[njsteve]

Celebrated the first day of Spring with a nice drive in Gramma's car. I let my daughter drive the car a little, too. She drives like a gramma: slow, both hands on the wheel, head on a swivel.

We now officially have 1,000 miles on my son's engine rebuild. The car runs great, though he has a few years before he gets to drive anything other than a lawnmower, (which is what his sister learned how to drive on).

[The Boss]

NICE!

[Old Goat 67]

REALLY NICE!

[JAA]

Man that thing looks awesome!!

[75Fire]

Looks great......would look even better sitting next to mine in the garage...lol

[njsteve]

She's a family heirloom. Cant ever sell this baby after its been in the family for four generations.

:-)

[njsteve]

I'm getting itchy and I need a new project to work on with the boy.

I have been thinking about finding a 455 short block to rebuild and then bolt on the 6x-4 heads and top end parts from the freshly rebuilt 350 on it. Already had Cliff do the 1972 Quadrajet and Rocky set up the distributor. The 350 with its (barely 160 horsepower) is just too lame.

I'd throw on a set of the D-port ram air exhaust manifolds and have some fun.

Anyone have a lead on a nice 455 shortblock that needs rebuilding?

[OVERULD]

That's gonna be sweet Steve! Grandma would love it!

BJ

[njsteve]

Where have all the smog year 455s gone? Now that I need one, I can't find one. I already have the leftover crank and rods from my 455HO T/A that I rebuild a decade ago. So now I need a block to put them in.....

[njsteve]

Well, I found a nice block here in NJ on craigslist. It's allegedly out of 1971 GTO convertible that some guy swapped an LS engine into. He traded the 455 engine for the LS engine but left the 455 at the machine shop for six years so not much of the engine was left at the shop as you would expect if you abandoned your engine somewhere for 6 years - just the block and some misc pieces remained.

The block was bored .030 over. The current bore is 4.180. Looks like it may have been bored and then used as a door stop at the machine shop for half a decade.

It's a 1971 YC (455/325 horse D-port) engine with two-bolt main caps. Maybe...







It's got a casting date of F050 (June 5, 1970) with a "70" cast on the back of the 9799140 casting block. Is it a late 1970 cast block from an early 71 455/325 horse car? or it is a late 1970 455/360 horse engine that was the one year only 455HO high compression engine? Feel free to chime in with more info if you have it. It seems to be a weird code/year from what I see on various websites and I don't seem to be the first person to run into this conundrum.



The partial VIN looks like 221302638



I spent the afternoon chasing every bolt hole and then scrubbing the thing down and finally power washing the cobwebs out. I then used a scotch bright on the cylinders and oiled them down once everything dried out.

[njsteve]

The seller also had some other parts that were from that car. A E211 dated (May 21st) 1971 intake and 7041262 dated 68th day of 1971 455 carb.



The intake is weird because it is a 1971 481733 casting number but has the unique rectangular 1972 choke pull that runs parallel to the carb and not perpendicular.

[njsteve]

I found a standard dimension, original 455 crankshaft 25 miles from my house! I posted a wanted listing here on the site and a PY member "STAGS", just over the border in PA answered. It is a 1970 nodular iron casting and was just as rusty as the block I found last week.




So I bought four gallons of Evapo-Rust from advanceautoparts (using their $25 off $70 purchase coupon) and made a makeshift bathtub from a crankshaft box and heavy duty layers of plastic sheeting. If you're wondering, I also put a few beer bottles in to raise the liquid level up to completely cover the crank.



The stuff works amazingly well in the hot sun. Within seconds the rust disappeared. I let it soak for about an hour, turning it and wiping the journals every 10 minutes or so, to get the residue off so the liquid could work faster.



Here's the final result after drying it off and spraying it with oil.




On Monday I will drop it off at the machine shop to see what it needs (polishing versus cutting).

[johnta1]

Nice!

Better than molasses?

[njsteve]

I never tried molasses. Is it better than maple syrup for crankshaft dipping?
;-p

[The Boss]

Amazing!

[johnta1]

I never tried molasses. Is it better than maple syrup for crankshaft dipping?

Rust Removal by Molasses video

[njsteve]

Wow, that's amazing. (the molasses takes a while though). I think it is working on the same principle as the evapo-rust which is a PH difference that causes the iron oxide particles to leave the part and transfer to the liquid.

BTW, I think a comparable amount of molasses would probably be more expensive than the evapo-rust, if you wanted it to work quicker than three weeks.

[njsteve]

I decided to "blueprint" the oil pump today. Not much to it other than verifying that there is no crap inside the casting.

I'm glad I took a look. This is a brand-new Melling M54DS oil pump. Inside, all of the machined surfaces were incredibly sharp and I found tiny metal burrs and little shards that were just sitting there, waiting to get pumped in to engine. NEVER trust a new pump without looking inside it first.

Here is the housing once I pulled the gears out. See how sharp the edges are?



Now take a closer look and you can see a metal splinter leftover from the machining process that was under the gear, as well as burrs on the edges of the machined passages.




I spent a while with a Dremel tool and some fine sandpaper smoothing all the internal edges. I also used a 1/2" drill bit to open up the feed hole that mounts to the block to it's correct 1/2" size. It was rough cast from two halves and they were not matched up correctly. I then washed and scrubbed and brushed the housing out in hot water and soap.

Here is the housing after the edges were smoothed and before washing:




And the final pump reassembled. I packed it with grease so it will prime instantly when the times comes.

[Alvin]

Great thread & very entertaining. Thx for sharing!

[njsteve]

Update from the machinist: He examined the crank and said I could run the crank "as is" but if it was his engine he'd cut it .010/.010 just to make it perfect. So that's what we're gonna do. We should know about the block dimensions tomorrow.