my newest project - not a Civic, but cool nonetheless

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CivicCanuck

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That crank appears to have a thin parting line which would mean it is a cast crankshaft, and it definitely needs a polish at the least. If it's got any marks at all, it may need to be turned 0.010 on the mains and rods. That is also a small main bearing journal block. ( early )

Before taking the engine block for a hot tank and any machine work you may want to visit a commercial sandblaster to remove all the paint and rust from the exterior of the block. I would also get the intake manifold, and any external items you are planning to remove blasted at the same time, brackets, exhaust manifolds, timing cover, balancer, pulleys, etc.

Probably best to tell them to use a fine grit abrasive, as it will give you a much better surface finish, and you don't have any hard scale or build up.

At the very least, remove the ridge with a reamer and measure the bores on the major and minor thrust axes... small block chevrolet engines are notorious for using very little nickel in the engine blocks, they are soft like butter, and don't take long to wear. Chrysler engine blocks on the other hand are very high nickel content, and hard to machine.

Production tolerances on things like deck height, deck squareness to the crank centerline and crank throw indexing leave a lot to be desired. It's not un-common to be out of square by 0.004-0.005 inch.
 
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CivicCanuck

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One other thing I would mention is that now that the engine is apart, I would tap the oil galleries in the front of the engine block alongside the camshaft tunnel to accept pipe plugs, rather than the stock expansion type plugs. Buy pipe plugs with an internal hex, and drill one of them with a small drill bit in a drill press, like 1/16" or smaller. This will spray pressurized oil on to the timing chain, and help to extend it's life. IIRC ( it's been years since I played with one ) the pipe plug size should work out to 1/4"

Forget OE style silent chains, get a good double roller set from Cloyes, Comp Cams, or the like.

Make sure that when you tap the galleries you don't tap too deeply, you want the pipe plug to be tight when it's basically flush with the front of the casting.

Buy a set of block plugs and remove the old ones before hot tanking the block, as well get yourself a new set of cam bearings and a set of engine gallery brushes if you are doing the assembly yourself, they aren't expensive. Painting the interior of the engine block after washing it ( getting it back from the machine shop ) with Glyptal will aid in oil drain back. Spend a few minutes with a die grinder and remove casting flash from around the oil drain back holes, this is another good practice.

Not sure if you can buy the valley type breathers anymore. ( visible once the intake was removed )
 
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CivicCanuck

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hey_mikey said:
fuel pump. is this the correct fuel pump? something about this looks wrong to me.



oil pan looks pretty beat up.


inside the oil pan


oil filter mount. is this an adapter?


crankshaft



pistons look pretty new? they're all stamped "B 396" on the inside of the skirt. supposedly, the motor was rebuilt not that long ago. would you say these pictures coincide with that?





were the rods stamped like this from the factory? or is that an indication that the motor was disassembled and reassembled?




heads and lifters - i made sure to keep the lifters in the same order I pulled them out. I pulled the heads as a complete unit to make sure I don't lose parts or mix up the order.


not sure I want to tear down the rest of the motor, because it looks pretty decent. what would you all do? any advice would be appreciated.

the driver side subframe looks like it was damaged and repaired before. The bolt holding the upper A-arms looks like was welded in place but since broke free. It seemed fine until I got the front suspension completely apart. after removing the bolt, the hole is super rough and it's missing the bushings that are found on the passenger side of the subframe. do you think should I just look for a new subframe? or can this be salvaged?



thanks again for any help!
Click to expand...

That is an oil filter adapter, the stock filter would have been a metal can with a replaceable paper element. The connecting rods were definitely not punched like that from the factory, that has been apart for sure. Replace the rod bolts for sure, and have the big end of the rods resized. After torquing the rod bolt nuts a few times, they are garbage. From another picture, I thought the crank was cast ( thin parting line ), but it appears to be a forged crank from the wide parting line on the crank throws above.

It doesn't look like the factory fuel pump at all, that looks like a 70's vintage pump, they had a bunch of different orientations and line combinations for various chassis. The correct pump should have a lower section that is removable.
 
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CivicCanuck

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I would replace the engine oil pump instead of trying to clean and re-use it. Tack weld the pickup to the pump after setting the depth. ( Measure with the pan and gasket combination and set the pickup height 3/16"-1/4" off the bottom of the pan )

You can still buy the paper oil filter elements if you can find a can and bolt, but most people pitched them in favor of the spin on adapter kit. I *might* have one kicking around, will check next weekend for you.
 
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CivicCanuck

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RE: distributor. Keep the OE distributor, but toss the points and install a Pertronix kit to trigger the coil. No more burned points, or setting with a dwell meter. Shim the distributor endplay to keep it to a minimum. Glass bead works great to clean up the aluminum, gives the surface a satin finish.
 
hey_mikey

hey_mikey

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Michael Hurd said:
That is an oil filter adapter, the stock filter would have been a metal can with a replaceable paper element. The connecting rods were definitely not punched like that from the factory, that has been apart for sure. Replace the rod bolts for sure, and have the big end of the rods resized. After torquing the rod bolt nuts a few times, they are garbage. From another picture, I thought the crank was cast ( thin parting line ), but it appears to be a forged crank from the wide parting line on the crank throws above.

