Super cool! Just hope it didn't hold water anywhere and freeze/ crack. My first 350 was one a buddy had stashed for 20 years or so inside.... but the block still cracked..... Good luck bud I'll be watching and taking notes.... one cheap a$$ to another
Wolf, hoping this doesn't come across as a personal attack and it's not my business, but what do you do with all your money when you're not paying for quality machine work. Curious what your track record is for blown head gaskets with those chrome smooth deck surfaces. I haven't worked in an automotive machine shop in nearly forty years so I'm sure I have forgotten (a lot), but I don't recall ever purposely trying to achieve a chrome-like finish on head and block surfaces, regardless of the head gaskets being used.
Old Wolf I am 66 and have been patching engines like that my whole life and my father before me.It is amazing what you can clean up and make work if you dont have any money! I assume you are familiar with drawfiling a deck or head with a 14" #1 cut hand file and a machinists straightedge ?It leaves a good surface for a gasket to seal on .PM me if you need used 283 parts,I have a pile of them and you are welcome to any you need.
I like to be around 4o ra or a little finer on steel shims with copper coat, but it can be a lot smoother with copper gaskets. But yea, I still want a little tooth. I avoid composition gaskets wherever possible, so cant really comment on that. I have a hang-up about excessive crevice volume.
Damn, Old Wolf we've got a bit in common. I too am cheap as hell (by necessity) and I've got an old 283 on the stand that I just drug up from the backyard. The bottom is rusted off the crank pulley where it was in the basement floor so long. I'll be watching your build to see if I can pick up some pointers, I also have the same sign you have on your avatar (just a different color.) We both matured a little early too. you were driving a 53 Ford at 12 and the first time I got lucky, I was 9. Don't remember much about it though, I was drunk at the time. Say, you weren't around Chattanooga back about 1962 was you?.........................Deddy?
Never had any problem with blown head gaskets on a small block chevy. Had a Y block that would blow the head gaskets between the cylinders. Fixed that by using a steel shim head gasket and using the yellow gorilla snot glue to glue a strand of copper wire from a battery cable in the embossed area around the bore. I tighten the head bolts in the proper sequence in five pound incrediments. clean bolts with clean threads. and tighten 5 ft pounds tighter than the specs. spray K&W copper cote on the head gaskets. If the deck and heads are flat the gaskets will hold. Im out of debt and pay cash for everything. Ive got enough money to spend on machine work. but why? used to be you could take a set of heads to the jobber and he would vat them grind the valves and check the spring pressure ant it wasn't a big dollar amount. then they started charging a $100 to do that. So I quit and went to cleaning them up and lapping the valves with compound. Its part of being self reliant and using Know How. Its not something for a customer or a job needing to be guaranteed. Ive got better 283,s than this one. ive got several good running used chevy engines. Im doing this one just to show there is more than one way to skin a cat. Used to be the old guys had tools to turn a crankshaft wile it was still in the car. poured new Babbitt in the rods and scraped them to fit. Im 64 but hung around with those old guys that kept their stuff going during the depression without spending money. I was working for a old guy running dozer. We where installing new piston rings on a D7 cat. there was a groove a deep as my little finger around one of the rod journals. I remarked on it. He stated it was from the dowel pin that keeps the upper bearing shell in place. He told me I was rebuilding that engine and wanted it perfect. So He bought new everything. rebuilt heads ,sleeves pistons ect. The crank was a bit worn so he sent it to a machine shop and they turned it down and chromed the crank throws. He remarked it was the prettiest thing you ever saw, A work of art! Got it going and put it to work. and the crank failed within a few hours. He was broke then . done spent all his extra money. So he had another D7 that he had junked. So he went and got that crankshaft and bearings and put them into the other engine. and found the dowel was loose in the rod on the junked engine. He ran that used crank with the groove for twenty years. I operated it off and on for ten years. And Im pretty certain its still going.
Because I know I can. I look like this guy https://www.google.com/search?q=che...ved=0ahUKEwjNtNGSl5fLAhVFLSYKHbSLAoAQ_AUIBigB heres a selfie
I was driving a B JD tractor when I was nine. It smoked pretty bad. My dad and I tore it down it was supposed to have just been overhauled. The mechanic( a known drunkard) had installed the scraper ring,s backwards. the taper was scraping the oil toward the head every stroke. I thought it was really something to fix it. Got into lots of trouble with that junky ford. It had one front wheel brakes. nails in the rest of the lines because the wheel cyls leaked. Cop stopped me and asked me about a drivers license. Me a Little skinny 90 pound smart ass kid replies As good a driver as I am I don't need a license. I was on a first name basis with the cops and municipal judge. Wasn't anywhere near Chattanooga back then. Made my money by collecting soda bottles and getting 2 cents deposit. Stole my gas from the saddle tanks on truck tractors. Lots of single axle gas burner trucks back then. You never took but a couple gallons from each tank and they never missed it. It was fun being a kid in the sixties.
I poured and scraped babbit a few times when I did my machinist training. Put a light coat of machinist bluing on the shaft, rotate it in the poured babbit bearing, pull it apart, scrape the spots where you see bluing on the bearing surface, repeat until you end up with an even coating of bluing all over the bearing surface. Time consuming, but kinda neat...
