A few years ago, I bought out what was left of a 70's Pro Stock racers parts. A few 426 Hemi blocks, cranks, etc. The guy selling them (not the racer) was telling everyone that the blocks were 'filled' and were not suitable for the street. Turns out they had some Hard Block in them...but just at the bottom of the cylinders . This block had damage to the oil pickup boss and it looked like it would have to use an external oil pickup. Well, I'm too hard headed for that and I started off by threading the oil pickup boss further into the block. I was just WAITING for the tap to break off in the block and that would be that...but it didn't happen. I then bought a grinding stone at Lowe's and started grinding on the broken part. My intent was to grind off the unusable threads which would also give more room for the pickup tube so it wouldn't contact the threads with the unthreaded tube. 3 minutes into it, the shaft began spinning inside the stone. Great. Bring it back and get a refund. Stopped off today at HF and got the cheapo 5 stone set for $2.50. Finished all the grinding with the pink stone. Worked great! Now I will just need to bend the pickup tube so that it is the proper distance from the bottom of the pan. The pickup ends up about 1/2 inch higher in the block. Here's before and after: Dave
The Jalopy Journal
