Rebuild questions and help with a rant :)

[joedoozer]

Hi All,

I have been lurking the forums forever it seems like. Posting occasionally putting in my 2 cents.

I am rebuilding the original 350 that came in my truck (72 LWB). I have done a few motors before, but it has been an honest 12 years since I did a complete rebuild from start to finish.

Knowing I was a bit rusty, I pulled out all my old notes and books. I sent the block off to the local speed shop to be checked for cracks, and get the machine work done. Well.......they took forever. When I say forever.....I mean 5 months. When I picked it up I was not to pleased with the work I initially saw. In a hurry I picked up the block, rods and pistons, crank, and bearings. I started checking things out today (the next day), and I noticed something.

The connecting rods have a blue ring in the middle now. I have pressed out pins before, and I used an oven. And it did not turn the rods blue. I am guessing they shade treed it and used a torch to heat the rods up. Should I be too concerned about this? The second thing I noticed were the pins were not centered. Slide the rod one direction, the pin is flush on both sides. Slide the rod the other way, the pin sticks out. This bothers me a little more. There considerable amounts of force on that wrist pin, and now 1/8" is hanging out the side on the piston. Seems to me it would work better if it were centered. The final thing I noticed was the pistons were not what I paid for. I paid Seal Pro H631CP30-8 flat top with 2 reliefs, and he gave me Seal Pro ZH345NP flat top with 4 reliefs.

This is what pushed me over the edge. I am calling them in the morning, about it all. I just need to get my argument together in my head before I start going off.

So help me put together a speech haha.

I appreciate the help, I have gotten a lot of information from this forum, and contributed where I could.

[vectorit]

5 months sounds a bit excesive to me, sheesh I'd be blowin up their phone after a week or so.
If I were you I would keep cool about it all, and head down there with your parts you have concerns with. Ask them to explain these things you notice, and express to them you are concerned with durability. (gotta be carefull there, since you could get him all fired up and defensive).
If you specifically asked for those pistons, then you should have got them unless the ones you wanted were discontinued and the ones he put on were the replacement.
Have him chack out your concerns on the rods, specifically the wrist pin concerns you have. If they are wrong, he should take care of it.

I wouldn't feel good about leaving the parts there again, for fear that they will sit on them for another extended period of time. Ask them to have the work done by a certain date, thats if he decided that the issues were in fact something wrong.

I personally have had quite a few run-ins with machine shops, and your frustration reminded me of the times I had been run around on with stupid excuses etc.
See about other machine shops in your area, maybe stop in and chat and bring up your concerns with out bashing the other shop. If they tell you that something isn't right, then you will feel that much more confident telling the guy who did the work that he needs to fix something he did incorectly.

Good luck!

[joedoozer]

Yeah thats the thing, they are kind of the only show in town. There is one other shop, and he doesn't have a phone.....he shares a phone with the single pump gas station out front. So I went with him haha.

Thanks.