I soooo do not want to be the traditional rod police in a post about old jeeps and small block chevys....but wtf are you guys drinking tonite???
didn't see the "small block chevies aren't traditional" statement coming. just ONE black and tan made from a bottle of ale and a bottle of stout.
Ive built a lot of great sbc's. I've also done some very scrougy sbc work over the years for claimer circle track engines. Guys would bring me a pile of blown up crap mid season and ask if it could be ready to run. I bought any used partial sets of trw 12.1 popups at swap meets and used 12.1 popups in the new claimer engine I built. Had a machinist that would punch 1 or 2 cylinders, weigh up a .030 over piston and rod, grind the bottom of a used .060 over to weigh the same and go back together. Used a lot of crocus paper. Soaked pistons in carb cleaner, scraped the ring grooves clean with an old ring. Napa kept single .001, .002 etc bearings on the shelf. Always made it clear to the guy this may not even get thru qualifying, they always did. Amazing what abuse a sbc will take. That 283 will be fine if you can get the cyl walls clean and it's not cracked, if its cracked down low do a partial hardblock. Read any old shop manual or chiltons, it tells how to "overhaul" an engine at home and how to measure clearances and inspect parts to tell if they are still serviceable.
Tricky Steve I cant speak for anyone else,but the reason I grew up doing that sort of thing was MONEY or the lack thereof.
Hey, I"m sixty four and have a nailhead that has sit in the dirt since sixty nine under the hood of the 55 Buick I junked at the time. You have given me hope that maybe it will live again! I spent lots of time when I was a kid with no money working on junk that other guys shitcanned, felt great when I got something running that everyone said never would! I have a old Edelbrock three twos set up with ninty fours on it and chrome valve covers for a nailhead too. My 55 Special might get a boost in the future! Damn you Old Wolf, now see what you went and done!!!
Yes the depression was still going strong here in the 60,s . Folks where earning 50 cents an hour if they even had a job. Many left for the north. Our local newspaper mailed more papers to the Rockford Ill Area than they sold locally. At present Im drawing a Social Security Ponzi check. Its enough to live on barely. So ive got more time than money. Ive been puttering around doing stuff that doesn't cost lots of money. I was in my old store building and discovered a new set of rings I had forgot about. They are for a .040 307. If I can get the cyl bores cleaned up I can cut them to fit the 283. You put them in the bore & square it with a piston and use feeler guage to measure the ring gaps. Ive got one of those fixtures with a hand cranked diamond blade that's made for cutting piston rings. Im watching my grandson Chris today and its sunny and starting to warm up. So me and him will play in the shop today.
Ive got two nailheads. a good 401 with Weiand goodies ect. and a stuck 322 4 bbl that's soaking under cover of a truck hood. someone had installed a holley tea pot carb from a block ford on the 322 LOL.
I never got involved in claimer motors personally, but I used to read some of the articles about claimer engine builders in Stock Car Racing magazine, and just shake my head in amazement...
Me and a buddy used to buy 10 sbc's at a time from a scrapper. We did a lot of stock rebuilds and street performance builds, built engines for our own cars. We weren't an engine shop, just 2 guys makin a little money. Our machinist got paid cash and told us what time to pick up at the back door, we didnt ask questions. The claimers we built were mostly low budget guys trying to get in it. Did some nicer street stock builds and freshened them each season. It was a fun couple of years. We were drag racers and didn't think twice about running the rpms up. I never understood circle track racers much, but they always needed engines and it worked out. Still have a pile of 350 4 bolts and steel cranks sitting around, couple 400 blocks, some BBC stuff.
I did a 2bbl hobby stock motor for a guy that ran a 3/8 mile paved oval once, it ran pretty good. but I was more doing street/strip motors, never got involved in the claimer stuff. That shit is crazy...
70 degrees pretty day. The grandson 2 year old Chris and I have been working on the rust. I soaked the cyls overnite. And took a wire brush on a drill to them today. And then 220 sandpaper on the worst bits. Ive decided to tackle the very worst cyl first. try and get that piston out. We came in to eat and the grandson is on the couch taking a nap. I think he is pretty tired. He got pretty dirty.
If its ok with Old Wolf, I'm going to add this here for the "scrap it and buy a crate motor" crowd (not that they will actually read it). And this guy isnt putting these motors to the local cruise night and leaning a cry-baby doll on the fender, he us running them to 7000 rpm at the end of the back straight 50+ times a night... Not saying I would necessarily do this, but it kinda puts the "you need" stuff in perspective...
this could have easily been an article on my uncle. he never threw stuff out, and RARELY ever bought something new. the big buck crews would look for advise from him often and he campaigned a car that actually made money at the end of the year. guys like this, i think, can see/feel parts on molecular level. a power of the brain that works beyond normal human comprehension. sound crazy? then explain it. interesting; a car takes a fifteen mile trip to a shop for a tuneup, only after stopping at the mall, and a diner for lunch. car gets pulled in, plugs, cap, rotor, wires, points etc get removed and tossed in the garbage. their garbage. pull them back out, of the trash , put them back in, they will get you home. not garbage.
The Jalopy Journal
