Questions from the new guy
 

Hi all...I'm new here, name's Josh. I've got a 68 long stepside, 350/350. My motor is consuming oil pretty bad...at least a quart a week depending on how much I drive it(i try to ride the motorcycle as much as I can, its a little cheaper on gas). There are no oil puddles or drips when the truck sits, so I'm guessing that it's valve seats and piston rings, so the cylinder walls are probably a little scratched up too. I changed the spark plugs a few weeks ago and they looked like they had been dipped in chocolate cake batter, just after 2 months of driving. I've heard a lot of horror stories about machine shop prices, and being that the engine is over 30 years old with an unknown amount of miles on it, i'm not so sure that I'd like to spend the time or money to revamp it. Its not the original engine so I'm not concerned about matching numbers. I was talking with the kid at advance auto parts one day and he said they could sell me a rebuilt 350 with a warranty for a thousand bucks, I just have to return my engine to them. Has anyone ever bought one of these or heard anything about them? I'm not looking for gobs of horsepower, the truck is my only 4-wheeled driver so I need it to be pretty reliable. But I would definitely like to keep a v8 in it. What do you guys usually do when you need a cheap reliable motor that you can get a decent amount of miles out of? The transmission also started slipping the other day, but I'm afraid to change the fluid because I dont know if its ever been changed before. How difficult is it to rebuild a turbo 350? I'm a harley mechanic so I'm pretty well mechanically inclined, but I'm relatively new to the four wheeled scene. I've only had the truck for a few months. Oh and another question...as far as the outside of the truck goes, I'm going to do a mild drop, flat black, paint the wheels red or black, and....is it true what I hear about all tires with raised white lettering? Are there really wide whites underneath there? If anyone can answer one or all of these questions I'd sure appreciate it. If anyone has pictures of a truck that sounds similar to what I want to do, it would be cool to to see that too. Thanks

Josh

Re: Questions from the new guy
 

If you do a search (on the left hand side of the screen at the top of this section) - you can look for "crate" and also for do some searching for the whitewall stuff (there's a post of someone who ground off the black to make wide whites) - it might take a couple different search words to find it (there's a 30 second delay between being able to do each "search"). Welcome to the site - it's nice here, no flaming allowed, friendly bunch of people and probably more than you could ever want to find out about your truck. Try the search feature - there's a TON of stuff here.

Re: Questions from the new guy
 

I've never bought a GM crate engine, but I've heard a lot of good things about them. The warrenty really makes it nice. I'd shop around for one before I bought one from advance, you may find one cheaper on Jegs or Summit or a multitude of other online stores, watch for the shipping it'll cost, so make sure the lower price makes it cheaper.

You should be able to get the tranny rebuilt for a couple hundred bucks, I'd definately go ahead and do it while you've got the motor out if it's already slipping.

Good luck, and welcome to the board.
Ronnie

Re: Questions from the new guy
 

i bought a remanufactured engine from advanced auto parts a few years ago// mismatched heads one head rebuilt with everything new other head rebuilt using all used parts, 2 out of 8cylinders bored 80thousand the other 6 cyl bored 40thousand some new some old connecting rods same with pushrods and rocker arms a real mismosh of parts // but i will say it did run good but i just had no confidance in the long term life so i sold that car pretty quickly

you look at it if you're going to buy gm is all brand new stuff for really not all the much more money

by far the easiest way is a turnkey plug and play engine if you can strech the budget / i've gotten from www.enginefactory.com and been very happy with the product

Re: Questions from the new guy
 

I went with an Advance motor about 4 years ago. They were only $800 after core back then. I've put 7K on it so far. Seems to be ok? No smoke or oil usage.

*IF* I had the $$$ I'd prefer a GM crate engine. You can get one from a local dealer for around $1,600.