Rebuilding an engine - should I do it?

Factual Questions
1

A few years ago, I bought an old 60’s car to restore.

The car ran just fine, (in fact the engine was strong, and probably the best thing on the car aside from the lack of rust). However, like many people who I’ve encountered in this hobby, my goals were much more lofty than my time constraints (not to mention my skills… This isn’t my profession… Just a hobby, so I am handy with tools, but no where close to the professionals who could probably do this in short order.)

This began as a project to restore the interior, do any body work and restore anything that needed it. Refresh just about everything. When I got to the engine bay, I realized that the car would look brand new EXCEPT for the engine bay, so I decided to pull the engine. The plan was to refresh the engine bay and clean off the engine, but THEN I thought, “well, since the engine is out, why not just have it rebuilt and painted original factory colors?”

Well, that sounds a lot easier than it actually is, especially for this home mechanic.

TL;DR - what should I check for before I actually go down the “rebuild the engine” path? I want to drive this car before I die, and at this pace, it isn’t going to happen.

A couple of problems… The car hasn’t been started for years now, so I will have to do THAT first.

The best way to start an engine after it has been sitting for a while… I was planning on changing the oil, draining all the old gas and clearing out the fuel lines, and probably the radiator too. Anything else I should do before turing the key?

2

The carb probably needs a rebuild, or at the very least, a good cleaning.

Before you get too emotionally involved with the engine, make sure it turns. The usual way to do this is with a big socket and a breaker bar on the crankshaft pulley after removing the spark plugs and squirting some oil into each cylinder. If it’s siezed up, then you have to ask youself about a full rebuild and how many months or even years that will take as a hobby project, sending the heads out for testing and put them on a new short block, or just replace the entire engine for more or less instant but more expensive gratification.

3

Is this a valuable car with a numbers-matching engine? If not, and the engine runs (in theory), then you should slap it back in the car so you can actually enjoy driving your project. Then in the meanwhile you can pick up a spare engine and build that. The cost of the spare engine will be relatively small compared to all the money you’re going to end up spending on upgrades and doo-dads, because if you’re anything like me it’s going to be impossible to rebuild an engine without upgrading everything. I mean, you’re not going to crack it open and then put a stock cam back in there, are you? But then you’ll need stronger valve springs and new pushrods, and probably some roller rockers, and…

I’ve spent far to many years not driving my project cars, now I do everything I can to keep them road worthy at all times, even if that means it’s a somewhat dull build. I’d rather have a stock engine that runs than a build monster on an engine stand, any day.

4

Stuck rings can be an issue when an engine sits unused for a long time.

Based on folklore from my dad, I pull the plugs, pour in a capful of Rislone in each cylinder (oil detergent additive) and crank the engine (plugs still out) a few turns by hand, and let it soak a day or a week before trying to start it.

5

I suggest buying a chrome air filter cover. The bling will attract the eye and no one will notice how the rest of the engine looks.

If you haven’t rebuilt an engine before, then you may want to find an enthusiast forum for that particular make/model/year and see if anyone has posted a step-by-step instruction set with pictures.

You’ll also need to get ahold of a torsion wrench to put everything back together correctly. Good-n-tight won’t cut it for engine rebuilding.

Good Luck!

6

found a link to an example of a step by step with pictures.

http://www.thedirtforum.com/sbcrebuild.htm

Good Luck

7

You can easily spend all your extra money trying to do this right. I did it once and every time I had an extra $1000 the car sucked it right out of my hands. If you follow the car auction shows like Barrett Jackson you can just buy a car already nicely done for 30k that someone else spent 60K dollars to restore.

But if you want to try, pull the plugs before you try to crank it over. Without the back pressure roll it over by hand a few times. Might need a wrench on the crank bolt. This will at least lube the cylinders a bit and break it loose if it is frozen or just stuck.

Or what Kevbo said.

8

I like the original plan ,

“The plan was to refresh the engine bay and clean off the engine” .

But spray paint is inexpensive and it will look rebuilt :slight_smile:

9

Why not? Because there’s no need to. Because it’s expensive, or if you do it yourself, will take a LOT of time and you’ll be 87 years old before you ever drive it.

In other words, the engine being out is not justification for rebuilding it. And from what I’m reading, there is no justification in this case. Paint it all you want, but do yourself a favor and leave it be otherwise.

10

Thanks for the help and suggestions, everyone.

to answer this question, yes. It is a numbers-matching car, and the Marti report tells me (believe it or not) that it is a 1 of 1. So it is indeed a rare car.

With that said, “value” is in the eye of the beholder, like anything else. I bought this car with the idea that I was going to use it as a hobby, but I wanted to drive it, too. When I did the research on the car, I started down a very dark, very expensive path. I want to keep it as close to original as possible, but at this point, I am at the point of “who cares if it’s numbers matching? I’d rather have a non-numbers matching car I could drive.”

Dallas Jones - you have the right idea. And if I knew then what I know now, I would have done exactly what you suggested. Buy a car some other poor bastard restored. I will never get out of this car what I’d have to put into it to restore it to factory specs (and I even found the original build sheet under the carpeting! Very cool!). To be honest, I wouldn’t mind that so much. The point originally was not to make some great investment, but to have the car, cruise around on the weekends and go to a few car shows, and enjoy it. Now, it has turned into an albatross of sorts.

If I could sell it to someone who would want to restore the car, I would probably do that, take the money, and buy a running version.

