How much does it cost to rebuild a Slant 6

nm9stheham said
Machine shop work was $440 total at a good shop but such work is pretty cheap here in the mountains; included block hot tank and rust tank, block bore and hone, all 12 new valve guides installed and fitted, above-average quality valve job, press off/on pins and pistons, install new cam bearings, shave head .030".

Parts were around $550 including these new parts: Stock cast pistons and moly top rings, main and rod bearings, cam bearings, timing chain, about half of the valves were replaced with new ones, all gaskets, blueprinted oil pump.

Add in some miscellaneous lubes and paint and other stuff and you end up at around $1100. All the non-machining labor we did here. We did not have any significantly damaged parts to replace, but we did replace the oil pump with a blueprinted one just to make the oiling system as soild as it can be.

In addition to this, I decided to put in a mild upgraded cam, and all new valve springs (For $2 each, why not?!?) That all ran about another $300 shipped.

Hey nm9stheham, just out of curiosity, what cam did you use and where did you get it?

I just picked up my unassembled 1964 225 short block over the weekend. He charged me $132 to bore and hone the 6 holes .040 over. He also thoroughly cleaned the block by tanking it and then shot blasting in a cabinet w/ a rotisserie. ($90?) I had miked the crank and was pretty sure it was good. He checked and said yeah it just needed polishing so standard main and rod bearings. I had him do the polishing for $36 since he has a lot more experience than me and I had him polish the rope seal serrations off the rear main seal area so I can use a "modern" rubber seal. Used an Enginetech premium ring (moly) kit that was less than $300. The pistons included are Silv-o-lite, rings are Hastings, and the bearings are King. So far I have just over $600 in the block work, parts and gaskets. I will do the assembly and painting. This engine had not been run since at least 1982 and I could not turn it over with a breaker bar. It turned out that 5 of the 6 connecting rod pins were frozen in the pistons. There was a lot of internal sludge and cooling system corrosion so i didn't want to skimp on the cleaning. The entire bottom of the engine was heavily oil-covered as was the manual 3 speed tranny. Every square inch of the tranny was caked with gunk. I just do not want to have any overheating issues in the future and want a solid engine I can drive anywhere.
I stiil have to get a head to him but Dutra says not to put any money in old heads but look for a 68 or newer which I have not found yet.

If I can find a better cam cheap I'll probably do that. Otherwise I'll just put this thing together as is so I can drive it by summer. The brakes need a lot of work for instance.

This guy is in his 70's and still works 7 days/week. Been machining engines since 1961. All his equipment is Sunnen and I really like his work. I was looking around his shop and saw that he has honing plates for SB and BB Chryslers. He is currently doing 2 340's for someone.