifter is about 1.58 is this close to the size of a chevy lifter?

Hank37 or anybody have any more info on the Howard M48 cam? any specs?

I didnt get time to work on it this weekend, hopefully next I will.

 

cadillacin marcus historic post states that you can use chevy lifters with different pushrods. i don't know if that means different in length or in diameter, maybe your adj. rockers will make that a moot detail. search for his post if this link doesn't work, you will be glad you did.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32074&highlight=cadillac+performance

oh yeah, flat top pistons stock in 51, should be the same in 53. a whopping 7.5:1 compression too.

 

Gregg, I,m trying to find specs. on cam will get back to you,Hank37

 

Intake valves .008" hot exhaust valves .010" hot this is all I have on this cam, Hank37

 

thanks Hank, thats more than I had.

 

I just had time to measure the bore tonight, 3.962 if stock is 3.8... and there are no marks on the pistons, does that sound normal?

also the connecting rods are stamped on the rod and cap numbering each rod. Was that done at the factory, or has the bottom end of this thing been apart?

 

Yes, stamped rod and cap at the factory...


what would the overbore be, about 0.15"...I have no idea about that, thought they were only +.10" , +.20" and up, but I would think the pistons would be marked. sorry I cant be much help here, but also, are you measuring at the top of the bore? the taper may be bad, and you may have a stock bore at the bottom below the ring wear. just a thought.