There’s many parts of engine building that are not exactly sexy. It’s work, right? The internet tends to gussy the process up a bunch and we kind of get the sexiest version of engine construction that you can have most of the time. Well, that is not what this is. This is about being in the gritty, grimy, machine shop with your engine project and watching the experienced hands there making sure it’s a good hunk of iron to proceed with building on.
In this case the Hagerty guys know that the bores are mostly garbage but they really needed to know if the rest of the block is ok. A couple of leaking freeze plugs had them concerned that there might have been cracks on the side of the block and the magna flux process is shown here. Not just on the side of the block but on the deck of the block, the bottom end, and the cylinder head as well. Again, this is not the next stuff of showing off the shined up, huge bucks parts. This is a magnet, some powdered iron, and the experienced eyes of a guy who has been doing this a while. Ultimately it’s the most important part of the whole project because if you invest the time and money to actually build the engine and there are cracks in structural parts of the thing, you are screwed.
The detailed walk though the cleaning process of the block was cool as well. Normally you just kind of hear about this stuff but we see it and we see the evolution of the straight eight from greasy, paint faded, sadness to something that looks like it was just cast and machined yesterday.
No, this video is not the sexiest thing you will see today but if you really love the process of engine building you’ll dig every second.
