Zapawaf

For those of you who followed my last post,
my 79 4 speed manual died on me after owning it for less then a week and less then 3 hours of drive time.

Now begins the task of rebuilding it me and my father (best fits the budget), the chassis is rusty.. It was a NH car, can't see the point of 'tricking out' a car but doing it half *** so If I was going to put high end parts in it I'd want to restore the whole thing. I just want a weekend driver and it will be in FL at the folks until my lease is up and I move there myself.

All that to say we're rebuilding the motor and we're hoping for good guides to help us figure out the best way to tackle this challange, and advice anyone has. Plus if there is anything that should be replaced while it's out. Any and all advice welcome.

gcusmano74

My condolences on your blown engine.
Small block Chevy engines are hard to kill. (Years ago, a guy I know deliberately tried to kill one. The car had 170,000 miles on it , and was on it's way to the junkyard that afternoon. Terminal body rust. He drained the oil and water, put a brick on the gas pedal, started it, and backed off to a safe distance. After 20 minutes, it ran out of gas.)
How did it happen?
You need to do a failure analysis so that the new motor won't break, as well. At any rate, the SBC is one of the most successful engines ever made- probably tens of millions since 1955. It is widely understood, and parts are easy to get and generally reasonably priced. There are any number of books available on rebuilding them. Educate yourself as much as possible before turning a wrench or spending any money. And be realistic about your budget.
Have fun.
Good luck.

Little Mouse

Pull the engine tear it down to the bare block take everything to a machine shop that has all the tools to measure with let them tell you what kind of shape its in what needs done.

billla

Start by buying and reading this book - don't do anything until you do, as the teardown can tell you a great deal about the engine and you can make errors during teardown that will cost you money later. Don't (DO NOT) get ahead of yourself and start buying parts! This book isn't perfect - but it's darn good.

http://www.amazon.com/Rebuild-Small-...4888935&sr=1-1

Step 2 is to find a local shop willing and able to work with a home rebuilder.

Final step is to set a budget. You'll have a bazillion choices on stuff, and a budget is the only way to make smart ones. The goal is a well-matched combination that fits within your budget...not a Frankenengine that sits on the stand because you couldn't afford to finish it.

Easy Mike

Any How To Rebuild Your Small Block Chevy book will help.

Little Mouse

Work with the machine shop let them look over everything. Reading a book can give you some basic knowledge you still won't know what your looking at in comparison to what they know.

billla

...but without the knowledge from the book, and information gleaned during the teardown, there's no way to understand and evaluate what the shop is telling you. The better understood the process and parts are, the better able you are to partner with the shop.

And doing a home rebuild is for sure a partnership with the machine shop. In the end the shop will be clear that the builder owns - 100% all the decisions for the build.

For example, during teardown you find consistenly worn main bearings, nicely covering the full face of the bearing. The machine shop recommends an align-hone and you ask why, providing the bearings as the reason for the question. Doesn't mean you're saying they're wrong - or you're smarter - but it makes you an informed customer.

Little Mouse

Best thing you can do is let the machine shop assemble atleast the shortblock. Nothing wrong with reading a book but let a good machine shop diagnose your parts they have 1000 times the experience you have.

The first best thing you have to do is find a good rep machine shop.
$10/$15 as a local spectator dirt track talking to them in the pitts
for a machine shop can do it you get lots of fun watching the races thrown in with the deal. Don't just open a phone book guess that this one looks good.

billla

*sigh*

I completely disagree with letting the shop do the shortblock - it's one of the most satisfying part of the build and not difficult to do at all. It takes time and patience - but people have been successfully overhauling these things for around 60 years

I do about 10 overhauls/year working with novice builders, and every single one of those builds has been 100% successful.

The purpose of reading the book, again, is to gain experience and be an informed part of the process - if you don't speak the language, then you can't understand what you're being told.

I guess someone can take a torn down engine (you did remember to mark the rod caps, right? The book would tell you the importance of this.) to the shop and just do whatever they say...but that doesn't always lead to the best results.

Little Mouse

Sure if he wants the fun of building it. Wrenching on stuff is not always fun to some. Ill bet he is a little sick buying a car only getting three hours use out of it just wants to get it running as a cruiser.

Roco71

I am not up to speed with the other thread. How do you know the engine is toast?

Easy Mike

Where does that put me? I do my own work and rebuilt my smallblock. The only thing I farmed out was the valve job.

Little Mouse

If you want to do it have the tools or can borrow the tools. If you have to start buying tools to do the job.

bbc454500

same question?

billla

I agree there are kinda two types of builders - those that WANT to and those that HAVE to.

The HAVE to builders are likely better off just buying a shortblock vs. going through a shop to build their own unless originality is an issue.

Hopefully the OP can chime in on where they're at with the HAVE to vs. WANT to thing

Red 69

Where in FL will you be located? I am near Cocoa and might be able to point you to a reputable machine shop. They are not equal and you want one of the better shops. Be sure to take plenty of photos, take notes and bag and tag as you tear it down. Do this even if you will be replacing many of parts. The time you take will make assembly easier.

scottyp99

This might be the cheapest, most pain free option:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/NAL-10067353/


Scott

Peterbuilt

This is a good choice and you can buy is at any Chevy dealer.
Pick up truck it home and save the shipping.

Zapawaf

Englewood, Sarasota County. I'm not to familiar with Fl, I lived there the first 6 months of my senior year in HS and moved back north to NH haha.

Zapawaf

For those of you wanting to be "up to speed" with the last thread
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...post1578580116

Long story short, we trouble shooted it, tried new alt, battery, had the starter tested (there's a video of it trying to catch the flywheel and won't budge it), and lastly had a mechanic actually take a look at it and determined it to be siezed.

To answer Billa and Little Mouse
I don't nessicarily WANT to do this rebuild, but I do enjoy learning, and the price of doing things yourself is generally cheaper. Worst case scenerio, we take it out, find something wrong with it and we don't believe we can handle the job, we'll have someone who does it for a living do it, we know our limits.

Car was just placed on the shipping truck and is on it's way to Fl as we speak. Tuesday I should be pushing it up the driveway into the garage haha. Yeeeehaw