Here is mine when I went to look at a 33 dodge truck with SBC, he could not get it to start after fooling with it for about 1 hour, so we agreed on a price and I bought the truck, he said it had a GM crate motor in the truck and a Muncie trans. When I got the truck home and started working on the truck I found oilers on the plugs and I thought this is not going to be good, after alot of wrench turning carb. rebuilt,water pump,fuel pump,fan,etc. the motor ran good. Also had to change the oil pan because it had hit something a few times on the bottom and cracked it, when I pulled the pan I was pleased to see a very clean 4 bolt main bottom end. So the motor was a GM crate motor and I do not know the reason for the oilers no problems with the plugs at all. The supposed to be Muncie turned out to be a Saginaw which is good trans. Lets here your story
As a teenager I Bought a Harley 165. Old 2 stroke hardtail street bike from the 50s. "The motor's perfect. I'll vouch for that motor" said the much older seller. Rod bearing turned to dust shortly thereafter. He didn't know what he was talking about. Many sellers don't, but we all think we do.
bought a malibu once."original" motor in it wasnt big enough.so i saved up built new 350 put in there.gave my brother old motor since it was junk.come to find out it was actually already a 4 bolt main 350 with more work than my new one had.
Bought a 350 once that was supposed to be an excellent original motor. Well we put it in the chevelle and it started right up so we headed for the track. Zane and I backed it off the trailer and did some warm up laps but had little time t o check things out. With little more the 5 miles on the engine we went racing! Well the dam thing wouldn't pull much past five thousand rpm and had about as much power as a sad sack three-o-.five, You know, one of those 350's that's completely useless even up against a slant six in a 76 volare. The low revving piss poor power 350 put us in the back of the pack. During the second heat, I dropped it in neutral just to see if it would actually rev past five grand and that's when a rod decided it wanted out of the oil pan and it took out the block skirt at the same time. That caused an oil slick right at the start of turn four. When the lead cars hit it (a 64 Galaxie and Jim Benson's 66 Comet), they lost traction but were able to get thru the spill. The real losers where the fifth and sixth place guys in the camaros, they didn't make it thru the corner and tangled with each other into the wall. The smoke screen must have been hard to see thru but Bub Frasher and Denny Glass were able to make it past before George Edrle rear ended one of the dead camaros which sent him spinning sorta backwards right in front of Del Gilles in his pontiac ventura (72?). In all, 9 pontiacs and chevys were totaled just because one rod decided it wanted to think outside the block.
Title says 'Good and Bad' but what about Stupid? Went to help a friend get his freshly rebuilt Ford 300 Six started. He had been having trouble for a couple of hours. It would fire a cylinder every once in a while, backfire now and then but never even try to start. I checked timing (more than once) checked firing order, still wouldn't start. Neighbor (a friend from work) yelled from across the street 'Its probably the plugs!" I said 'yeah sure, thanks for the help!' Then after thinking a minute asked my bud if the plugs were new? He answered 'One is new cause I broke it taking them out of the old engine' I think that was the only one firing! New plugs solved the problem! I learned my lesson on that one! Always ask - even if it seems silly! Jon
this kinda fits this thread.i was 15 my 54 ranch wagon lost the trans[6cyl auto]went to keyes auto wrecker,we have that 34 coupe,rebuilt hemi,he says.100 bucks engine tranny,400 complete car.oh,i dont need a car,just eng. tranny.get it hung in the wagon wont turn over.tear it apart ,one rod backwards.fixed,run good.shoulda took it complete.dammit
A bunch of us guys (back in 63) were about 85 miles from home in a 53 ford flattie w 3 spd. Just cruising around causing mayhem doing burnouts etc. The motor suddenly looses a rod, blam! punched a hole right out the side of the pan! Oil everywhere, knocking like hell. Looked it it for a while then said what the hell...it's still running. Go to the nearest gas station, pick up some extra oil...drove it home, dropped everyone off, then to the garage. Beat the hell out of it all the way home too! Amazing it ran all that way and didn't quit.