In my last post, I said that my engine had been rebuilt three times in three hundred miles. That came after a 7-year, frame off restoration on my 67 427/400 conv. Perhaps the lessons that I learned the hard way will help prevent the same suffering by others.

The first problem came at less than 100 miles. After the first long drive on the new restoration, the oil pressue began to fall off. When I pulled the pan, the mains were completely worn out. After a lot of searching and even more money spent, I found the problem. The intake manifold that I used was one that I bought during the restoration. Apparently, it had been bead blasted. I thought that I had cleaned it completely, but I found some glass bead residue under the steel plate that is rivited to the bottom side of the aluminium casting. Next time, I will remove the rivits and clean that area. A painful lesson, but I am wiser now.

The second problem came 167 miles after the second engine was installed. This time, rather than doing it myself, I had the engine built by a well known local shop that has a reputation for excellent high performance work. The engine ran great up to the time it siezed while driving down the freeway at 65 mph. When we tore this one down, we found that it had been very hot in spite of the fact that the water temp never got higher than 200 degrees. When we went further, we found that one of the brand new Holley carbs was missing a metering plate and the primary jets were way too small. I know that all of us should have caught that during the rebuild, but that was before I knew that new and freshly rebuilts are junk today. I had decided to bolt the new carbs on right out of the box. I did not want to disassemble them and scew up those nice new gaskets etc. In a related issue, I went through three power steering control valves before I found one that worked correctly. My power steering pump puked all of the fluid out of the shaft seal after 200 miles.

The moral to all of this is simple. Do not trust any new or rebuilt part to work as advertised. It took me a while to learn this, but the professional mechanics that have heard my story tell me that they see the problem all the time.

The good news is that the car is doing fine now and I have even won a couple of awards at the first two shows that I brought it to. I am wiser now and I will be more careful when I use my greatly depleted car budget on my 65 small block project.

 

Sorry about the double posting. I tried to delete the second one, but the technology is beyond me. How do you delete a post?

 

So what caused the second engine to die?? Did it overheat from a bad waterpump and a faulty temp sending unit??

 

Say what? Surely you're using the wrong noun here. A Holley carb would never bolt together enough to start the car without a metering block.

Anyways, sorry to hear about your difficult learning experiences. If the motor was running lean enough to run so hot as to seize your water temp should've reflected that. You may want to test the precision of your water temp gauge. Boil a cup of hot water and use it to verify the gauge.

Let's hope this one lasts 20 years.

-gw

 

Metering "plate", not metering "block".

 

Doh!

-gw

 

I agree with the notion that the temp gauge should have indicated a problem before the engine got that hot. I believe that the engine shop did not get the cooling system full. I think there was an air pocket in the radiator/engine and the temp sending unit was trying to read air and not water. The shop owner and I have agreed to disagree on this, but the shop did cover the cost of the second rebuild and life is good now. Another of my lessons learned is to ensure that you get all of the specified coolant quantity in before you assume that it is full. I actually fill the system through the thermostat opening the first time. The missing carb part was a metering "plate" in the front carb. It is just a small flat piece of metal inside the float bowl. I guess it was a busy day at Holley when they made that one.

 

Wow! Keep that machine shop in business. He sounds like a good guy. Too bad we don't get treated that fairly all the time.

-gw

 

I don't think I could have survived that kind of frustration. Hats off to you for pushing on and then sharing with us. I STRONGLY recommend against bead blasting oil pans for the reason you mentioned. With all the baffles, there are way to many places for beads to hide. If you use a blaster to clean spark plugs TAKE EXTRA CARE when you clean them up.

Brian