Bad day for the project

[Toolman_69]

Last Friday was a bad day for me. I got off work early when I got home I hopped in the truck and drove it to grab some lunch down the street. On the way home the truck popped and shut off. I coasted to a stop in front of my house. I got out and checked a few things, nothing looked out of the ordinary so I went inside. Later I noticed it was leaking antifreeze from not any of the rubber hoses. When I checked the dipstick it had probably another gallon of water added to it. Being that I didn't have any oil in my antifreeze I hoped that it was just an intake gasket. Fast forward to a couple of days ago when I pulled the drivers side head. I had a huge hole in my cylinder, and no piston, well actually pieces of the piston. The number 1 cylinder was full of water. My heart sank, and I shut the hood. Yes I'll get pictures uploaded. The silver lining is I have a set of 049 heads I can port. I can build the short block how I want, and really prep the bottom end for the twin turbo setup I had planned on using in the future. Rant Over, anyway thanks for reading this far.

[71CHEVYSHORTBED402]

Bummer, but definitely a silver lining. Hopefully you have another ride for the time being.

[custom10nut]

That sucks.
I'm curious to see what caused it to grenade like it did.
About 20 years ago I dropped broken lock washers down my intake, which led to being sucked into the cylinders, which led to a full rebuild.
The worst part was having to tell my wife what I did.
Rebuilding them is really easy, just keep everything clean while you assemble it. Assembly lube attracts dirt and dust that will destroy a rebuild.

[Toolman_69]

I think either a head gasket let loose, or the intake gasket where the coolant passages go through just failed. When I took the intake off the only cylinders affected were 1 and 7 on the driver side bank, and the intake gasket had no sealant whatsoever on it, which leads me to believe it was the intake. Good news is that my sweet wife, this week got me another project. She managed to get a 2005 ford F150 for free from one of her business contacts. It has 378k on it, and the engine is shot. It clatters like a diesel when you turn it on, but transmission shifts fine, and no other noises. The good news is that I found a new engine out of a Crown Vic for $625 with only 66k on it. Its only a 2wd so I'll make a prerunner out it (Think Street legal Baja Trophy truck but that's a few years down the road) and add a turbo to the engine to bump up the horsepower to turn the large 37 inch tires I'm adding to it with a long travel suspension and fender mods. So yea I'll have something to drive in the meantime, and the best part is when I take it out and play with it my wife is as itching to go as I am.....She's definitely a keeper.