Cold day in hell today with the mate.

[Chris E]

I will get the pic of it posted tonight. I got a engine builder that is at the end of my street. Been sending motors to him for years and he does good work. He built my 300+ hp 60* 3.4 for me about 6 years ago and its still runs like new.

I dropped off the heads to have them looked at. I also am going now to get a replacement 350 in indy to just drop in for the remainder of the season. From there, the cracked block is getting dropped off and resleved, and a 400 crank installed for next year. I might even upgrade to aluminum heads, what do you guys think about running them?? I will have aluminum manifolds on it also so there wont be a huge amount of weight hanging off the heads.

sorry to hear about the engine problem.

with the aluminum heads, you'll have to install a closed cooling system, aluminum and cast iron don't get along (heat and cool at different rates), so you end up with issues. the old 470's had closed cooling and i believe some of the newer mercruisers (6.2 horizon?) have closed cooling as well. not sure if that is a saltwater only issue, or if it is a freshwater issue.

 

[Big Red]

a bad gasket could very easily make the motor go bang bang bang. water leaks in fills it up, and bang bang bang.

can you take a picture of the mystery bolt?
i have been doing motors for a while now and my buddy is BIG into small and big blocks. maybe we can help figure out what the hell it is.

not sure if you have a good machine shop near you, but my buddy has his own place, he is the best i have seen, i have seen him pop new sleaves in those motors 100 times and i can tell you that its as good as stock. he is unreal if you need someone you can trust doing it, he is the guy. he does all my machine work on all my own stuff and every car i build. he is unreal and very reasonable with price

Blow it out your rear NOYsEE the gasket does not go bang bang

 

[Big Red]

What kind of carb are you running if you are running a Holley style carb look at the bottom of the carb and make sure the center screw did not fall out. This screw has fell out and blew thousands of motors. I always remove this screw

 

[yellowfiero88]

What kind of carb are you running

I POS quadrajunk. Yep the screw came out of the bottom plate, dropped into the intake and the rest is history.

Got the new motor today. Its a nice old junker but what the hell, it will get me on the water for the rest of the season. Its a 1986 4 bolt main 350 out of a 3/4 ton 4x4 truck. 99K on it. best of all, $200. Been protected by years of oil residue from the leaky valve covers. The inside looks good with little crud and only light staining of parts from oil. Looks like it was well taken care of. Best of all it dont have a split in the cyl. Turn key its going in there! I am going out of my way to degreese it, oil pump and timing chain it! Hopefully it will be running tomorrow afternoon. I have thrown junkyard motors in and they run better than fresh rebuilt ones, we shall see

The old block is getting dropped off at the builder tomorrow but the crank wont be in till the middle of the month so onward and upward

 

[Big Red]

A ring and bearing and gasket set is not much from summit just to freshen the engine its way under 200 without pistons.

 

[Mr. Buss]

i just put some aluminum heads on the senator build, i hope i dont have any issues..?

sorry about your luck man, youll have it back on the water in no time!!

 

[yellowfiero88]

Red, I am going to pull some mains tomorrow and see what the bearings look like. If they look good then I am putting it back as is. Cheap insurance to bearing and ring it but then again, this motor will only be in the boat for a month or so before the original one is back up and running. If it dont need that $200 kit then I can put it towards the rebuild.

 

[yellowfiero88]

Notice bolt missing on right side between primarys and secondarys. I never touched the carb to rebuild it or anything. Its screwed up that it came loose after 23 years. Why could it not have happened to the old junk motor. The bad thing is that I was going to order the new carb on monday morning from summit.

 

[NOYZEE]

Blow it out your rear NOYsEE the gasket does not go bang bang

pretty sure your maxi pad is on sticky side up on a daily basis
the gaskets wont go bang, but it can very easily cause the motor to go bang.


Yellow, atleast you found your issue. thats a good thing. as for why didnt it fall into the old motor, its that A$$ hole Murphy, and his stupid law

 

[dogschool]

holy crap

you guys have me on the verge of yankin my holley 850
and squirtin some thread locker on those bolts..scary!!

 

[NOYZEE]

you guys have me on the verge of yankin my holley 850
and squirtin some thread locker on those bolts..scary!!

for the hour worth of work, if i was carb, i would do it!! cheep insurance

 

[Big Red]

you guys have me on the verge of yankin my holley 850
and squirtin some thread locker on those bolts..scary!!

Theirs only 1 bolt on the holley that will fall and its dead in the center.

 

[yellowfiero88]

Yea. Its a real kick in the balls to find out all this work and destruction was the cause of a stupid bolt. When I get the edelbrock tomorrow, if there is any bolts, I am removing them and putting locktite on the bitches. Well worth the time as the carb is a easy thing to R&R. A hour of time and maybe $15 in gasket and locktite or $2000 in motor work and 20+ hours down the drain.

When I removed the windage tray from the 355, I pulled one of the main caps to inspect the bearing surface. To my total suprise, it was spotless. No scarring and looked like it was brand new. I thought for sure it would be junk with the water that was sent through but I guess that it hydro locked before the water could do any damage to the bearings, crank, or cam.

Maybe I can JB weld the block back, you know they did that sh*t on a cat motor and saved thousands of $$$

On the plus side, I got the junkyard dogg ready for install. The 350 bearings looked great also. I did have my engine builder take a look at the bearings and he said run it. He was supprised as to the shape they were in for almost 100k. All I need is about 2 months out of it and the big boy will be ready to go back in. If she still runs, I know I can get atleast $200 back out of it or keep it as a spare just incase........... Well as long as I am tripping over it I wont need it, we all know how that works