masterbeavis
California Chapter member
- 69
- 4
Some of you might remember, I was working on a truck for an old timer who got it from his dead brother yada yada yada... Well today I was messing with it, screwed up real good.
Let me just open this up by saying this old girl does not like me. I got suckered into working on it, I have to fix 2 so called mechanics mistakes.
The story I heard from the owner (about the engine) was that his brother had it rebuilt,(apparently it was the heads only) it had blown up right after he got it, the motor was a built HP 390. He died, his brother (my customer) inherited it. He drove it 2+ hours to get it home, without the radiator cap on. He stopped the truck when he heard it pinging/ticking. One shop said the engine was fried, however an aquaintence of his said he could fix the headgasket. When he got it back, oh boy... THis thing had leaks at both ends of the manifolds, valve covers leak, hack mechanic charges $1500 to do the headgasket, truck smokes and runs terribly. It came back with a Qjet on it, instead of the carter that was on it. The guy essentially ripped him off, he was taken to court, got off scott free. (He was not licensed or insured to do mechanicing work.)
When I got the truck, I did a compression check, the numbers were miserable. Hot, the highest was 125, lowest was 100, average was 110. On a dead cold compression check, the numbers were 60-80# dry, 80-100 wet. Engine was still difficult to start. New motor oil had excessive metal flakes in it. Tested the coil, and various voltages, re-gapped the points, new plug wires and plugs, cap/rotor good.. It had a piston slap/valvetrain noise coming from the passenger side, the drivers side of the motor smoked heavily when cold, mild when warm. I changed the mismatched spark plugs and plug wires, made a dumbo move of not checking TDC on the cap when I yanked the wires, and was awarded for my mistake once I corrected it...
After I get over that, I retest the compression, to make sure I was not stupid, and decided it was time for a leakdown test. 70% leakdown at TDC of a couple of cylinders, no pressure on the crank at all. Rotate the motor 20*, leakdown dropped to 30%.
I tell the customer my findings, he wants me to put another motor into it.. When I give him a quote, he balks, says he does not have the money for that, nor has the money to pay me for the parts and labor I have into it already.. Great... So I am holding on to the truck (he wants me to buy him out on it) and tinkering on it when I can. I was hoping to find the right combination of fixes and bandaids to get this thing to start on command, and dump it back at his house so I did not have to deal with it any longer.
Well today I was messing with it trying to get it to start. At one point and time, I had it reasonably easy to start, but this was like a patient with liver failure, everyday it got worse and worse. I tried starting, seen there was "smoke" coming from the front of the motor. I tried again with the remote starter, yanked the breather, sure enough, lots of blowby when trying to start... I decided to work on the weak accelerator pump the carb had. I was trying to clean the passage way out, wound up dropped the check ball down the carburetor. I go to remove the carb, and halfway off, I disturb the throttle, and loose the piece into the manifold.... Great... I wound up yanking the manifold, decided while I was into it that far, would not hurt to yank the head since I was already that far into it....... I had already seen this little gem when I did the plugs...
This motor was fried worse than I though it was...
You can see the seat they installed, I thought the valve was stuck. I cranked it while the intake was off, trying to pop the head off with the head bolts out. It was blowing compression back into the intake port.
This is how the rest of the vavles look.
Nice seat work huh?
Look, its sale day, Magically this motor grew 30CI!! 3.5" stroke
What do you suppose my compression ratio is with D2TE heads, with the pistons .120 in the hole?
Let me just open this up by saying this old girl does not like me. I got suckered into working on it, I have to fix 2 so called mechanics mistakes.
The story I heard from the owner (about the engine) was that his brother had it rebuilt,(apparently it was the heads only) it had blown up right after he got it, the motor was a built HP 390. He died, his brother (my customer) inherited it. He drove it 2+ hours to get it home, without the radiator cap on. He stopped the truck when he heard it pinging/ticking. One shop said the engine was fried, however an aquaintence of his said he could fix the headgasket. When he got it back, oh boy... THis thing had leaks at both ends of the manifolds, valve covers leak, hack mechanic charges $1500 to do the headgasket, truck smokes and runs terribly. It came back with a Qjet on it, instead of the carter that was on it. The guy essentially ripped him off, he was taken to court, got off scott free. (He was not licensed or insured to do mechanicing work.)
When I got the truck, I did a compression check, the numbers were miserable. Hot, the highest was 125, lowest was 100, average was 110. On a dead cold compression check, the numbers were 60-80# dry, 80-100 wet. Engine was still difficult to start. New motor oil had excessive metal flakes in it. Tested the coil, and various voltages, re-gapped the points, new plug wires and plugs, cap/rotor good.. It had a piston slap/valvetrain noise coming from the passenger side, the drivers side of the motor smoked heavily when cold, mild when warm. I changed the mismatched spark plugs and plug wires, made a dumbo move of not checking TDC on the cap when I yanked the wires, and was awarded for my mistake once I corrected it...
After I get over that, I retest the compression, to make sure I was not stupid, and decided it was time for a leakdown test. 70% leakdown at TDC of a couple of cylinders, no pressure on the crank at all. Rotate the motor 20*, leakdown dropped to 30%.
I tell the customer my findings, he wants me to put another motor into it.. When I give him a quote, he balks, says he does not have the money for that, nor has the money to pay me for the parts and labor I have into it already.. Great... So I am holding on to the truck (he wants me to buy him out on it) and tinkering on it when I can. I was hoping to find the right combination of fixes and bandaids to get this thing to start on command, and dump it back at his house so I did not have to deal with it any longer.
Well today I was messing with it trying to get it to start. At one point and time, I had it reasonably easy to start, but this was like a patient with liver failure, everyday it got worse and worse. I tried starting, seen there was "smoke" coming from the front of the motor. I tried again with the remote starter, yanked the breather, sure enough, lots of blowby when trying to start... I decided to work on the weak accelerator pump the carb had. I was trying to clean the passage way out, wound up dropped the check ball down the carburetor. I go to remove the carb, and halfway off, I disturb the throttle, and loose the piece into the manifold.... Great... I wound up yanking the manifold, decided while I was into it that far, would not hurt to yank the head since I was already that far into it....... I had already seen this little gem when I did the plugs...
This motor was fried worse than I though it was...
You can see the seat they installed, I thought the valve was stuck. I cranked it while the intake was off, trying to pop the head off with the head bolts out. It was blowing compression back into the intake port.
This is how the rest of the vavles look.
Nice seat work huh?
Look, its sale day, Magically this motor grew 30CI!! 3.5" stroke
What do you suppose my compression ratio is with D2TE heads, with the pistons .120 in the hole?
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