I have watched some pretty funny videos on youtube, where guys are starting old, sitting engines… Pouring gas down the carb, cutting the fuel line from the tank and hooking up a funnel and dumping gas directly into the motor, flames shooting out of the carb… I don’t want to do that. Good times! But I have no desire to do something crazy like that just to make a video that will get a few hundred views on youtube, and laughs for my friends.
I think turning the engine manually, making sure it isn’t seized, is the first step for me.

I will look on-line, but if anyone has a video they can link to, I’d appreciate it. The only ones I have seen so far all seem to have that step skipped, and they are hooking up the battery and cranking the motor.

11

IMHO, rebuilding an engine is a lot easier if the head bolts haven’t seized up.

I can’t think of anyway to test them other than by starting to unbolt them – and after oyou’ve undone the first one, it’s too late.

12

Hi, Stink Fish Pot, you might want to be careful with how you proceed. I bought an old car 20 years ago because, like you, to enjoy and to drive on weekends. Since then, slowly, the market value on it has risen to what are today crazy levels, and it is now worth a boat-load. You never know. If you do refurbish and update it, keep all the old important parts!

Also, see if there is a local car club for you. Our club has a wealth of information from the members. Your local club would, too. Info about how to do this or that, or where to get good parts or have certain jobs done on your car.

Also, two basic general rules are, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it! And, the more you look, the more you will find to do (and then a simple $700 project can become a $4,000 overhaul). Sometimes you have to stop looking.

Good luck, and most of all, have fun and enjoy it! That’s another rule too - it should be fun.

13

Bullitt,

Thanks for the advice.

I agree with you about looking… The car is almost 50 years old, so there will obviously be things wrong with it. And the more I look, yes, the more I find.

Things I have already compromised on are things like a leather interior. It came with one, but the cost between leather and vinyl is a couple of thousand dollars. The seats need to be redone (new foam, new hog rings, new seating surface), and putting it back together as it came off the line was my original goal, but the price tag adds up very quickly.

Still, I am caught between not wanting to do a half-assed job, and not wanting the car to sit on jack stands for the rest of my life.

I don’t know what the market for this car is at the moment, but I have kept and labeled every nut, bolt, and fastener I’ve taken off so far. Personally, I don’t care about this stuff, but I know collectors do… So when the day comes that this car is sold, all that stuff will go with it. And I will reuse as much as possible.

You are right. It is supposed to be fun. It hasn’t been fun for years now, and reading your post made me realize just how upside down this project has become. When I started, I was having a grand old time, and poured a ton of time and sweat into it. But my personality doesn’t allow me to ignore things I see wrong. So I began to get bogged down in somewhat minor things, and life started to get in the way.

I need to make this fun again!

14

The best way to recover the fun in this is to sell this one as-is where-is.

Then to think long and hard about what you *really *want for fun now at this point in your life. Using all the knowledge you gained with this car. Knowledge about cars, about restorations, about money, and about your true interests.

True interests are things you truly want, not things you want to want. One of the biggest things I’ve learned as I’ve moved through my 50s is the gigantic gulf between those two. And how much happier I am pursuing the former not the latter.
Said another way, you’ve gotten all the fun out of this one that you’re ever going to. You’ve admitted that to us. Now finish admitting it to yourself.

As with boats, the two happiest days in a project car owner’s life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it. Whether there are very many happy days in the middle depends on luck and circumstance. Which you seem to have come up short on through no particular fault of your own.

15

I once met someone in a WalMart parking lot with an old-ish car. Something like a Karmann Ghia, IIRC. Admiring the car, then terroir was immaculate and very fresh looking. I asked, and she said she drove it down to Mexico and they re-did all the leather. Saved her big buck$ and it looked great.

Depending on how far you are, it might be an option.

16

I can sympathize.

Sometimes the definition of fun includes lowering your expectations a little. Maybe look at the car more with your heart than with your anal, critical eyeballs. No disrespect intended, I sometimes phrase things bluntly but I hope you get my drift.

Focus on the beauty instead of the flaws. If you can.

In our car club there are some who restore to immaculate condition, so much so that they can’t enjoy and drive the car anymore. Sometimes to levels that didn’t exist when the new car rolled off the assembly line. For me, the definition of enjoyment includes driving the car, so it’ll have dings from pebbles in the paint and other anomalies.

Good luck to you. I hope you can have fun again!

17

Every man needs an old car he’s going rebuild and restore some day. If he actually did rebuild and restore it then he wouldn’t have one anymore and he’d need to get another one, so there’s no point in actually doing it.

18

I think this is actually sage advice. I don’t want to go down a philosophical path here in GQ, but I think the question of whether or not I should continue with this car is something I need to really look at.

I think getting the engine started again may be my window into what to do. If I feel re-energized by it, great. If not, time to unload the car and move on.

Not insulted. Strange thing is I agree with you. I don’t want a “trailer queen”. I want to drive it. I used to own one of these years ago, and it was a decent driver. Nothing special, but in ok shape and fun to drive. I always regretted selling it. When I was a kid, I didn’t have the money to spend on restoring it properly, so I didn’t worry about it. I just drove it and fixed it when I needed to address something.

Mexico is not an option… Too far, but a great idea.

This made me laugh out loud… Do I fear finishing the car because I’d have to get another one? Hmmm… Never thought of that. I DO know that I don’t want another project. So, I have at least realized something positive from this one.

19

I’m surprised no one has yet asked the make/model/year.

So…what is the make/model/year?
mmm

20

Same here. A matching numbers '63 Falcon 4 door sedan would call for a far different approach than a matching numbers L88 Corvette.