[Ben M.]

Originally Posted by b-man

Other than finding NOS pieces (good luck) or good used I seriously doubt it.

Bummer, that's what I thought. Looking at some of the 50's era Pontiac v8s, they can be an expensive proposition when the engine is open and crusty or missing parts.

[Vol]

I had a 59 Catalina with 2brl 389 and auto, pretty much the same engine as you have in this post. It only needed all the rubber components replaced as they were all hard, new distributor cap wires and plugs, cleaned out the carb and ran it for 15 years. The car had 98,000 when I sold it in 2010. Those early 389s where awesome, even in a two barrel.

The tranny was bullet proof. I never touched it in all the time I had the car. Most interesting thing about the tranny is reverse is at the very bottom of the gear selector. PND21R if I remember right.

I never pulled it apart so it's interesting to see how these are put together.

[pfilean]

Good interesting stuff b-man - keep it coming.
As to the cooling tubes - are you sure those are originals or someone's attempt at a repop? I thought I had heard before that the originals would rust out with time hence would not be stainless. I would have to recheck my old information regarding galvanic corrosion. If I remember correctly stainless in contact with steel would cause galvanic corrosion of the steel. So I would expect the factory originals to be steel and not stainless to prevent such corrosion. Maybe that is not true for cast iron in contact with stainless. But if yours are a homemade repop out of stainless maybe that would explain the poor fit and crushed area at the inlet end.

[b-man]

Originally Posted by pfilean

Good interesting stuff b-man - keep it coming.
As to the cooling tubes - are you sure those are originals or someone's attempt at a repop? I thought I had heard before that the originals would rust out with time hence would not be stainless. I would have to recheck my old information regarding galvanic corrosion. If I remember correctly stainless in contact with steel would cause galvanic corrosion of the steel. So I would expect the factory originals to be steel and not stainless to prevent such corrosion. Maybe that is not true for cast iron in contact with stainless. But if yours are a homemade repop out of stainless maybe that would explain the poor fit and crushed area at the inlet end.

I'd say these tubes are either originals, an OEM replacement part or an aftermarket equivalent from back in the day.

Steel tubes would have failed miserably in this application, the use of antifreeze with corrosion inhibitors wasn't common back then. These stainless tubes exhibit absolutely no corrosion. There's a thin coating of rust deposits on the tubes which is typical of what you'd expect to find inside the entire water jacket of any old cast iron engine.

Hasty assembly is what caused the damage to these tubes, they're not home-brewed. They're clearly a precision part made from very thin stainless sheetmetal with a folded seam.

I think whoever did the tube install didn't realize that they didn't necessarily need to fit flush with the opening in the head, they could have left them sticking out by up to 1/4" and still have the water inlets attach and function just fine. However they clearly hammered in the last bit, crushing the back end of the tubes a little and really messing up the front ends.

As I previously stated, there's not a lot of information or pictures available of these tubes. So here's a bit of first-hand info to digest.

[Ben M.]

Originally Posted by b-man

Steel tubes would have failed miserably in this application, the use of antifreeze with corrosion inhibitors wasn't common back then.

My favorite part of reading up on 50's era Pontiacs is reading the service manual and it specifically telling you NOT to use salt or alcohol to lower the freezing point of the water\coolant ;-)

[pfilean]

Not trying to start one of those long endless discussions here - just thinking about possibilities. But any corrosion with stainless tubes would occur within the head casting and not the tube as the stainless would be the more noble metal. And yours are quite clearly stainless of some type. Proper recommended antifreeze would prevent galvanic corrosion to tubes just as it was supposed to prevent corrosion after the timing covers were made aluminum. Same problem different location. Salt as Ben M points out would be very bad as it makes a good electrolyte.

Anyway, as you are apparently faced with reusing the tubes you have be aware that there are left and right in a 59 engine. Not sure why as the heads are essentially interchangeable except which end has plugs in the core holes to make them left and right.

Only other curious statement I find on the subject comes from a Motors Manual which says:
"A water distributor tube (inlet tube) is located in each cylinder head. Whenever a valve job is being done, these tubes should be pulled out and examined. If damage or corroded install new tubes."

So at one time replacement tubes were available. Just had to be installed correctly.

[b-man]

I am keeping track of the original locations of each tube so they'll end up back where they belong.

Hopefully I can do a good enough job of straightening them, but if it was running okay before with the ends crushed like they were it should all work out just fine.

[Tom Vaught]

We have a UAW Master Welder at work who can tig weld a 1/8" wide bead on a .020" thick piece of stainless feeler gage. I would think that the parts could be repaired with some thin replacement stainless metal by the right welder guy.

Tom V.

[Bill Hanlon]

Tubes in '58 heads were stainless. I've heard rumors, but have no first hand knowledge, that the '55 tubes were brass.

I never pulled the tubes on my '57 V8, but they still worked OK with about 230,000 miles on them when it was totaled.

[b-man]

.....an oil pan in better shape than this one.

Imagine that, the oldest Pontiac engine I've ever had the pleasure to play around with has the most perfect oil pan, not a dent or ding to be seen. It was also the filthiest one I've ever had to clean.

Oil pan porn.





