Rust inside early Hemi

We bought a Ford Pickup last year and got to work on the frame and suspension first.
Last night I finally started working on the engine. While I opened it up and expected to find oil sludge,
I was rather surprised to find this amount of rust inside.
It is only on the intake side on both heads and inside the upper portion of the valve cover.
The exhaust sides, the area underneath the valley cover and oil pan is clean.

Since I only worked on Opel inline 4 and 6 cylinders from the 60s and 70s so far I don't know
if this is a common problem with early Hemis from the 50s. Might this be a problem because the engine
was sitting for a year or is there something wrong with it in general?

 

Damp storage ? I believe oil would splash in these areas only when running ,as oil runs through rocker shaft . If lower end and in pan don't show mositure your probaly good .

Mike

 

I would clean the rocker shafts and reinstall them should be fine.

 

How are the intake valves when you look down the ports? If they are rusty I would take the head off and rebuild it.

If the valves are not rusty and they are not stuck, it should be OK. Oil the valves and rockers and tap each rocker arm with a small hammer. If the valves are not stuck they will have a springy bounce. If it feels dead, the valve is stuck. If it does not come free fairly easily the heads will have to come off. Don't take chances with blowing the motor they are not so easy to get these days.

 

Kind of looks like somone rebuilt it fired it ald left it to sit. No rus on tips of rockers. May have seized and the owner lost interest. If engine is free and valves move I would tear it down and see what you have.

 

Disassemble, clean vigorously, check for pits on wear surfaces, if good then reassemble and run the sucker. My 02c.

PS This includes bottom end, and lubricate everything!

It has sat for some time in less than perfect conditions....it's a hemi...you need to go the extra mile.

 

^^^^agree. They are expensive to 'fix' so a set of gaskets is actually a cheap way to insure that all is good before any damage is done.

.

 

Yep, tear it down and clean everything, replace what needs to be replaced and put it back together.

Amaveric,
very good advice.

 

Thank you guys for all the answers, makes me feel much better now.
I rotated the engine and checked all the valves and push rods,
none of them has actual rust on them and everything moves freely.
No rust inside the oil pan either.
Just hope there is nothing else wrong with engine until the rebuild this winter.


Thanks again for all the replies