I’m taking this engine out to do some work to it, I’ll be refreshing the paint on the block while it’s out. I’d leave the manifold unpainted.
And I’m thinking about painting the heads and water pump while it’s out.
What do we like better? The patchwork look of the painted block and unpainted bolt-ons…or a more uniform OEM look of painted heads and water pump?
Had a rod bearing failure on a big block chevy engine due to a really dumb careless error on my part during assembly that caused oil starvation to all of the rods bearings. Lesson learned. corrected the error, Installed a new crank and new rods, new bearings.
Now, less than 50 miles on the rebuild, and it's knocking again. Not quite in the same way. The first time was really bad, knocking at idle, but now it's just under load, comes on around 2000 RPMs.
At first I was in disbelief and was thinking it was just noisy lifters maybe still pumping up, but I just dropped the oil to check it and it definitely looks like there is copper in it, I'm even starting to see some silver. I am going to send a sample off to be sure...but I'm pretty damn sure.
This block was gone completely through by my machine shop, and then I hand cleaned it and cleared every single oil passage on the thing before assembly, verified all of my clearances were in spec.
This is not my first engine build, and I just can't believe this has happened again. The first failure, there was a very clear cause...this second one, I'm just at a loss.
What industry/career path did you roll into?
48 years old, white male. I’ve been in the automotive dealership world from technician to service manager now for over 20 years.
I enjoy people and customer service, but i have come to realize I really do not enjoy being in charge of making sure other people are doing their jobs. I prefer to be in charge of my job and my tasks…or perhaps my feelings here could be because i have 36 direct reports…I might feel differently about a smaller team.
I am looking for other career paths that I can transition into that will let me continue to do what I am good at, which is helping people with problems.
I am good at sales, I am a naturally talented craftsman and creative.
I have been out of the job market for so long that I don’t even know where to start.
Got an odd situation that i haven’t run across before.
Hydraulic roller cam, lifters, and rockers.
While priming the engine, rotating the crank by hand.
Cylinder 1. Intake rocker is flowing A LOT more than any other rocker on the engine, and there is nothing coming out of the rocker on cylinder 1 exhaust.
I pulled the rocker off the exhaust valve and verified there IS oil coming out of the exhaust lifter, and I also verified both the pushrod and rocker are clear of any blockage.
Every rocker before the cylinder 1 intake on bank 1 is flowing normally, and then the one lifter after the intake…cylinder 1 exhaust is not able to pump the oil up the rod. Bank 2 has no issues.
Logic tells me that so much oil is coming up the intake lifter that there isn’t enough pressure to get the oil up the pushrod of that last lifter? But what could cause that to happen?
Big Block Chevy.
I had to pull my front timing cover to adjust my cam timing.
The pan has a one piece gasket on it.
The new timing chain cover gasket kit came with a new pan to cover seal…for use with a two piece oil pan gasket kit.
I was planning on just reinstalling the timing chain cover onto the block with the blue one piece gasket in place…and just do my best to keep the front pan seal in place while seating the cover.
Or…should I cut the blue one piece seal where you see the yellow lines and then use the seal that came in the kit, which is the black seal that you see on the cover in the picture?
Big Block Chevy, 468. Aluminum heads, 110cc chambers, pistons are -30cc for 11:1 compression. 559/530 lift 284/286 duration, 107lsa
I’m at the verge of giving up on this build. The amount of errors that I have made is comical at this point, but I am bound and determined to see it through.
I’m not going to bother with the history because it isn’t important, but my current problem is valve contact with my pistons.
I took a head off because a spark plug became cross threaded, and when I pulled it off to fix it, is when I found this.
Every single cylinder on this bank has smacked the intake valve on the piston. I am assuming bank 2 is going to be exactly the same.
Now, at this point. I have had the chambers sitting with gas in them for about 24 hours and haven’t lost a drop…so…I’m hoping that means the valves are okay. I am going to pull one of them just to be sure but I don’t think they are bent.
I’m trying to figure out how this happened in the first place. I have a suspicion that my cam timing might be off, but what I don’t get is that I spun this motor over by hand to check for clearance and didn’t have any interference.
Can clearances change with engine speed? Or perhaps with hydraulic lifter range of motion after they have fully pumped up?
I have this problem all over my yard. I want to do some nice boarder shrubs down this fence line, but i absolutely do not want to be pulling vines out of them for the rest of my life.
What is the best way to prep this fence line to keep this kind of weed and vine growth at a minimum?
A lot of it is Smilax, some poison ivy and then some others that I just don’t recognize.