Craigslist Engine Prep - Chevy 327

[Music] so I went on Craigslist and I found this 327 engine for sale pretty cheap it's got some the heads were reworked on it recently well it's been sitting for 20 years but the heads were reworked with him 300 miles on it and it's only got yeah like I said 300 miles on it and it should be completely solid it had to do the oil pressure when it was running last and I'm hoping this will be a quick easy fix and just a few things to it I got an aluminum intake put it maybe the Edelbrock car bright back from the other car right onto this and this will be a quick easy turnaround for the Impala just a kind of a stock just set it in and then I got that 350 that was a 4 bolt main that I'm gonna probably build up this winter when I have time and that would go into the Impaler then but doing a lot of traveling for work so this is just a quick easy option just to get the car running and hash out any other problems that I might be having but yeah just start with I mean it was when it was stored every single port was closed you can see the the breathers were closed the carburetor wasn't - actually it was sitting open just how it is right now but as the water lines those were all plugged so everything there even the exhaust manifolds they had plugs in them so there shouldn't be any mice or anything going on in it just mostly all the hoses need replaced obviously I bought a new timing chain and harmonic balancer for it and oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets and I'm really hoping that will get me by alongside lumina min takes in the carburetor switch but I was looking I was gonna try to use this distributor but I'm at least to need a new cap on it I'm looking down here on the bottom of new internals also at least so this wire right here is cut off and frayed tough to see but so it's gonna need a little work but figured I'd decreases decently not very well and then just kind of shoot it with some orange paint so it doesn't look terrible and throw it in the car with the new seals and everything so hopefully it'll work them so that's gonna be my plan hopefully get the car running the next couple weeks okay so I took the carburetor off and I you know you look down into this into here and I'm kind of glad I bought a new one so I got all that rust down in there I'd have to get rid of somehow if I was gonna run the engine so got that off a to the shop back and just kind of vacuumed off what's ever on top here because I think I'm gonna be eventually pulling off the intake at least and it's just better to be clean not get all that dust down in there next thing there was some rust down underneath the valve cover on this side on the head there so I'm gonna pull off the valve cover here to try to clean that up tape up the top and just keep any extra dirt from getting down in there and then just kind of go from there okay so here's what it looks like under the valve cover here I went ahead and taped up the intake port and also the water passages just because I don't want anything extra growing through there they're kind of grungy in there I'm not sure if I'll be able to use the water pump if I do I'll probably be you know fill up the radiator run at 500 miles I have to read drain it and try running it again but you look in here and you just got a bunch of dirt and grime in here I already vacuumed it out too so this is after vacuuming it so this is just the stuff that's kind of stuck in there more that might be a spider web in there but yeah this is the rust I was talking about I'm gonna try to just clean that up I got a couple of what do you call it scuffing pads um so see what I can get done with that and my plan is once I kind of get the rust off of it vacuum it as much as I can without using any liquids just keeping it dry keeping everything out of oil just here and then I'll just put some more pour oil and some cleaner in on the top side here and let it drain right back down into the engine and do the other side too and then you know like I said it all goes down into pans to change the oil so that's my plan I know that isn't really the best idea it's not good for your engine to have all that grit and grime and this really should be thoroughly cleaned if I was gonna run it for a long time but I'm just trying to get through to the winter time when I build up a new engine so this will really hurt the engine I think but you know what I think it's going to be okay if it's been run the bottom ends not been rebuilt so maybe I have some bigger bearing clearances in there hopefully I do so I don't ruin it completely but I'm gonna do the best I can on the top side here without going into it and just keep it clean but Andrea just realize that I'm gonna be building up a new engine for the car come winter time so I don't have to be overly excessive for it just keep it clean enough so they'll run for a season okay so I've gone through this and kind of cleaned it up best I can dry just by using the vacuum shot towel a little bit scotch-brite and this wire brush it's got plastic fingers on it that wire brush is great for getting in between the valve so I don't have to take the rocker arms off it would get right down in the groove there you can bend it to whatever shape and then work your way around and then use the vacuum quite a bit just trying to keep everything off of the head as I can the surface dress came right off and there was something right up here that came off too so it worked out pretty good like I said still gonna use that liquid cleaner do that to both sides yeah and then drain the oil maybe run it 100 miles once I get it going drain the oil again and 500 miles drain the oil and then just start a regular routine but I'm just kind of breaking it in just I know there's a lot of dirt now work its way loose so trying to keep the engine not running that through but best as I can for now without putting in all this extra time and all right so one of my exhaust valves the rocker arm is this so there's actually this one right here and so right now I turn the engine over just by hand to the full extension and what I'm doing is I'm measuring to see if the cam lobe is warm so I don't have a dial indicator or anything so what I'm doing might not be 100% right I guess but this will tell me if the cam is out of place or the cam