It doesn't look like the factory fuel pump at all, that looks like a 70's vintage pump, they had a bunch of different orientations and line combinations for various chassis. The correct pump should have a lower section that is removable.
Click to expand...
from what i could gather from my research, all the small journal 327s came with a forged crank from the factory. we're still debating if we want to rebuild this or go with a crate motor.
 
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CivicCanuck

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From the second picture I looked at this appears to be a forged crank. A crate motor will be a lot less work, and you can benefit from better technology, such as a roller camshaft. However, this wouldn't be 'correct' if that's what you are looking for. If you want to keep the stock valve covers, you may run into issues, if I recall correctly the old valve covers and heads have a slight difference in the bolt pattern as compared to the newer ( up to 1985 ) cylinder heads.
 
hey_mikey

hey_mikey

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also, does anyone know a reputable machine shop in charlotte? the cylinders themselves look good, and despite the pistons being covered in carbon build up, they're pretty new from the last "rebuild" (which the owner estimates has only a few thousand miles at most). I still have to do some measuring, but I'm hoping all it really needs is a little honing to get rid of the (mostly carbon) ridge at the top. i'd rather not deck the block because if the shop isn't careful, you could lose some of the block stampings. the heads themselves probably need to be redone, as it looks like they weren't touched during the rebuild since several valve seals seem to be leaking. since the pistons (and probably the rings) were brand new, my guess is the leaky compression were due to the valves.

from what i've read, it seems like a lot of shops are moving away from the hot-tanking process. what else would you recommend as to clean the block both externally and internally, like if there is any surface rust or deposits built up in the coolant passages?

if we do end up rebuilding the engine, once the block and heads are cleaned up, i'm comfortable with doing the rest of the work myself. i'd just need to find a decent machine shop and media blaster to work with.
 
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hey_mikey

hey_mikey

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Michael Hurd said:
From the second picture I looked at this appears to be a forged crank. A crate motor will be a lot less work, and you can benefit from better technology, such as a roller camshaft. However, this wouldn't be 'correct' if that's what you are looking for. If you want to keep the stock valve covers, you may run into issues, if I recall correctly the old valve covers and heads have a slight difference in the bolt pattern as compared to the newer ( up to 1985 ) cylinder heads.
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it looks like most of the roller cam crate motors are gonna exceed the owner's budget. supposedly, the original corvette valve covers will bolt right up to the pre-1985 style 350 crate-motors. the only thing is that the original valve covers don't have any PCV provisions, so to keep them, i'd either have to run valve cover spacers and modify them to accept the PCV, or fabricate something else to allow it to work. the intake and exhaust manifolds, water pump, etc. should all bolt right up.
 
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CivicCanuck

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Those heads will need a lot of work to run today's unleaded gas. You will need hardened valve seats installed, and if the engine is high mileage, you will need to have the valve guides replaced. Here's a video of what's involved in replacing the guides, the valve seat installation is quite labor intensive.


Also a good idea to remove the factory pressed in rocker arm studs, drill and tap for 3/8" screw in studs. I would price out that work with positive control style teflon valve seals ( have to cut the top of the guides ) these are 10x better than the stock rubber umbrella type seals. You may be further ahead to buy heads from a large rebuilder that does this work day in and day out, it may be a lot cheaper than trying to source locally.
 
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CivicCanuck

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If you can degrease the engine block well enough, you can use electrolysis to clean the block yourself. Here's a link to a how-to site, the process has been used on gas tanks, and all sorts of metal and cast iron objects.

http://users.eastlink.ca/~pspencer/nsaeta/electrolysis.html

A good dose of Eazy-Off engine cleaner on the engine block ( wait 15 minutes ), followed by a hot pressure wash will remove most all of the oils and grease on the block.

After that, you can try the electrolysis, if you don't have a plastic container large enough, you could do half the block at a time.
 
vmcguy

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Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is when you do the bottom end make sure to spec the bearings to make sure that the clearance is within spec. It looks like some of the bearings used in the last rebuild were a little on the tight side and that may be why the wore worse than the others.

I've made that mistake in the past and now use plastigauge on all my bearings when assembling the bottom end.
 
ethlar

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Michael Hurd said:
Those heads will need a lot of work to run today's unleaded gas. You will need hardened valve seats installed, and if the engine is high mileage, you will need to have the valve guides replaced. Here's a video of what's involved in replacing the guides, the valve seat installation is quite labor intensive.


Also a good idea to remove the factory pressed in rocker arm studs, drill and tap for 3/8" screw in studs. I would price out that work with positive control style teflon valve seals ( have to cut the top of the guides ) these are 10x better than the stock rubber umbrella type seals. You may be further ahead to buy heads from a large rebuilder that does this work day in and day out, it may be a lot cheaper than trying to source locally.
Click to expand...

Definitely worth doing, my dad did something similar on his old 911 to run it on modern pump gas
 
hey_mikey

hey_mikey

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vmcguy said:
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is when you do the bottom end make sure to spec the bearings to make sure that the clearance is within spec. It looks like some of the bearings used in the last rebuild were a little on the tight side and that may be why the wore worse than the others.

I've made that mistake in the past and now use plastigauge on all my bearings when assembling the bottom end.
Click to expand...
yeah i was definitely planning on checking all clearances, but i think this being a NOM, we're just gonna get a crate motor. we'll put this one back together for now and keep it on the side and rebuild it properly if the owner ever decides to sell the car or go for NCRS top-flight status or something like that.
 
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