1950 232 rebuild not going well

[Deleted User]

I once had a mechanic friend tell me that if he was away from it for a few months, when he came back, nothing went right for awhile. Well, this is the first engine I have tried to rebuild in over 20 years and nothing is going right. I had the engine bored, put in new pistons, new valves, and new rod inserts. The main inserts looked good to me. I convinced myself that the oil pump gear on the cam looked ok. It was not. Now I have to tear it back down to fix that. The question is how far I need to go. I have a rear main seal leak that appears to be at the junction between the upper and lower caps on the oil pump side of the engine. In addition, the head seeps water around the gasket, don't know why this is happening, I torqued to specs and retorqued after it was hot and cooled down. In addition, the distributor wobbles when the engine is running. The oil pressure seems to be around 40 to 45 when I race the engine cold, and 25 when it is a cold idle. When it get hots, the oil pressure will come up to about 25 when the engine is raced and does not show on the gauge when it is at idle. I do not have a thermostat in the engine and am running plain water. When it has been running for about half an hour, it goes to about 200 on the gauge and a little later, steam comes out the radiator. The engine does not seem that hot, but I don't know what is going on. The engine seems to run very strong and does not miss at all. Where do I go from here?????

[Deleted User]

When you had the engine bored did you have them check the cylinder deck to see if it was straight? same with the head did you have them check it for warping? might have needed to be surfaced.



On the rear main did you get the rope seal in on each side? and did you make sure it bottomed out. And did you install a new rear seal? looks like thick black rope. You should never trust the old ones. Plus when you checked the mains did you mic the crank to make sure it was still within spec? personally I would be replacing those mains and having that crank checked for size and trueness.



How did you clean the block? did you have it tanked. If so did you knock out the old freeze plugs and make sure the water jackets were clean. After you cleaned the block did you run cleaning brushes through the oil galley's?



If the distributor wobbles you should have it rebuilt with a new bushing.

Unknown

You may also have the dist. shaft in the oil pump shaft 180% off. If they are worn enough this can happen. Did you pull the water tube out of the block and clean all the crud out. The string packing must be packed in tight on the front and rear mains both places.

[Deleted User]

I didn't think you could start the car with the distributor in 180 degrees off.

Unknown

YOU CAN IF YOU MOVE THE PLUG WIRES, STARTING WITH NO ONE IN TOP DEAD CENTER AND PUTTING IN THE WIRES IN THE PROPER FIREING ORDER. i WOULD SAY THE DIST IS IN WRONG IF IT WOBBLES, HAVE SEEN IT DONE BEFORE, BILL ALBRIGHT I HOPE BIG DUMBOX READS ALL THIS SO HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS GETTING INTO, BILL ALBRIGHT

hudsonguy

Alex,



I'm certainly no Hudson engine expert, but have recently rebuilt my 262, and thought I'd throw in my two cents.



I think your low oil pressure at idle is a result of too much clearance on your main bearing inserts, as well as excessive oil pump clearances. I think a leaking main seal can also contribute to this low reading. You mentioned that the oil pump looked good. Did it measure out within specification? This is covered in the manual.



During my rebuild, I inadvertantly did one of my rope main seals incorrectly. Luckily, I discovered this while it was still out of car, and was able to do it right. I thought I was 'bottoming out' while packing this rope in with a long narrow punch, but I'd actually 'bridged' the hole, before bottoming out. So I took apart one of the properly packed rope seals, and stretched it out and measured it. That way I knew how much HAD to get packed in there to fill the cavity properly. I think it was around 7-8" long, as I recall.



For what it's worth, I've got a 60,000 mile 262 engine whose original cam gear was worn out, while the original oil pump gear was not too bad. I've also got a 120,000 mile 262 engine whose original cam gear looks fine, while the original oil pump gear was shot. It's been my experience that the distributor will wobble at least a tiny amount, even with a good cam gear, and new oil pump gear. The gear ground on the cam must be non-concentric by a slight amount.



There are ways to replace your main bearings while still in the car, although it's certainly easier to remove the crank when on an engine stand. Maybe your problem is the oil pump gear, which is a whole lot easier to repair once it's in the car, than the cam, which does require radiator removal.

