Garage fire, engine parts worth saving?

Has anybody ever rebuilt an engine that's been through a garage fire? Is any of it worth saving? Block, heads, crank?

 

Depends entirely on how hot it got. Fire can de-temper and de-carbonize steel, but sometimes an engine (if in the car) will be insulated enough to not get too hot. Cast iron is fairly resilient, spring and forged steel somewhat less.

 

buddy build a boat motor out of the motor that was in his 90 corvette that burn to the ground

 

As Comfort said above, it depends on how hot was the fire. Garage fires are typically less than 1400 degrees F at the eight foot level. 800 degrees or less at the 2-3 foot level/height of the fire.
Of course, what parts are we talking about ? Cast iron, aluminum or carb parts ? Carbs, distributors etc may not be worth restoring due to low melting temperatures and acidic contamination by the smoke residue. Cast iron, I wouldn't worry too much. Pictures are helpful for assessing the damage. Feel free to pm for insurance discussion.

Dale K
Cleveland OH

 

Wasn't one of the racing engine builders buying up blocks that had been through garage fires because the stress got cooked out of them, or is that an urban legend?

You probably will have to re-machine anything out of that fire, but you never know what might have survived.

 

That all depend on how hot the fire was and how hot the parts got. If there was fuel involved like racing fuel the temps. during the fire could have been over 1400 degrees F at the floor.

If the motor was all together and the carb or Dist. are not melted, it a good chance that its Ok. More info on the fire and pictures would help

 

Also, temp isn't the only thing, duration is also important. As others have said, cast iron and steel are unlikely to be affected. Spring steel could be suspect, carbs etc could very well be junk.

 

I've heard of people putting a carboned-up intake over an open fire to bake out the solid crap. Don't know if they trued the mounting surfaces after, but I doubt it.

 

I can tell you that from personal experience that a garage fire can take the temper out of valve springs to the point that you can push down the retainers with your fingers opening the valve. We tried to pull a head using sockets that were in the fire...the sockets just stripped out before the head bolts budged. I still have some 3/8" and 1/4" sockets just for a reminder.

It melted the tail shaft housing of a Muncy 4 spd exposing the the shaft itself. With the 39 Willys on jack stands at the cowl, the weight of a 396 bent the protruding frame rails down in front. That's hard to imagine until you've seen it.

It reached temperatures that caused drivesshafts to split open. One blew the cast U joint end off and opened up the tube flat on that end slitting the weld. I used it to shovel the ashes off of the concrete pad.

Unless there are special numbers on the parts that make them rare and desirable, I wouldn't try to reuse it. I think that you can get a good core engine cheaper than restoring a fire job.

Maybe your fire wasn't that hot but are you sure? It sure surprised me.

 

Powerwash the soot and singed paint off it, put it up for sale on Craigslist, that's what everyone else does with their "firesale" stuff.

Bob

 

Just a quick note on how hot fires get.
About 20 years ago- we had a wildfire sweep through a mobile home park right on the beach in Laguna. It was my mom's fun beach getaway home. The fire was intense & swept most of the park in a matter of minutes. When we went down to check it out after fires were out, nothing prepared us for what we found.
All there was is a pile of ash. Nothing survived except the trailer frame rails- all bent & twisted. There were blobs of melted metal pools laying around in the ash.
We couldn't find referigerator, the stove or the furnace. We did find the water heater- standing at a grotesque angle sticking out of the ash. It still had water in it which is probably why it survived.

 

I think it would be more expensive and time consuming than picking up another engine. You can get good running LT and LS motors quite easily

 

Was water used to put out the fire? If so,there may be water in the cyls.,causing rust before you have a chance to do anything about it. Pull the valve covers, if the oil is burnt off the valve springs so that they are rusted at least replace them & the seals. If its real ugly under the valve covers ,I'd tear the engine down.I've used total burn degines in two rods w/good results,one had water in two cyls., I went thru it & sleeved the two rusted cyls. to keep it std bore, the other was an aluminum head LT1 from a total burn out Z28 when these were big bucks in the mid 90s. The LT1 had the dist. & balancer melted, I replaced these & the intake & fuel injection , pulled the pan & bottom end was perfect.It ran perfect

 

Take it apart and look it over. Figure on a complete rebuild like the stuff sat in an old car in the woods for 40 years. Have to think the cast iron stuff might be okay with some machining unless it was a particularly hot fire.