You know youve done em but would never tell anyone
repairs too

hey when youre young and poor do what you got to do
Ignorance is bliss
Out with it!

Driveway rebuild 350
-Was dirt to boot
Drill, ballhone
Northern ring bearing gasket kit
No measuring, no machine work at all;not so much as head surface
Left old cam bearings
Degreased it on the stand in driveway put it all togehter
SSI cam from P.A.W stock valvesprings
Was in and running the next day

Thing ran for many yrs til I lost track of the car

 

Installed a shift kit laying on my back on a dirt driveway. Worked perfectly.

 

When I was 17-18. I rebuilt a pontiac 455 ho in a 74 trans am without a torque wrench. Just pulled everything tight. It ran great for the next year until I traded it for a 69 gto.

A year later I rebuilt the gto 455 but used a shop manual and all the proper tools and procedures. Did everything right but started it up and let it idle to break it in but forgot the coolant. It stalled and it wouldnt crank. Then I noticed the coolant. Let it cool and filled the fluid. It started right up and ran like a champ for the next 4 years.

When I was 24 I had a old small block 350 that was pulling the valve studs out when I tried to adjust them. I ended up tapping the heads without removing them. Just vacuumed up the shavings to keep them out of the motor. That engine would pull the wheels on the 71 cj7 it was in.

I got real lucky as a kid. I guess thats why I hate bubba so much now, because I was one once.

My name is scott and I am a Bubba

 

Fun topic!

We did a 350 once by pulling pistons out of the scrap barrel at the machine shop.

Changed many a rod bolt without resizing the big end.

Pulled threads out of a rear main cap while tightening oil pump. Pulled a cap off a junk block and bolted it in place. Engine ran killer for years and years.

Dropped a new piston once while assembling a 350 (same one as oil cap above) and cracked it. They were cast ones. It was a weekend and the parts store had a forged TRW flat top in stock. Never weighed it, but it must have been close. 7 cast and one forged ran great with a set of GM Iron "Turbo" race heads on it.

Did a lot of rebuilds with a ball hone. We used "QuickSeater" rings from engine rebuilder place. Just plain cast iron but they sealed well in worn cylinders...and were cheap.

Rebuilt my Pinto 4 banger that I knew was virgin because I was there the day my Dad bought it new. It had always run really, really good (14.60's with a few mods!). When I tore it apart I found one rod and piston didn't even look close to the other 3. The main bearings were marked "std"...so I installed new ones on the perfect looking crank. Turns out the block was bored oversized from the factory in the main saddles. Took some serious research to find that there was a stamp inside the crankcase to denote it. Yep it was there! It didn't hold much oil pressure. Funny thing, is I had another block...and decided to do it "perfect". I had crank turned...assembled by using some borrowed mic's with perfect clearances. It ran for a few weeks but seemed to be getting slower and slower and wouldn't rev. Then oil pressure went down. Found that apparently those cranks weren't hardened very deep and when it was turned we got into softer metal. The hardened "race" bearings I had used still looked new...but the crank literally had a ridge around the center of the mains aligning with the oil groove. Unreal. So after messing with it way too long, I decided to jerk it apart during lunch one day. I stuck another old crank I had in there with the same bearings and used an impact to assemble it. Didn't torque anything. Sucker ran perfectly for years...in fact I still have the car and that's the motor that is in it!

Rebuilt a 454 once that was also "virgin"...or at least I thought it was. It had .010" under crank in it and I never ck'd clearances...just assembled with some std bearings because crank looked perfect. Didn't hold much oil pressure either! After having it happen twice, I decided to buy my first set of mic's and never trust ANYONE to measure things except me.

Put some mega ported Phase 6 Bowtie race heads on a cast piston 350 once. They had 2.10" intakes and wouldn't clear valve notches in pistons. Nothing a little time with a die grinder can't handle while swapping the heads in the car. Aluminum was everywhere!

I was heavy into racing with Muncie 4 speeds. In the 80's/90's it was getting real hard to find new parts for them. I had accumulated a lot of spares, so I used them to assemble good ones. Then after a while...the parts that weren't good enough to use before...are now all of a sudden good enough! After they got really worn, I started converting them to crashboxes by grinding off every other lug of the sliders and every other synchro tooth off the gears. Ground down worn synchros to use as spacers and ran them for another round of abuse. They shifted fantastic...but didn't last too long either.

Over revved my 427 at the track one time, floated the valves and bent some pushrods. Now this was what I drove out there and I needed to drive back home. I took the pushrods and used a trailer for a flat surface and hammered them back straight and went back to racing!

Burned up a race clutch real bad once. Couldn't afford a new pressure plate. Took it apart and had machine shop cut the face of it like a flywheel and keep up with what they took off. Reassembled with some valvespring shims under the pressure plate springs to get pressure back. Worked perfectly!

