T-Bird Car Restoration Project Part 4 - Rebuilding the Engine

To Recap...

Before removing the engine we rigged up an ignition and fuel delivery system in an attempt to assess its condition. In spite of fuel leakage in the "teapot" carburetor the old motor started up and ran quite smoothly, but there was lots of blue smoke. We weren't worried about the smoke because we'd be replacing all of the components that might be the cause. We then took it apart for a rebuild.

While the engine was still in the chassis, we began removing everything that could be removed.

Down to the bare block...

The Engine Rebuild

The engine's bottom end was very intact and had obviously been recently rebuilt (by "recently" we mean that the engine had been worked on in the early 90s, then the car was sold and subsequently stored for restoration). The bearings had been replaced and there was [still not dissolved by oil] assembly lube on the rod ends and main bearing journals. This means the engine was run for a very short time before being sold off to the next owners.

Note the excellent condition of the journals.

We removed the pistons and rods and discovered two problems. One piston had a hole in the top that penetrated 2/3rds of the depth and another had probably been dropped on the floor, locking in the top ring. All pistons had been assembled with the ring end grooves in line rather than staggered. The flawed pistons and ring end grooves certainly added to the smoking problem. We decided to replace all the pistons, along with rings, bearings, seals, etc., during the rebuild. We saw that the existing pistons were .040 oversized, and measured the bores to verify that there wasn't too much clearance before ordering new pistons (due to the two damaged pistons). We also put a micrometer on the crankshaft journals to measure the dimensions for the so that we could order the correct-size inserts. During Parts were ordered right away, as was a new Edelbrock carburetor, Pertronix electronic ignition and matching coil.

Here's the reason for the smoking.

Dirty Work

The heads were in pretty good condition overall, but we decided to re-seat each of the valves by using compound and the old "spin by hand" technique. First, however, all components had to be cleaned and prepared for paint. We removed the grease and oil from the block and heads using solvent. Then we hooked up the pressure washer and blasted out the cooling passages. The pressure washer also did a fair job of removing loose paint and rust on the exterior surfaces.

We flushed out the water jacket with our pressure washer.

When honing the cylinders, try to maintain a good cross-hatch pattern.

T-Bird Car Restoration Project - Part 4 - Continued on Page 2