VCCA Home Forums Thread Like Summary - Resurrecting a '28 4 banger

Howdy all,

First, some background. As some of you know, Lurch needs an engine rebuild or a viable used replacement block. The wear in his cylinder walls are .060 inch and there are no shims left in the bearing caps, so the Babbitt needs to be redone too.

Considering that I only drive him 100 to 200 miles per year, I don't need a multi-thousand dollar engine rebuild. Besides, I don't have that kind of money laying around. So, I've been hunting for a viable used engine or block.

I noticed that there were a number of engines in an estate sale in Washington (I'm in California) so I reached out to Bill Barker and asked if he could check them out for me. He passed my request on to his breakfast buddies and Dick Olson answered the call.

Dick went to the sale with Ray Holland and Dick called me from the sale. Not only did he front the money for a block, he delivered it a few months later when he visited his daughter who lives near me. What a guy!!!

I picked up the engine from Dick last weekend. Right off the bat, I noticed that there was virtually no wear in the cylinders. Happy happy!

I decided to do a low-budget resurrection of this block using some parts from Lurch's engine and get him back on the road. Join me as I tear into this project. Time will tell if I made a good decision or not.

Come along for the journey as I dig into this used block and (hopefully!) get Lurch running again.

Here are a couple of pictures of the engine as found by Dick and Ray.

Notice the car dolly under the engine stand. I wanted larger wheels on the engine stand so stole two from one of my car dollys and put them under the back floor brace. Then, I bolted the car dolly to the front end bar of the engine stand to stabilize it a little.

Cheers, Dean

Stay tuned!

After a piston was in the cylinder, I turned the block 90 degrees and was able to pull the connecting rod by hand down to meet the crankshaft. Then, I put the rod cap on and tightened the nuts.

I don't think tightening the rod caps added to the friction of turning the crank, but they also do not seem loose around the crank. So I am going to leave them alone for now. After I run the engine a little and it loosens up, I'll drop the oil pan and adjust the rod caps so that they are gapped correctly.

Since I don't have the head on yet and I want to keep the cylinders clean, I cut a piece of sheet aluminum to cover the cylinders and used the old head gasket to hold the sheet down. Then, I used a bunch of the 1/2-12 short head bolts (with washers and a pipe spacer) to clamp the lid on the top of the block.

The reason for my concern about cleanliness? Check out the bottom photo. This is the work space that I'm building the engine in. Yes, I have 10 pounds of stuff in a five pound bag. There's no place like home!

Cheers, Dean