Never fails.
Of course now that it's apart you can cut some corners. The old-time engine
repair guys would do this whole job with the engine in place. A good system
flush, swap out those lifters, drop the pan and pull the rods for the
damaged pistons, and clean up the cylinders with a bottle brush hone. Unless
the pistons are damaged enough to pinch the ring lands shut you might even
salvage those. The head could probably also be fixed. Just smooth our all
the gouge edges so you don't get detonation. These engines aren't operating
at the outer edges of performance. It's amazing what people used to fix that
just gets trashed today.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Timothy F. Murphy
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 3:55 PM
To: 'FOT'
Subject: Re: Small block Chevy question
Thanks for the replies. He decided to "do the right thing" and pull the
head, even though the truck is up for sale. Good thing. The seat for the
intake on # 6 obviously came loose, got pounded to pieces and proceeded to
pound the piston and head pretty good. Some pieces were sucked into #4 and
did a dance on that piston and head also. Cylinder walls don't look too bad
with just a cursory glance. Could maybe clean them up with a hone, put new
pistons in and a new head and give it a go. Or, probably get a short block
and "start over". These were "Vortec" heads that he put on when he did the
rebuild. I don't think we're big fans of that development anymore!! I'm
guessing that if pieces could get sucked into #4 some could also find their
way down the push rods and get into the lifters. Maybe that's why we found
the "tight" exhaust lifter on #6.
Hope we've got the "bad luck" out of our system now and the race car
engine will be solid. At least we now know what a busted up valve seat
sounds like!! At least in a small block Chevy V-8. By the way, this was to
be our tow vehicle when we get the car on the track. It could have happened
in the middle of Chicago on the way to Michigan from Wisconsin. What a
happy thought!!
Thanks again,
Tim
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