I was reading the "when did you rebuild your first engine" thread, and it brought to mind "What Rebuilds Went Bad on Ya?".
I've had a couple. The most frustrating was probably the '73 (I think) Saab that belonged to a shop that my buddy owned. The goal was to fix it cheap and sell it. So I came over (hey, I'm the engine expert, right) and did a ring and bearing job on it. It ran a couple of hundred miles and the rods came back clattering (it had been sold). Pulled the engine back out, mic'ed the crap out of everything, all looked OK, so I decided I had a bad set of bearings. Reassembled the motor, reinstalled it - yep, back in 200 or so miles again. Sent the rods out for reconditioning and that cured it. I still haven't figured out how the rods could mic OK and not BE OK. The only thing I could figure was that the surface finish on the rods was wrong to hold the bearing shells in place, but the squish should be the main driver on that, and that measured OK. Who knows?
My only attempt at a SBC rebuild also went bad - maybe the reason I'm NOT wild about SBCs. All the bearings continued to fail in that one. I even found a junkyard 350 shortblock which failed the bearings without me ever touching it. Somebody said that I likely got a Pontiac distributor and that the oil galley seal area was incorrect so oil didn't get to the bottom end. No idea if that's correct. It was my bros truck, and he has less patience than I do, so he dragged the truck off after the 3rd. try so I never did resolve this one. Because it was unsuccessful, I continue to claim that I have never rebuilt a SBC.
Just so you don't think I'm a total idiot, I need to say that I HAVE rebuilt a BUNCH of engines successfully - usually weird-os.
Later
Dan
I've had a couple. The most frustrating was probably the '73 (I think) Saab that belonged to a shop that my buddy owned. The goal was to fix it cheap and sell it. So I came over (hey, I'm the engine expert, right) and did a ring and bearing job on it. It ran a couple of hundred miles and the rods came back clattering (it had been sold). Pulled the engine back out, mic'ed the crap out of everything, all looked OK, so I decided I had a bad set of bearings. Reassembled the motor, reinstalled it - yep, back in 200 or so miles again. Sent the rods out for reconditioning and that cured it. I still haven't figured out how the rods could mic OK and not BE OK. The only thing I could figure was that the surface finish on the rods was wrong to hold the bearing shells in place, but the squish should be the main driver on that, and that measured OK. Who knows?
My only attempt at a SBC rebuild also went bad - maybe the reason I'm NOT wild about SBCs. All the bearings continued to fail in that one. I even found a junkyard 350 shortblock which failed the bearings without me ever touching it. Somebody said that I likely got a Pontiac distributor and that the oil galley seal area was incorrect so oil didn't get to the bottom end. No idea if that's correct. It was my bros truck, and he has less patience than I do, so he dragged the truck off after the 3rd. try so I never did resolve this one. Because it was unsuccessful, I continue to claim that I have never rebuilt a SBC.
Just so you don't think I'm a total idiot, I need to say that I HAVE rebuilt a BUNCH of engines successfully - usually weird-os.
Later
Dan
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