lobe is warmer - Warren or not so what I'm doing is putting this whole style of caliper engine right next to the push rod and measuring the distance to the top of the rocker arm so that's all the way on the bottom to the top of the rock ride so what I'm gonna do is then go to a different exhaust valve keep it the same type of valve exhaust or intake and do the same measurement so I'm going to come over here still under 8 get the cylinder rate on exhaust on full extension and make that measurement again and what I'll find out is if my cam has been worn out or not if that cam lobe is gone it's gonna be not a very accurate measurement but if it's really bad it'll be obvious and if it's not that bad I'm just gonna run it for a season like I said it's just gonna be one season type deal so just gonna do that and see what happens the oil pan off to replace the gasket around it look down on the bottom you got all the sludge down here just because this engines been sitting so long it's up to about a half inch thick in places there's just disgusting stuff you know when you pull the oil it's yeah gonna clean this up just honestly just gonna power wash it get all the that gunk out of there try to clean up the inside of the engine and clean this up and throw it back on there with the new seal I guess all right so got the engine turning over upside down now with the oil pan off so what I'm doing is just scraping off the gasket here and just trying to be really careful not to getting into this gasket material into the engine so I have all these towels put in the right there I'll scrape all the gasket off pull those towels out and that should take most of material out and then I don't know I'll have to just hope for the best on the rest of it because I'm not gonna creak the whole thing apart to get every single particle out of there but try to clean out the best as I can and keep it as clean as I can as I go okay so I didn't get a real good video of this but I was on the time restraint after I put this gasket sealer on here I had five minutes to get it the next gasket but put this pan gasket on and get it this whole thing sealed too so what I did was I you put extra gasket sealer on the corners where the seal meets the block there all four corners and then I the gasket I got its setup for oil dipstick on either side so you see it sticking out here so I put some extra gasket sealer right here and I just went to the full insurance policy and gasket sealed this whole pan surface not the block with just the pan side and all the way around so hopefully that'll lead me to a good solid seal all the way around but that's just the way I went now I'm torquing everything down whereas we're working everything down according to the instructions with this pan gasket where they once is eight foot pounds on the small bolts and then the corner bolts or they're bigger and they get eighteen foot pounds so not real tight you can over tighten it and once you do that and your seal is bad then so to work it to the right spec and I think what we're gonna do is go around two times because just to make sure that it's tight after we get that initial compression and then I'll come back and check it after it gets run multiple again so that way I know I got a good solid seal all the way around okay so I got the harmonic balancer put back on pulleys back on and then I put the water pump back on reusing the same one and so I put some gasket sealer on either side of the gasket new gaskets came with the timing chain cover gasket so put those on put gas to sealer on both sides actually for this just kind of put it on a thin layer on either side so so that went leak put some gasket sealer on all the bolts also again just to be sure that we don't I don't have a problem so that doesn't leak I don't know what's on the other side if the water passages are open through the bolts so just wanted to play it safe I don't have to go back at it and do something again this way but this is it this is on should be good to go on the next thing all right so after a week off and back at the small-block 327 you know I got a new timing chain installed harmonic balance or water pump all that good stuff is all put in now and I went to set the valve lash and then I was going to take off intake manifold put on my new aluminum intake and new distributor and then thought the intern be good to go ready to go setting the valve timing or valve backlash preload I guess my cylinder to intake does not move at all so yeah I thought okay that's wrong spun it over three or four times by hand and I couldn't even notice just a little hump or anything so I don't know what happened but somewhere along the line this one went bad and this just that is one of the roundest lobes I think I've ever seen I've seen him before well though move only a little bit up or something like that but nope this is a just completely gone and it did not come up move it also that lobe has to be just completely gone so I don't know we'll see what happens gonna take the intake manifold off and see if I can get a look at the lifter and go from there I guess okay so get intake manifold off here if you look down into the bay here you see I'm kind of glad I took this off I have rust all the way down in here and it's just it was drunk I don't know what happened in here but I don't think that was all for me working around in there but there was gasket and rust and just dirt all over out and through there that's nice clean-looking water port there but just all dirty all the way through okay so the 327 sat for just a little bit once I found out that cam lobe was shot it's just kind of sat here and I was trying to figure out what to do but I just got a new camshaft so I think that's going to be just kind of thrown in there camshaft and lifters and just gonna pray that the push rods are gonna be the right size and hopefully that'll work and then throw this engine back together and stick it in the car and see if it runs see I'll see how bad it really is I guess so

Channel: iowadiy

Views: 29,794

Keywords: Chevy, impala, chevelle, 327, 350, 383, 400, small, block, 305, 302, 283, craigslist, engine, chevrolet, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970

Id: gCF8KxIEfnQ

Length: 14min 42sec (882 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 10 2017