Thread: "It was running just fine, and then........

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Well, we've all probably said and heard the same thing many times. This engine came out of a customer's car...... Hmmmmmm, what's wrong with this picture??????

Aren't the heads missing? wonder how that happened, won't run without the head.

Red

.....then this "thing" popped out the side of the block! Is that a problem?....can you fix it under warranty?"

Kind of reminds me of the customer who came in a few years back. His 17 year old kid had been driving the truck "just going down the street at 35 MPH" and it started to miss. 2 push rods had been shoved thru the rockers.

Those pistons are supposed to rotate for cooling right?

When I pulled the engine, I noticed the cam was sticking out the back of the block about an inch.... Didn't look at any of the numbers, but it looks like the heads have 1.94 valves and were gone through recently... Have to get the rest of it apart and see if anything is worth saving. Didn't do any measuring, but it's allegedly a 283,,,it does have the old canister style oil filter. Somebody might need some pieces off of it before it goes in the scrap iron pile.....

Originally Posted by Stu Cool

Those pistons are supposed to rotate for cooling right?

I dunno, not a chebbie guy.....Must be kind of like the roataters on the exhaust valves???????

So Dave big question is what Ford block you going to slide back in it LOL. Suprise him with a 460 maybe .

Originally Posted by bluestang67

So Dave big question is what Ford block you going to slide back in it LOL. Suprise him with a 460 maybe .

Naaah. This guy hates surprises!!!! Probably have to replace it with a chebbie.....

hey now! send me the crank if its a steel and saveable!!! is the block hammered or can it be fixed? <anythings fixable!>

Dave just push the cam back in, put the heads back on and that little 283 chevy will fire back up with no problem. Rember were talking chevy not ford. If that was a ford I would drop it into a lake

I like it when they say, "It never made a sound! Honest! It just stopped running!" And there's three rods stuck out the side.

Originally Posted by chevy 37

Dave just push the cam back in, put the heads back on and that little 283 chevy will fire back up with no problem. Rember were talking chevy not ford. If that was a ford I would drop it into a lake

Uh, sorry, but the poor little thing is totally locked up, crank won't budge.... Can't drop it in the lake, too polluted already!!!!

This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Back when I thought I was a restorer I bought a Model A engine and found it had a piece cracked out of the outer water jacket. When I took the head off I realized it probably had been through a home-rebuild and one of the pistons was put in backward. Since the pins were offset in the pistons to reduce "slap", the backward piston must have really led to vibration/slap and probably caused the crack in the block and that probably was due to some home mechanic back in the 1930s. Once I had a rod poke a hole in the side of my "Blue Flame 235" in a '54 Chebbie on an Interstate. I stopped the car, lifted the hood, saw the rod oscillating in and out of the side of the block and drove another ten miles home on five cylinders. Cast iron is hard but brittle!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder