[Chaparralman1974]

6/10/2023 - 6/18/2023
Assembly and Installation of Engine
The engine build is finally done! A little history on the engine….So, I purchased the block, crank, pistons, rods and heads from a guy on Facebook Marketplace. The story I was told was that it was rebuilt, but somehow got water in it so they took it apart and put it in storage. I was also told that the heads were just redone and were bolt on ready. I got it all for $600 and he even threw in a new Isky camshaft. I couldn’t believe my luck! Well, as things like this usually go, it was too good to be true. As it turns out the block needed to be bored because it would appear that they ran the engine and got it hot enough to screw up the bores. The crank also needed to be ground .020/.020 and the heads apparently were trashed as well. My machine shop guy said that the heads were done in a very amateur way and basically, I bought a paint job. So, I just had the machine shop do it all….complete rebuild of the heads, overbore to .040 on the cylinders, align hone the block (apparently the guy also either mixed up the main caps or they were from another motor, and also had to resize the rods. After all of that, I spent more money on parts and labor than what a turnkey motor would have run me, but I did have the satisfaction of assembling the motor by myself. It has been more than 30 years since I assembled a smallblock chevy and I enjoyed doing it. This weekend I was also able to get the motor installed into the chassis. It goes without saying that I also installed a brand new flywheel, clutch, and throwout bearing as well.