The Shitshow Continues

"MM54" (mm54mk2) 09/29/2019 at 19:35 • Filed to: '71Chevelle

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When we left off, the latest development in the never-ending string of problems, delays, and otherwise-issues that has surrounded this engine was that the rocker studs were too long. With these dropped off to be shortened without charge by the shop that spec’ed them, I was able to continue.

At least it looks pretty

Since I was waiting and would be out of town for a wedding most of this weekend, it was an opportune moment to paint the block. I masked it off carefully, treated the surface rust, primed, and painted the engine. It then had a couple days to cure while I was out of town - perfect timing.

Today when I got home, I began to remove the masking and found the next problem.

Can you tell I got a new phone? My posts aren’t in Galaxy S5 “Potato-Vision” (as my one friend calls it) anymore

I masked the engine like you would anything else - tape around the edges, and paper over the large “don’t paint this” areas, taped to the tape. What you see above is a metric fuckton (+/- 8%) of metal chips, which look like the kind generated when you bore an engine block. These were apparently just hanging out in the water jacket, and hadn’t opted to fall out the dozen times the engine has been flipped over on the stand. Until now.

That’s all iron/steel chips all over the deck, in the headbolt threads, and in the cylinders

Since all this grit fell out of the water jacket (and headbolt holes, which go into the it) and onto the back of my masking paper as the engine was rolled over several times in the process of painting it, this means it proceeded to fall back down into the everything. Every cylinder (moreso on the front of the engine) had a bunch of grit on it as can be seen above. Some even found its way down through the lifter bores and onto the break-in-lube’ed cam lobes.

Those black specks on the lobe by the red are iron chips. Exactly the sort of thing you don’t want on a flat tappet cam on first startup.

I sent these pictures and a couple more to the shop that did the machine work , considering I paid for a couple hours worth of labor in a final cleaning of the block post-machining. He called me and seemed very surprised.

I’ve torn the entire engine back down (recall the short block was done) - there was grit in the cylinders, on the cam, and even on the big ends of the rods (it would have fallen past the cam to get there) but not in the bearings (which makes sense). Who knows how much, if any, found its was into the oil passages.

Why did it wait until now to come out? No idea. Maybe there has been a little bit falling out every time I turned it over and I never noticed it (not impossible since I wouldn’t hear it hit the floor nor would I see it amongst the oil stains). Maybe it finally dried out enough to loosen up. Who knows.

All I know are two things:

1) This has eliminated the final, tiny little chance that this car would be back on the road this year - great, considering it was supposed to be done mid-summer.

2) The owner of the machine shop is coming to my house tomorrow evening to pick it up and take the block back to clean it out again. I’m going to have him do the cam too (I have no way to get all that black moly grease off it without a parts washer). They better not wreck my fresh paint.

sony1492 > MM54 09/29/2019 at 20:06

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Fuck, at this point they should rebuild the whole thing for free and slap a one year warranty on it

MM54 > sony1492 09/29/2019 at 20:41

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I’m pretty bothered by it. Not only has this gotten very abrasive grit all over the internals of the engine (which can be washed but there’s risk involved) , but it’s also cost me several hours (minimum) of my time, which is very scarce. If the block and all the parts were clean and in the garage right now it would be at least a week from today before it’s back where it was this morning. I expected to seal up the bottom end today and be working on the top end by the weekend.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > MM54 09/29/2019 at 20:55

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Dude this sucks

MM54 > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 09/29/2019 at 20:56

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Yup.

sony1492 > MM54 09/29/2019 at 20:58

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And of course its going to take the shop a month to get everything “ clean” . It’s worth running b y them to see if they’ll rebuild the bottom end since they’ve made you rebuild and tear it down once already

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > MM54 09/29/2019 at 21:06

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I really feel for you

My bird IS the word > MM54 09/29/2019 at 21:37

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This is precisely why I will never deal with engine rebuilds again.

MM54 > My bird IS the word 09/29/2019 at 21:48

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I’ve never had this much trouble working on an engine. Either this one is cursed or the universe is conspiring against me having this damn car back on the road.

Maybe it’s the ghost of the previous owner (I got the car from the original owner’s estate) who doesn’t want me to put this engine in it.

MM54 > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 09/29/2019 at 21:50

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Thanks. Like I said, this seals in the car not seeing the light of day (excluding when it comes in through the garage door...) until next year. I do not have enough time in my life to get this thing together in the next month, then it’ll be winter for 6 months.

Time will tell if sometime before then I find motivation to do the rest of the bodywork it needs; at least with that I’m not depending on anyone else.

MM54 > sony1492 09/29/2019 at 21:56

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If it takes more than a couple days to get cleaned up I’ll probably bring it up with him. That said , other than cleaning odds and ends, the tedious parts (e.g. gapping rings) are already done. Just needs popped back together.

I’m almost more concerned with the fresh paint and its interaction with whatever they clean the block with and what it’ll do when it gets hot to cure (rather than putting the bottom end back together) . VHT is very clear that their paint isn’t really anything-resistant until baked. Something makes me think you can’t just throw another coat on top of it, either.

Urambo Tauro > MM54 09/29/2019 at 22:05

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U GH   That’s seriously one of the most disheartening things one could find at this stage. Welp, it’s better than discovering a previously-overlooked crack, I guess. At least you hadn’t tried to start it yet.

Brickman > MM54 09/29/2019 at 22:06

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That’s why when I do my S10 V8 swap, I ’ll rebuild the engine.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > MM54 09/30/2019 at 00:11

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I’ve been reading these but can’t seem to recall what engine this is or what it is going in.  It sure LOOKS like a Rover engine...

shop-teacher > MM54 09/30/2019 at 00:59

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Gadamn dude!!!

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 09/30/2019 at 09:15

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Close. Pistons and water jacket holes are wrong. This is an SBC, I'm pretty sure.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 09/30/2019 at 13:56

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That makes a lot more sense. Pistons also looked bigger to me.

MM54 > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 09/30/2019 at 16:03

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It’s a Chevy 350 which has been bored .030" over and stroked to yield a 383. It’s going in the Chevelle that everyone has probably forgotten I have since it’s been so long since it’s looked like a car (and since I’ve had any positive news about the whole thing) .

MM54 > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 09/30/2019 at 16:03

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This

MM54 > Brickman 09/30/2019 at 16:04

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I am rebuilding this? I’m not sure what the intent of your reply was.

MM54 > shop-teacher 09/30/2019 at 16:05

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yep

MM54 > Urambo Tauro 09/30/2019 at 16:11

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Pretty much. The block was pressure tested before any machine work was done so there’s at least that. This means I have to start over with assembly when I already don’t have time to work on it. I’m pretty well over the whole thing; if I didn’t have such a sickening amount of money tied up in the whole thing (and very little left to spend) I would be very tempted to put all the boxes inside the car and roll the damn thing into storage and out of my life for a long while.