Opened up an old 400 - what is this???

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mopowers

mopowers

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I popped the heads off an old 400 I got from a buddy of mine. This is just a stocker I plan to use to get my 66 Dart back on the road while I finish the hotrod motor (470).

Under the passenger side head, there were some metal chips in one of the small water passages (I believe it's a cooling passage). They look more like drill chips than pieces of thread. They're also really clean and kinda fresh looking. Any idea what they could be from, or why they'd end up where they did??? They are marked with blue arrow. Could they be remnants from the last round of machine work?

I also noticed whoever rebuilt it (has 30 over pistons), stamped all of the cylinder numbers on the deck surface (yellow arrows). Why would someone have done this????

Overall, I'm very pleased at the condition of it. It should work well to get this beater back on the road.

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Here is a close up of the chips.

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mopowers said:
I popped the heads off an old 400 I got from a buddy of mine. This is just a stocker I plan to use to get my 66 Dart back on the road while I finish the hotrod motor (470).

Under the passenger side head, there were some metal chips in one of the small water passages (I believe it's a cooling passage). They look more like drill chips than pieces of thread. They're also really clean and kinda fresh looking. Any idea what they could be from, or why they'd end up where they did??? They are marked with blue arrow. Could they be remnants from the last round of machine work?

I also noticed whoever rebuilt it (has 30 over pistons), stamped all of the cylinder numbers on the deck surface (yellow arrows). Why would someone have done this????

Overall, I'm very pleased at the condition of it. It should work well to get this beater back on the road.

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Here is a close up of the chips.

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could have been something as simple as a broken bolt that was drilled out in the cooling system like a t stat bolt ,and the debris went into the cooling system and got collected at a small passage ??
 
famous bob said:
The ark of the covenant is in heaven , I cant remember which chapter and verse its in ----------------
Click to expand...

Austin 3:16

Then crowd that came together became uncontrollable as he stood up high and proclaimed "And thats the bottom line because Stone Cold said so!"
 
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Why in the fuckin' **** would you stamp the cylinder numbers on the block? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard and I bet this block was a fluffer at a trade school so the dope smoking kids wouldn't spend all day making ninja stars and ****.

I would deck that off if you're going to use anything other composite head gaskets. At the very least, stone those number stamps flat.
 
Yep ... I bet someone heli coiled the water neck holes whithout removing intake . Doubt they will harm anything .
As for the cylinder stampings ?????

Like mentioned maybe it was a classroom block.
 
jos51700 said:
Why in the fuckin' **** would you stamp the cylinder numbers on the block? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard and I bet this block was a fluffer at a trade school so the dope smoking kids wouldn't spend all day making ninja stars and ****.

I would deck that off if you're going to use anything other composite head gaskets. At the very least, stone those number stamps flat.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming your kids don't look on here or you don't have any
 
mbaird said:
Yep ... I bet someone heli coiled the water neck holes whithout removing intake . Doubt they will harm anything .
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Click to expand...

I would agree except that looks like a mighty big pile of chips to just be two water neck drill outs, and I haven't seen cast chips like that for installing two heli-coils. So IDK. But I sure am curious
 
It'll probably remain a mystery forever. The chips are cleaned up and the bottom end is awaiting reassembly. I will look things over for helicoils.
 
Big block....drillings from the water neck would fall onto the garage floor and no water flows in the intake but you guys knew that. Besides previous machining the only place that much drilling might have possibly been needed would be the exhaust manifold stud holes, and only on stock heads.
If you're surfacing it then the stamps are a non-issue but otherwise they won't hurt a damn bit. Judging by the carbon and visible cross-hatch I'd say that thing ran fine before you got it...
 
So, I took some measurements and did some math on this cast iron turd. With the pistons .120" in the hole, .039" gasket, and 90 cc chambers (906s), this beast is right at a whopping 7.4:1 compression. LOL!!! I should be able to start this turd with a coil of rope once it's back together.
 
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