I'm sure there is a LOT more...but you do what you have to do and what the wallet will allow!

 

hum...I am trying to think of hack job things I did that were in my mind at the time "jalopy"

things like real pool *****, small pistons and other junk made into shift *****, things like jack bottles used as puke tanks, I made several water sprayers for the rear tires, flame throwers etc.

Okay, I have a hack job one, my 72 convertible I was about 17 and the center console was all busted off loose I stopped at a mom and pop hardware store and the old timer gave me long wood screws long enough to go all the way and screw to the tunnel...lol,
it did work.

the stupidest thing I did and lived was used a come along to pull the 327 out of my 66

 

Back in our kart racing days I had done a fresh re-build for a National race....First practice laps it smoked like a 2 stroke...I knew I had taken just a little too much off the oil spring. We tore it down and fixed it right at the track. We got some really funny looks, not many we raced against even built their own motors much less did it at the track.

Once at a National in Daytona we blew a clutch, it was rebuilt using the glass top coffee table in the condo we had rented as a hone block.

I miss kart racing....

Brian

 

In the 50/60's my dad was a big deal with kart racing, when he passed step mom gave me the zillion trophies and stuff he had....

 

This thread sure brings back memories from the 1950/1960's.

Back in the mid 50's, I had a Ford Crown Vic that ran terrible and smoked like a locomotive. Tore the engine down, no measuring/no tools to measure with any way. Ordered over size rings, oversize rod and main bearings from JC Whitney...sounded good to me ha ha. Put her all back together, it was so tight the starter could not crank it. Towed it with a farm tractor and she started. Did not run to bad either. For a few days, dont remember how many, we had to tow it to start it. Finally it got so it would crank and start. I ran it for a few years before I sold the car. My, how times have changed with knowledge and age LOL

8Valve

 

A friend had two VW air cooled engines, one a 1200 one a 1500 as I recall. Both engines were bad but he needed a running engine. So we used two good jugs, pistons and bits from the 12 and the two good jugs, pistons and bits from the 15. It ran pretty good for at least a year. I've done in the dirt driveway builds without adequate tools...or knowledge of what I was doing but as the wise saying goes; you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.

 

I've done a bunch of quick ones...but I think the worst ever was a "quick" 350 overhaul that had low power when it was done. Come to find out that the "really good deal" pistons were .080 down in the hole...meaning that my compression math was, um...just a little off.

 

About the same, broke rings on the reassembly, ran it for 5k miles, tore it apart due to blow by, learned that cromolly rings eat cylinders, had to use a ridge reamer to pull the pistons fom the top side...9th grade, didn't want my folks driving me to school, what would the woman think, put molly rings back in, the clearnece was huge, got 20K miles out of her, the embarrassment of being 15. That truck got me more tail than anything. Looking back if I had had a pot to **** in I'd been lethal. Man oh man how I miss those days.

 

Great thread :- )

Sometimes I do think, why is everything so complicated. Back in the days you could re-build a engine in your backyard, today you can't re-use piston rings, from a running fine engine :- )

But what the heck, that's what makes it our hobby :-))

 

I bought a 1983 T-Type Regal, with a blown up carbed turbo 6. Lots of wiring under the hood that I didn't need for my small block.

Naturally, hedge clippers were the logical choice for removal. That was 1996... to this day, my friends will reference that.

 

This is how I learned to build

 

Same hear, ball hone and drill, cheap torque wrench from OTasco, plastigauge from stinger Sam. $70 rebuild kit from paw. All day Saturday with my friends, can of Skoal and a bag of weed. By Saturday night cruising main street. Three of us pitching in and coming up with $10 for gas and could cruise all night.

 

Back in my youth I had a SK boat with a 454 Chevy. One morning while waterskiing we hand grenaded the motor. We put the boat on the trailed and towed it to the nearest auto wrecking yard, we pulled the motor in the yard and swapped in a 454 out of a station wagon. We were water skiing again in the afternoon.

I sold the boat at the end of the summer and the guy never bothered to winterize the motor. Over the winter the water in the block froze and cracked the block, the boat never ran again to my knowledge. I asked the dumbass kid I sold the boat to why he never drained the block. He replied "I didn't think I had too, because I put a blanket over the engine to keep it warm" {insert eye roll here}.

 

I had buddy into VW's also. He was trying to push the compression limit and they DID run good....but #3 seemed to toast regularly. So we would torture it all evening and when it nuked and started the death smoke we'd head to his shop....jerk the motor (always left the top left bolt out to make removal faster)....swap a new jug/piston in place and be back out seemingly before anyone realized we were gone.

Later. we dropped compression in that hole with some piston milling....and it lived longer.


JIM

 

I learned motors with Pontiacs as wel!

I did the same thing with a 455
rings
bearings
hone job
lapped the valves with the suction cup do hickey
cam
lifters
gasket set
timing chain
oil pump

great thread!