The 350 in the '64 is locked up, even tho the previous owner said it was a running motor. Hell, everything was good at some point. Anywho, the distributer has been out of the motor and I can't spin it over so I pulled the plugs and dumped marvel mystery oil in and replaced the plugs. That was a week ago and I still can't budge the motor. Should I wait longer, try something else? Or just yank it all apart? What's the likely hood I could get away with rings, bearings and hone?
Depending on how much oil you put into the cylinders you may be lucky it isn't turning over. Leave the plugs out or you risk hydraulic locking the engine and bending a rod. If its locked that tight, pull the heads and have a look.
You have to also consider the problem could be in the lower end crankshaft seized due to bearing & or rod failure,sorry no quick fix for that one. Good luck.
You didn't mention if the engine is still in the car. Make sure it's not something like the starter being jammed. We had an engine we thought was stuck only to find the starter bendix drive was jammed on the flywheel locking it up. Not common but we just had that happen. I'd pull the starter, remove all drive belts, pull the plugs and make sure the flywheel or flex plates not locked up.
Do you really want to trust an engine that had been seized up? There is more than likely some rust in it somewhere or some other reason that it would do more damage if you got it running. I would pull it all apart and rebuild it so I could feel secure that its right.
My pal Augie and I went to Merced Pick-n-Pull, 1/2 price day. He was looking for a SBC exhaust manifold, I opened the doghouse cover on a chevy van and found a NEW 'Goodwrench' 350, a tape tag on the speedo face said 170,6XX miles: engine. Speedo odometer now registered 172,XXX... Augie sat in the van 'til I returned with my portable toolbox. One hour later we had the 350 (with the exhaust manifolds he needed) in the bed of my F100, cost of NEW Goodwrench mill: $68.00. Not a dime a dozen, but a steal... (rear end damage to the van had 'totalled' it) That day we 'got the bear'... BTW, IF on the original poster's engine moisture had rusted the rings from sitting, Marvel Mystery Oil wasn't the best choice for soaking: PB Blaster is good, but on at least 10 occasions I have personally used a mix of 75% brake fluid and 25% WD 40. Brake fluid is excellent for this...IF it hasn't spun a brg, or some similar SBC ills...
I have used a mix of trans fluid and kerosene depending on how long it sat it needs time and patience.if out of car pull pan check for damage crank,rods.this only applies if it was not stored in dry location I.E. not out in area where rain could get on or in over time if it was left out pull plugs you will see evidence of water rust on plugs if so dont waste your time and money as stated.
My Dad had a "350" sitting in a shed near the eave. It had a rag stuffed in the distributor hole and the carb had a plastic bag on it. It would go mostly around. I pulled the plugs and the #4 hole was filled with water in the top 1" of wall. So off came the heads. I honed the rust out and the 74 "350" is a running 400. (the harmonic balancer was the dead give away)
Good news, after letting it sit for a few more days I decided to do something. I drained the oil to make sure there wasn't water in it and it came out nice and black and lumpy. After that I pulled the intake and valve covers and found a pretty clean motor, so I drizzled some atf on the insides and found that I could rock the balancer a little amount. So, I let some run down the intake ports and slowly worked the balancer back and forth and it didn't take much before I could spin it over. I'm gonna stick another intake and carb on it and see if it'll bust off. Thanks for the advice Edit: I rocked it back and forth by grabbing the crank pulley
A friend just ordered one. With all the necessary parts and bits to make it a complete engine, the final bill came in at a hair under $4,000......for a 290hp motor. Not exactly a dime a dozen.
You can buy a re-ring kit from Northern autoparts or a couple of other online vendors for about 80 bucks that has rings, rod and main bearings and a full gasket set. Pull it down, clean it up an hone the cylinders and you have a somewhat fresh engine that might get you 70K miles without much trouble. Or go find a decent running 350 that you can have some faith in as they are pretty easy to find.
with me , I rather pull the heads and look, headgaskets are cheap , resleeving a cylinder due to rust and a broken ring isn't
With everything from oil pan to air cleaner? Send me a link so I can send to my buddy to help him out. Thanks.
Success! I busted it off with open exhaust manifolds and it smoked at first which I expected and then ran good. I need to throw some mufflers on asap so I can hear how it runs.
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