'69 250 Engine Rebuild

[pgaffaney]

Hello all,
New to the forum, although I've been on the site for quite a while getting a ton of information to research the purchase of my first C10, so I wanted to say thank you for all the great knowledge out there. What a great community! I finally found/bought my truck and am ready for the fun to begin.

As for the rebuild, the truck is a '69 LB with the original 250 motor. I went back and forth about putting in a 327 or 350, but decided to keep the truck original and rebuild the 250. The 250 still runs great with strong compression. The only thing wrong is a leaking rear main seal. I had an itch to go through the motor, so I thought why not?

I started with front end disassembly...Bumper, hood, fenders, radiator, grille, etc. and now have it ready to pull the engine and transmission this upcoming weekend.

Anyways, I'm sure I'll have some questions along the way and will keep you posted on the progress.

[Rich916]

Glad you hear you're running with the 250. I did the same, no regrets, strong motor. ..Enjoy and run the wheels off.

[treveiger]

Looks nice, my truck was originally that color. It goes well on these trucks.

[Dirt's72]

Gonna be doing the same with my 250. Look forward to following along with your progress. Nice truck btw. I see you have the power steering as well. Let us know the cost to rebuild.

[GRX]

Welcome to the forum.
Good choice sticking with the straight six. Could write a couple paragraphs about their advantages over the v8 design.

[R.L.]

Great choice we need more L-6s in the world.

[70STOVEBOLT]

I would have a hard time tearing down a truck that nice. Then again, there's always room for improvement. Good luck with your build.

[CST10]

I faced the same issue in my 68'. I decided I could use the L6 as is.

[pgaffaney]

Hello,
This weekend we made decent progress on the C10. We pulled the motor and I was able to get it broken down to the block. Everything went smoothly although getting the transmission off wasn't a treat, not exactly light...Geeze. The engine internals looked good, overall. The truck only has 27,XXX miles, but one of the crank journals is showing some wear. I'm not sure if it sat for a long time and when started wasn't getting proper lubrication. The head, pistons, cylinders all visually looked to be in good shape.

The motor is off to the machine shop this week. They are going to go through it and let me know how much work is needed. I don't expect the engine to come back with any surprises, but then again you never know.


I have a couple of questions come up:

HEI distributor - My current distributor is not original (HEI) and the cap is corroded. I was thinking about going back to the original point setup. Can I even get them and do I even want one?

Inner fenders and radiator support - I want to paint them the original black, it looks to be flat black??? Does anyone know a good paint for this? I'm open to both straying or rattle can.

Painting engine and decals - I plan on rattle canning the engine. When the '69 250's came off the assembly line were they all orange including the intake and exhaust manifolds? Also, The valve cover has a "High Torque 250" decal. Was that original or did someone add that in the last 45 years? How about the air cleaner cover?

Thanks.

[70STOVEBOLT]

I have an original point type distributor if you want to go back to that. I ran a point type with a Pertronix Ignitor for years. Worked great and looked (mostly) original. The only deviation was an extra wire from the distributor to the coil. Let me know if you are interested.