[Deleted User]

Relative the main seal, I put rtv in the holes, then packed in the rope until the rtv came out. I am sure they were packed pretty well. the leak appears to be at the junction of the top and bottom halves, not along the sides. As to the low oil pressure at idle, I will take the engine back down and put main inserts in and see what happens. I ran a flat ruler over the surfaces to see if they appeared warped on head and block and they looked good. The engine appeared to have been "poorly" reworked before I tore it down. It had all new valve seats and the head looked like it had been milled. Comments on the water seepage? The distributor is not in backwards, I think the wobble is due to the bad cam/oil pump interface. I did not "mike" anything, but I did look the surfaces over pretty good. I did not have the engine chemically cleaned, but I did a pretty good job of it by hand. I did remove the water baffel and remove the freeze plugs on the side. The water area may not have been perfect, but it was better than just good enough. Engine runs strong... The cam looked new other than the worn gear, It looked like the cam bearings and cam had been recently replaced. I think the gear was chewed up after the engine was worked on before. You could tell the engine had been apart before I worked on it because of the new valve seats and a couple new valves and lifters. The water jacket was a mess, but the engine bay was very clean. I guess I will do this all over and see where I get. My biggest concern is the overheating and low oil pressure. If I finish this a second time and still have these problems, I will be pretty disgusted.....

Unknown

Alex, might I suggest that you spray-clean w/brake parts cleaner (and wipe dry with a clean rag) all of the mating surfaces (front & rear mains AND block mating surfaces);



and, then apply RTV to both surfaces (block and each main) just before you install each main into the block.



This way there can not be any seapage along/between the mating surfaces.



This is the way I shall do mine to eliminate that potential oil seepage. Any seepage without RTV could be minimal; but, with RTV the potential for leakage should be eliminated between the mains and the block! A PLUS



Good luck.



John

Unknown

I build about four engines a year and I can tell you that all of the information above should be observed. The only thing I would do beyond the above items is to have the crank reground, to insure is is round and the oil clearances are correct in both the rods and mains. Low oil pressure when hot does indicate problems in this area.

[Deleted User]

No one has addressed the overheating, I do not see water coming out tailpipe, No water in oil, some seepage along both sides of Headgasket, no thermostat, no antifreeze, pretty darn clean water jacket including clean baffel. I cut the engine off when it reaches 200 degrees. This takes about a half hour. Could this just be the open environment I have the engine in? It is running on a homemade stand with the radiator a little farther away than in the car.....

hudsonguy

I know that Walt M. advises a pretty specific dimension from the fan blade to the radiator (about 7/8", I think) for best cooling, so if your distance is greater than that, it's probably part of the problem. If it's 'unshrouded' it would make a big difference also. Even some big cardboard panels to simulate the inner fenders/hood set up around your engine stand might tell you very quickly what difference this would make.



Can you see a pretty good 'flow' inside the radiator, to ensure your water pump is working properly?

[Deleted User]

How is the timing? you say you have wobble in the distributor so I am guessing the timing might be off. When the timing is off the engine runs hotter.

And if you are running it on the stand I would suggest mounting one of those bigger square shop fans in front of the radiator to blow air through the rad while you are running the engine.

Geoff

Check that the distributor shaft is not bent. I had this problem on my Pacemaker many years ago. Must have dropped the assembly, or it got trod on or something, as the shaft was bent, causing the distributor to wobble.

Geoff.

Unknown

Alex

There are a few issues that will cause your engine to run hotter on an engine stand than you feel it should. 1) running an engine without a thermostat can cause it to run hot. With no stat, the water does not remain long enough in the radiator to transfer much heat to the air passing through it, which can allow the engine heat to slowly build above normal. A thermostat is always opening and closing around it's set value alowing the coolant to pause and give up it's heat. 2) The open environment can cause the over heating as well. with no ducting around the radiator you will get a condition called heat recirculation around the radiator. Hot air will be pulled through by

the fan and then some of it will be pulled back around and into the radiator again. 3) with a running engine stand you should run a box fan on high speed about three feet in front of the radiator to insure cooling and this is indeed important if your engine driven fan is more than one inch behind your radiator core. 4) Any freshly rebuilt engine reaching 200 degrees after 30 min. of operation with no additional added air flow through the radiator is fairly normal.

Fred

464Saloon

I was going to say exactly what Fred said. You need to get a thermostat in the of the water will travel too fast to absorb heat in the block and release it when in the radiator.