My 89 K1500

It sounds like it's time to consider a crate motor.

PlayingWithTBI said:

It sounds like it's time to consider a crate motor.

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Those are still $$$ even with my dealer discount.

1-31-23 update:

Since I'm sitting at home thanks to the ice on the roads, I figured I'd give an update to the engine I found for the 89 and my plans with it.

This engine I found at the pick n pay for $130! I had my sights set on a Vortec block since it is already hydraulic roller, I didn't have to spend unnecessary $$ to convert my TBI block. I was also searching for a fully dressed engine to help eliminate water intrusion or other contaminates in the engine. I came across about 6 fully dressed but all of them were locked solid. The one I came across was missing the intake and valve covers, but since it was the only one that would rotate and I can hear it making compression, I rolled the dice.

At first the block doesn't look too bad, but after closer inspection, it may be more work than I originally thought. There is rust in all cylinders, probably from sitting, but I can still see the cross-hatching, so I'm confident this block is save able.

Disassembly:
First thing I noticed after I took everything apart was 7 of the 8 pistons had freely moving rings(including oil control rings), the 8th one, the second ring down was stuck solid and took a bit to get free out of the piston. Also this was the only piston where the rod and wrist pin didn't want to play nicely with each other.

When I took out the crank, I noticed some fine-ish lines in all the bearings, both main and rod. I could feel them with my finger nail, but they didn't really stop my finger when I ran it across the bearing. The crank had the same fine lines but I could barely feel it across the journal.

Here's where it got interesting. When I took out the lifters, they all had minor grooves in the roller. Every. Single. One. The cam had the same groves in the matching lobes and the journals were trashed. Cam bearing were even worse. Every single bearing I could see the base material of the bearing and it was just a little bit, nearly the entire bearing was like that.

The rebuild:
To save money, I will clean and hone the block and assemble it myself. It will get new rings, bearing and probably a cam and lifters. I'll be taking the crank, cam and rods/pistons to my local machine shop to see what the condition they are in before I order new parts. Probably should take the block too and have them check it too....

Should probably try your hand honing before anything to see if that rust cleans up. If not, you'll need to punch the motor out.

I'm genuinely curious who can tell me why the bearing and cam/crank look like this. Is it because of oil starvation, contamination, something else...

I forgot to mention, I believe this may have been rebuilt at some point in it's life as I saw "1, 2,3..) stamped onto the main caps.

Supercharged111 said:

Should probably try your hand honing before anything to see if that rust cleans up. If not, you'll need to punch the motor out.

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I'm going to try that first. Hopefully the cylinders clean up pretty good...

Pff, that motor looks pretty clean to me. Post up the cam and cam bearing pics.

Supercharged111 said:

Pff, that motor looks pretty clean to me. Post up the cam and cam bearing pics.

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I didn't take any pics of those yet. I meant to but forgot...

I'd guess it was run without an air filter.