Here you can clearly see where the new for 1959 Pontiac light blue paint dripped down the sides of the pan while the engine was being painted on the assembly line over 56 years ago.









Back on again keeping dirt out of the 389.



The timing cover cleaned up pretty nice too.

I can't believe how heavy it is.

[77 TRASHCAN]

Cool! What's next?

[b-man]

Originally Posted by 77 TRASHCAN

Cool! What's next?

Right now more cleaning and inspection.

Before long three correct restored 1959 Tri-Power carbs will be on their way here.

I'll be sending out my front carb to get rebuilt/re-plated at the same time as the other two I'm purchasing to complete the set.

I'm just having fun learning everything I can about this early all-iron Pontiac 389.

[MarkS57]

Great thread, are you going to pull the heads?

Interesting to see how the Pontiac V8 developed. The 62 I rebuilt still had that 4 bolt water pump and that crazy cork front seal but the timing cover was aluminum not cast iron and no reverse flow heads of course. Also had the hinged oil pump pick up. There was a dished piston version available that would allow for a regular gas 389. Mine was the venerable 4bbl 10.25:1 303hp version, great production engine.

BR's,

Mark

[Bill Hanlon]

As long as the timing cover is off, grind off the tab at the very bottom of the passenger's side, below the motor mount bolt hole, to match the bottom on the driver's side. Do this in case you ever mount a belt-driven accessory (A/C compressor in my case) outboard of the passenger's side valve cover. If you don't cut the tab off the V belt going from the crank pulley to the A/C compressor will hit the tab.

Picture all the way at the bottom of this page: http://www.pontiacsafari.com/L1Garag...ealUpgrade.pdf

[77 TRASHCAN]

Originally Posted by b-man

Right now more cleaning and inspection.

Before long three correct restored 1959 Tri-Power carbs will be on their way here.

I'll be sending out my front carb to get rebuilt/re-plated at the same time as the other two I'm purchasing to complete the set.

I'm just having fun learning everything I can about this early all-iron Pontiac 389.

Cool!
I have a 455 I recently purchased, doing similar work to. FWIW, auto trans fluid completely loosened all carbon deposits in the chambers. Previous owner poured some in each cyl., at my request.
I removed both heads a couple weeks later, found 2 cyl's rusted up, but will clean up @ .030 . I filled up each cyl. up w/ ATF and reinstalled both heads, lightly tightening them with 1/2" impact (put old head gaskets back on).
Cyl's should be a little better, when I get back at it again. On the good cyl's the ATF got past the rings and into the pan. The old head gaskets are holding the trams fluid in the cyl's, not leaking externally...

Was hoping for a runner that I could put some rings in and experiment, but engine is the best 455 I've found, will eventually serve a purpose...
I had a hydro magic in a 64 Bonneville, was cool, first gear was like 4:1. Wish I still had that car...

[77 TRASHCAN]

Oh yeah,
You might be able to contact an industrial bearing company for a modern timing cover seal, just need measurements...

[b-man]

Originally Posted by MarkS57

Great thread, are you going to pull the heads?

Interesting to see how the Pontiac V8 developed. The 62 I rebuilt still had that 4 bolt water pump and that crazy cork front seal but the timing cover was aluminum not cast iron and no reverse flow heads of course. Also had the hinged oil pump pick up. There was a dished piston version available that would allow for a regular gas 389. Mine was the venerable 4bbl 10.25:1 303hp version, great production engine.

BR's,

Mark

It's looking like I will be yanking the heads pretty soon. Cleaning the carbon off the pistons and just generally cleaning up the heads needs to be done. I also have a better set of valve springs that I took off of some '64 GTO heads that I want to use.

Originally Posted by Bill Hanlon

As long as the timing cover is off, grind off the tab at the very bottom of the passenger's side, below the motor mount bolt hole, to match the bottom on the driver's side. Do this in case you ever mount a belt-driven accessory (A/C compressor in my case) outboard of the passenger's side valve cover. If you don't cut the tab off the V belt going from the crank pulley to the A/C compressor will hit the tab.

Picture all the way at the bottom of this page: http://www.pontiacsafari.com/L1Garag...ealUpgrade.pdf

Thanks for the tip Bill.

Originally Posted by 77 TRASHCAN

Oh yeah,
You might be able to contact an industrial bearing company for a modern timing cover seal, just need measurements...

I have a few new timing cover seals here already, I'll ask a friend who has a Bridgeport mill handy to help out with boring out the front cover to accept a seal.

[70 bird]

Thanks for posting the teardown info b-man, very good thread!

[Bruce Meyer]

Agree! This is a very cool thread. That oil pan looks like its a lot deeper than the later ones.

[b-man]

Originally Posted by Bruce Meyer

Agree! This is a very cool thread. That oil pan looks like its a lot deeper than the later ones.

Thanks, I was hoping some of the PY members here would be interested in seeing some of the differences between an early V8 and the later ones we're all most familiar with. No sexy aftermarket parts, just plain old Pontiac engineering from the early years laid out for all to see.

Good eye on the oil pan Bruce, I really never noticed.

I measured my '64 421 HO oil pan and it is 6-7/8" deep at the center of the flat portion of the sump to the top of the pan rail.



The 1959 pan measures 7-7/8" in the same spot, one full inch deeper.