I have been there with a '78 400-4. I tried to clean the rocker area. pulled the intake, and breastplate. I pulled a pizza out of the valley. Tried changing oil, and such, but it was a supreme hassle. If I had to do it over again, I'd do what was suggested: pull intake, rocker covers, timing cover, cam and lifters, oil pan, and pickup. Remove the hood, tow the car to the quarter car wash late at night, and blast the crap out of that engine. Then clean all you can with gasoline. Then reassemble putting everything back where it came from.The gunk you see is the lack of oil changes by the previous owner, and a lot of stop and go driving where the engine never got warm and stayed warm for a while. What to do now.........?? Choices range from nothing to complete rebuild, how much money do you wish to spend?
I'm gonna catch flack over most of this......so be it
Nothing would be new intake gaskets, bolt down the intake, put the engine into the car and start an aggressive routine of oil and filter changes and a quart of Risoline at each change, hot oil can remove alot of that.
OR, get 5 gallons of kerosene, scrape what you can out, with the pan still on wash down the valley with kero, you'll find the block eventually.
OR, very carefully take the engine appart, leave the rings on the pistons, mark them (the pistons) for what cylinder they came out of, keep the cam and lifters in order, keep the bearings in order, take the block to the car wash, blast the living day lights out of it, wash down all the parts in solvent, put the engine back together.
OR, do a complete rebuild to what level you desire.
if any small chunks get sucked up, they will accumulate in oil pump rotors, bind them up, and shear oil pump drive. If you want to tow it home when that happens, because it aint going to happen in your driveway, have at it. Been there, done that.Try putting a quart of trans fluid in the oil and run it for a day or two... Trans fluid is high detergent oil and will help clean out most of the gunk...
then inspect and scrape off what is left if any...
then change oil...
if any small chunks get sucked up, they will accumulate in oil pump rotors, bind them up, and shear oil pump drive. If you want to tow it home when that happens, because it aint going to happen in your driveway, have at it. Been there, done that.
supposed is the operative word there.The pick up screen is supposed to keep out anything that will damage the pump...
Thanks for the tips and ideas, I want to spend as little as possible right now cause I just want to get it back on the road. I’m gonna carefully clean up what I can and see how it looks then.
The rust inside the intake manifold where the thermostat housing is...would it be best just to replace it with another 318 2bbl intake or is there a way to clean inside there and get it off?
Thanks for the tips and ideas, I want to spend as little as possible right now cause I just want to get it back on the road. I’m gonna carefully clean up what I can and see how it looks then.
The rust inside the intake manifold where the thermostat housing is...would it be best just to replace it with another 318 2bbl intake or is there a way to clean inside there and get it off?
it looks like the cam and lifters are worn out, so don't expect too much.View attachment 1715098446 I carefully went and scrapped and picked what I could get out, I was careful not to get much on the cam, what little I did I shop vac’d up. It’s a start for now. I dunno if you can tell in the pic but I got a nasty amount of gunk and sludge out
View attachment 1715098446 I carefully went and scrapped and picked what I could get out, I was careful not to get much on the cam, what little I did I shop vac’d up. It’s a start for now. I dunno if you can tell in the pic but I got a nasty amount of gunk and sludge out
Back in the old days, every engine I saw open, that ran Pennzoil looked like that. MOSTLY HI MILEAGE CHEVYS.That's a start.
Back in the old days, every engine I saw open, that ran Pennzoil looked like that. MOSTLY HI MILEAGE CHEVYS.