Hello! I've pulled out a LA 360 motor earlier this year from my 1986 Dodge Ram W150 4x4 truck.
Long story short, the truck was given to me, it initially sat for 15 years and mostly had a severely high water concentration in the cooling system due to the ol' man forgetting to put more antifreeze in it long ago. One day as it was running (after I spent 2 weeks to get it to run), it began to puke antifreeze out the side of the block (I had flushed the cooling system prior to starting it up, so it had fresh antifreeze at the time), and initially I assumed a bad head gasket, but it turned out to be a rusted - through freeze plug behind the motor mount perch. Anyways, I attempted to sell the truck for $600 for a few months, no buyers, then parted it out eventually and made wayyyyy more parting it out than selling it whole. I've obviously kept the engine, and it's on the stand in the garage as of now.
I know it's got quite the amount of rust inside throughout the cooling jackets/system, but as I had it running it seemed to fire off of all 8 cylinders with hardly any problems, only a little smoke out the exhaust (I'll assume valve guide/umbrella seals are shot), and so I'm in a small debate whether I should do a complete rebuild or (what I like to call it) a 'half A' rebuild (re-gasket/seal - repaint - done). The motor had about 160,000 miles, whether those were hard miles under heavy loads or not, I dunno. The truck was 4-wheel drive also.
If I were to do it right, I would do a full rebuild. I have ordered brass freeze plugs for it to replace the rusty old steel ones. Have heard brass plugs aren't the best thing out there vs steel freeze plugs, but they seem to make the most sense to me to have brass plugs in there, such as - having no more rust issues, but possibly corrosion? Bet the brass plugs could become corrosive if the antifreeze isn't changed out after a certain amount of years, not really sure.
Anyways, I would think the head gaskets are probably good, maybe not if there was rust throughout the whole cooling system, cause I mean it sat for a good 15-17 years with mostly water in the system. I know it would be the ideal thing to pull the heads off and replace the head gaskets, but then that means taking the heads to a machine shop and having them check the heads for such and such, and that evidently means more $ out of my wallet. + if the heads are off to just replace the head gaskets, might as well go ahead and pop the cylinders out and replace the rings/do a whole rebuild (if you get where I'm getting at).
Not sure, give me some feedback!
If I do end up doing a full rebuild, I would want to bore it 0.010" over to correct any core shift, and maybe up my compression a bit, but still stay in the 3 standard octane fuel ranges from the gas station (don't want to run it with racing gas). I'd also really love to do a nice cam swap and get one of those wicked cool sounding wiplash cams, just not educated enough to know which cam I should get (another reason I've made this thread). Figure (if even possible) to get close to 400hp. I've considered a 408 stroker kit, but that's just too much $ for me to spend at the moment. This motor is going into my 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, and I have a 727 automatic out a '74 Dodge Charger that I will be using on it. I already got the minor trans tunnel modifications figured out for getting it in the '65 'Cuda.
So, yeah! Give me some advice on what you think I should do, and shoot me a variety of build lists for a LA 360 motor! Thanks all who've helped me in the past on here, this is really a great place to go to for any Mopar dilemmas!
Long story short, the truck was given to me, it initially sat for 15 years and mostly had a severely high water concentration in the cooling system due to the ol' man forgetting to put more antifreeze in it long ago. One day as it was running (after I spent 2 weeks to get it to run), it began to puke antifreeze out the side of the block (I had flushed the cooling system prior to starting it up, so it had fresh antifreeze at the time), and initially I assumed a bad head gasket, but it turned out to be a rusted - through freeze plug behind the motor mount perch. Anyways, I attempted to sell the truck for $600 for a few months, no buyers, then parted it out eventually and made wayyyyy more parting it out than selling it whole. I've obviously kept the engine, and it's on the stand in the garage as of now.
I know it's got quite the amount of rust inside throughout the cooling jackets/system, but as I had it running it seemed to fire off of all 8 cylinders with hardly any problems, only a little smoke out the exhaust (I'll assume valve guide/umbrella seals are shot), and so I'm in a small debate whether I should do a complete rebuild or (what I like to call it) a 'half A' rebuild (re-gasket/seal - repaint - done). The motor had about 160,000 miles, whether those were hard miles under heavy loads or not, I dunno. The truck was 4-wheel drive also.
If I were to do it right, I would do a full rebuild. I have ordered brass freeze plugs for it to replace the rusty old steel ones. Have heard brass plugs aren't the best thing out there vs steel freeze plugs, but they seem to make the most sense to me to have brass plugs in there, such as - having no more rust issues, but possibly corrosion? Bet the brass plugs could become corrosive if the antifreeze isn't changed out after a certain amount of years, not really sure.
Anyways, I would think the head gaskets are probably good, maybe not if there was rust throughout the whole cooling system, cause I mean it sat for a good 15-17 years with mostly water in the system. I know it would be the ideal thing to pull the heads off and replace the head gaskets, but then that means taking the heads to a machine shop and having them check the heads for such and such, and that evidently means more $ out of my wallet. + if the heads are off to just replace the head gaskets, might as well go ahead and pop the cylinders out and replace the rings/do a whole rebuild (if you get where I'm getting at).
Not sure, give me some feedback!
If I do end up doing a full rebuild, I would want to bore it 0.010" over to correct any core shift, and maybe up my compression a bit, but still stay in the 3 standard octane fuel ranges from the gas station (don't want to run it with racing gas). I'd also really love to do a nice cam swap and get one of those wicked cool sounding wiplash cams, just not educated enough to know which cam I should get (another reason I've made this thread). Figure (if even possible) to get close to 400hp. I've considered a 408 stroker kit, but that's just too much $ for me to spend at the moment. This motor is going into my 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, and I have a 727 automatic out a '74 Dodge Charger that I will be using on it. I already got the minor trans tunnel modifications figured out for getting it in the '65 'Cuda.
So, yeah! Give me some advice on what you think I should do, and shoot me a variety of build lists for a LA 360 motor! Thanks all who've helped me in the past on here, this is really a great place to go to for any Mopar dilemmas!
