Rebuildable Core

[haulnazz15]

How does one know if you have a rebuildable core to send a reman. engine company? I finally tore down the engine this weekend and found much worse results than I anticipated on the 351W. Seems it wasn't one cylinder that had water intrusion, but 4; and two of them had rust/corrosion bad enough I couldn't see the top of the piston without brushing some of the rust around. No idea how it happened, didn't see any water/rust trails in the exhaust, no freeze plugs popped out. Jsut a lot of rusty water passages.

In any case, if I get a marine long block from someone like USEngines or Rapido, how do I know I have a rebuildable block for them? The heads were actually in good shape, the lifters and everything oil-related looked great. Will a machine shop charge much to determine if the block/heads are core-worthy?

 

[CaptainHook]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Usually as long as you didn't have catastrophic damage like a crack, a hole, or total seizure of the engine your in the clear.

CAn you turn the assembly or is it rusted solid?

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Well, we couldn't turn the assembly when it was installed in the boat, which is why we suspected a piston rusted up. I will be cleaning up the piston heads and removing the oil pan to inspect the internal linkages (crank/rods). I will probably let the psiton tops soak in some ATF or PB Blaster to ea the rust a bit and see if maybe then we can free up the rotating assembly. I just didn't know if pistons rusted up was a qualification for an engine core not being accepted.

 

[fuzzybob]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Check with Rapido.... I don't think they need to have a core returned when you get one of their rebuilds. Good luck

 

[Bondo]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Ayuh,... Usually it's shipped to the supplier,+ then They make that determination...

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Ayuh,... Usually it's shipped to the supplier,+ then They make that determination...

I realize they will make the ultimate determination, but I wanted to know if it was going to be worth the cost of shipping it back to them. I know Rapido doesn't require one, but US Engines does.

On a slihtly brighter note, we managed to disassemble the block and hammered all of the pistons out without damaging the cylinder bores (except where the rust had been). It seems like it may be rebuildable. I will take the block to a local machine shop sometime in the next week or two and have them inspect it to see if it is solid (hot tank, magnaflux, etc). If it's good, then I'll just rebuild it myself and skip buying the long block. If the block is toast, or they'd have to sleeve a cylinder instead of being able to bore it .030 over, I'd go ahead and get the long block.

Sound like I still have my wits about me?

 

[Bondo]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Sound like I still have my wits about me?

Ayuh,... If it'll clean up with a .030" overbore,.. That's what I'd do...

 

[CaptainHook]

Re: Rebuildable Core

If you are capable of doing it on your own I say go for it. it would be about half the price!!!!

You can also check out 1800runsnew.com. I bought a 502 from them a couple years ago. They are cheaper than any I have seen for new stuff and they get them out to you fast!!!

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Oh I'm capble of it, I have most of the tooling needed to do it, would just have to rent a few items like ring compressors and dial indicator/degree wheel. I tell you what, after rebuilding this thing with new manifolds/risers and trim pump, and the new composite transom, I'll have $4K into a $4K boat, lol. At least that pretty much takes care of everything mechanical I suppose. (hopefully the outdrive stays for a while) Thanks for letting me bounce some ideas around.

 

[dpoff]

Re: Rebuildable Core

I`d for sure try to figure out where the water got in before I`d rebuild the engine and have the same thing happen again.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Well, as long as the block is solid, there won't be a single part reused from the previous setup so it won't much matter where the water got in at. I would still suspect bad riser gaskets, but there were rusted cylinders on both sides, but only the tops. The rotating assembly was clean, as were the springs/lifters/cam. The only rust was a bit on the combustion chambers. The risers/manifolds looked like originalsfrom 1976.

 

[haulnazz15]

Re: Rebuildable Core

Lol, well luckily this is a 351!! Just playin, I wouldn't go with this block if it came out that it needed a sleeved cylinder. I also won't allow any more than a .030 overbore. I want to get at least another 30 years out of this engine build.