Freshly Rebuilt 350-Crankcase full of coolant

[Eveready]

I'm enjoying the banter.
Got it all put back together and fired it up yesterday. Idled it for probably half an hour and I rode around for close to an hour today. Against all odds, it seems to be keeping oil, combustion gasses, and coolant where they rightfully belong.
So nice to be driving this thing again. Its been parked or in some form of disassembly since mid September. I really appreciate everyone's input. I guess we'll see how long it lasts.

Congrats! Looks like you have that jewel on a downhill pull . Happy for you.

 

[df2x4]

Now when it comes to LS based engines that's a different story! Them sumbitches will break if you try to reuse them!

Tell that to Matt of Sloppy Mechanics. He made over 1K HP on reused stock LQ4 TTY head bolts.

Not something I'd do personally but it was pretty damn impressive.

 

[honkon]

This engine build was doomed before I even bolted the mains on. Multiple fatal mistakes. #1 forgot to seal threads on head bolts, #2 didn't rinse debris out of block before assembly, #3 didn't weld oil pickup into pump.
First issue to rear its head after the head bolts was the oil pickup. The tolerance was too loose and it fell out after a while, requiring removal of the oil pan to weld the pickup back in place...twice. During this I found small deposits of gravel-like debris in the crank case. I removed a couple rod bearing caps and found scored bearings and journals after less than 10k miles. I then reassembled it and sold it ASAP.
My hypothesis is these foreign debris got into the block while it was at the machine shop getting hot tanked and honed. Then they stayed there because I didn't rinse out the block before assembly. This was the first engine I built, and first vehicle I did major repair on. Many, many foolish mistakes were made.

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[GoToGuy]

So in the next printing of How to Rebuild your 350/ 5.7 we can insert your "this happened to me" , don't do it this way, and cleanliness is next to long life high mileage and reliabilty. You heard the one, " if you don't know follow instructions, or get the book and follow it to the letter. If i had done this the next words i would heard would be " what do you want for your last meal"

 

[GoToGuy]

So does 125,000 psi breaking strength X 5 equal to or greater than the given 42,000 ( psi or total pressure) cylinder ignition? The head bolt set i last ordered were not stated as torque to yield. Same as ones I first used in 1973 . Difference is now have sealant on allready. Cast iron block, cast iron heads. Perfect flats. Correct gaskets. No exotic metals.