David bought a restored chassis with a rebuilt engine and trans for a 72 for a project he was considering doing. Well the project got derailed and the chassis and engine and trans got pulled and the chassis went to another home. That left a rebuilt engine and trans in David's hands. David had the engine sold and this was about the time I had finished building an aluminum headed 350 for him. So he offered the buyer of the chassis motor the upgraded motor which promply went well. So we still have the chassis motor. David sent it down to me just to check it over. Well good thing as this "rebuilt" motor was far from saleable as it stood. First thing the intake was not torqued down at all and only had some sealer on one side. The lifters had some type of hard goo on the, that I can only imagine was break in lube this motor had a brand new fuel pump all bolted up ready to go but upon removal there was no fuel pump rod??? Why not. I removed the rocker arms and pushrods and they were all dry as a bone. No assembly lube at all. The heads all had new valves and look to be decent 487x castings. These may be for sale later. The best is I removed the oil pan only to find no oil pump shaft on the oil pump??? Again why not. The pan was all bolted up ready to go. So if we had sold this motor as is ready to go we would have had no fuel pressure and no oil pressure and the pan was full of crap. So beware when buying a "rebuilt" motor from an unknown source. Here are 2 pictures of what I found.
Crap in oil pan


No oil pump shaft

 

Nice catch....I wonder if the rings are on correctly??

 

Nice catch Gordon. I have to say thats somewhat of an extreme example fraud and deception. But it might have some value as a '72 vette core block. Yea that motor is basket case not a rebuild.

 

I'll pull the Pistons and crank this week and see how that all looks. Not expecting much after seeing this.

 

Any recourse in going after the builder at this point? Great catch Gordon.

 

Or if they are even there at all....

 

Was this a "home built" or a "shop built" motor? There is a lot wrong with this setup. If this was a product of some shop. I think it would be fair to all to disclose the builder to save others from a lot of grief. Most likely, if this was shop built and this is an example of their work. We don't have to worry bout them anymore

 

This motor was rebuilt around 2008ish. I don't know the exact origin of the build as I think the chassis was bought and sold a couple of times. I'm not here to bash anybody but yes I would think if this is an engine builder they are no longer around. If it is a private party I hope he has left engine building to someone else now. I can't believe anyone with basic engine building skills would forget one of these items no less the 2 I listed. There may be more and the grime in the engine and lack of assembly lube was not good either.

 

I took it right down to the bare block. The Pistons did have rings on them and were on correctly. They just used assembly lube very little and the Pistons were in the cylinders dry. Now this may have happened over time that the oil came off but by judging the rest of the build I would say they went in dry. I have totally cleaned the block, chased all the threads cleaned everything and gave it a bath. Dried it off went down the bores with some clean paper towels and trans fluid and they are spotless now. Lubed up the lifter bores. It is now ready to be assembled properly.

 

Nice catch. What some people do to pass off parts as "rebuilt" is crazy.


I'm looking for a motor. If your building it and weren't so far away we could hammer out a deal.

Do you deliver and install? I'm 300 miles north of Buffalo?

good luck.

dodosmike