Pontiac 400 from the Titanic
 

In over 30 years of engine tear downs and builds
I have dismantled the crustiest Pontiac V8 in my career last night.

I bought a set of 400 engines and parts from an estate sale, #488 and #557 engines that were sitting in a home garage.

Well, despite looking fine from.the outside, the 557 must have been salvaged from the Titanic.

After struggling with the removal the rounded 4 center bolts of the iron intake. The valley pan felt abnormally light and rusted and once removed the engines valley had a "president elect" orange color. With a camshaft and lifters frozen in cheetos.

Once the heads were off I found 2 inches of dirt in most cylinders and even a mouse nest in #8 ! The exhaust valve was stuck open.

I was about to serve that mess to the metal melting gods but I challenged myself to finish the job and tearing down proper, despite everything being rust welded in place.

I succeded only using a BFH and metal stock.

Surprisingly the cranks bearings looked very good. No pitting anywhere, block would clean up nice at 060.

Had to hammer the pistons, lifters and cam out pf the block... Was a good work out...and relieving.

As you can see I take no prisonners

Peter

Have had similar experiences with similar results. Many years ago.
It is satisfying when they end up being rebuildable., after all the BAH work is over.

Wire brush it, throw in some Risilone and fire it up :)

I would remove the distributor and park a real 400 under it. 557 blocks aren't worth two squirts of duck poop right to start with.......IMHO....

Thats some heavy rust! Heres a pic of a 455 i recently pulled from a 76TA that sat in a corn field for 10-15 years with no shaker that may be even worse... there was over a gallon of milky colored water that looked like the one that lost the election's shade of beige, after all the chunky black oil came out!

The pistons were frozen to the cylinders and actually removed pieces of metal from the walls when I hammered one out... but the lifter & cam area was the worst part, the cam lobes were basically gone and the lifters seemed to become part of the lifter bores, some werent even recognizable as lifters!

Shame people let cars & engines get this bad, someone bought this engine for scrap price & tried to save it, never heard back on how that went.

Dont worry abpit that , I have a dozen of good 60s and early 70s pontiac 400s either running or good rust free cores.

I keep the good stuff for future projects.


I had this pne for sale as a complete core of.unknowm conditiom and didnt feel right selling something I havent inspected or at least let the buyer see for themselves before making a decision.

Its may still ve a piece of crap but at least the person buying it know what they are buying into.

I would have saved the distributor, but came out in 3 sections LOL .

Peter