1966 Chevrolet c10

Well guys here is what I have been working on recently.

Its a 1966 chevy c10 and has a 400ci small block 2 speed power glide

what I've done to it so far
repair rust on both passenger and driver side floors
started putting an ac in it
long tube headers
custom side pipes

what it needs
rear driver side fender repaired
bed floor
seat put in
seat belts
insulation
a/c installed

Another truck as old as my dodge. I think that someone started something here. LOL

Glad you got one. I love those trucks to death. Long box right?

redlinemotorsportts wrote:

Glad you got one. I love those trucks to death. Long box right?

nope red its a short box

Well the engine is probably toast. I have run it for about an hour the whole time that I have had the truck but the problem is from the last owner. I noticed it was smoking one day and pulled the valve cover and what I though was a stuck valve was worse than that.



Yes that is a hydraulic flat tappet lifter.That is the only one that I have pulled out and I am guessing more are bad because of the sheer quantity of metal in the engine. The previous owner must have done an oil change right before I bought the truck because the metal doesn't show up on the dip stick but when you look in the lifter valley there is defiantly a lot of metal that has been bouncing around in there and getting in the bearings that the engine probable needs to be gone through and I don't have the time or money for that.

It would be worth a looksee to pull the motor and check the crank and rod bearings. Chances are it happened slowly and the metal particles are really small that if they made it past the filter into the crank bearing, they just past right through without damaging them. Those 400 ci motors, you'll probabley never find another one, well cheap anyways. Or see if you could salvage the crank and rods for a 350 ci stroker motor.

If it happened all at once, for example that could happen if the previous owner started the motor after it's been sitting for a long time without preoiling the motor. in this case the oil filter would have catched the metal and saved the crank and rod bearings. Well unless you actually heard a rod nocking

Well I talked to the person who built the engine and here is what he said.

Well everything in the engine wasn't new, but when we were racing we put together engines almost monthly, so there were a lot of parts at the shop from ALOT of small blocks, we hardly ever ran the same set up, could have been lifters from one engine and camshaft from another, the only thing that would have been installed brand new would've been main and rod bearings, gaskets, seals. Nitrous is hard on them, even worse on alcohol! But I wouldn't have thought it had that kind of wear in it. You'd prolly be ok with another cam and lifter set.

i bought a 1988 ford ranger he put new oil in it and it wasn't running right when I was running it so I bought it took it home and found out that the cam shaft and the lifter things were all shoot and medal was everywhere there so I cleaned it out and put all new lifters and cam shaft for 100$ and it don't smoke and runs just perfect

motorizedeverything wrote:

Well I talked to the person who built the engine and here is what he said.

Well everything in the engine wasn't new, but when we were racing we put together engines almost monthly, so there were a lot of parts at the shop from ALOT of small blocks, we hardly ever ran the same set up, could have been lifters from one engine and camshaft from another, the only thing that would have been installed brand new would've been main and rod bearings, gaskets, seals. Nitrous is hard on them, even worse on alcohol! But I wouldn't have thought it had that kind of wear in it. You'd prolly be ok with another cam and lifter set.

Sounds about right. But I would make sure if I had the time, to pull the engine and take the oilpan off to look for damage. Like I said, the particles are usually too small to do any damage and is good to make sure. Probably take a whole day but worth it.
Sounds right also, that when you remove a cam, the lifters have to go with it because the metal wear pattern on the lobes match the lifters which means the lifters need to be numbered. If you use a used cam, with no matching lifters, you need to buy new lifters and break them in to the cam, just like a new cam with new lifters. Otherwise they wipe out like yours did too. Makes sence on what happened, textbook result here.

prancstaman wrote:

motorizedeverything wrote:

Well I talked to the person who built the engine and here is what he said.

Well everything in the engine wasn't new, but when we were racing we put together engines almost monthly, so there were a lot of parts at the shop from ALOT of small blocks, we hardly ever ran the same set up, could have been lifters from one engine and camshaft from another, the only thing that would have been installed brand new would've been main and rod bearings, gaskets, seals. Nitrous is hard on them, even worse on alcohol! But I wouldn't have thought it had that kind of wear in it. You'd prolly be ok with another cam and lifter set.

Sounds about right. But I would make sure if I had the time, to pull the engine and take the oilpan off to look for damage. Like I said, the particles are usually too small to do any damage and is good to make sure. Probably take a whole day but worth it.
Sounds right also, that when you remove a cam, the lifters have to go with it because the metal wear pattern on the lobes match the lifters which means the lifters need to be numbered. If you use a used cam, with no matching lifters, you need to buy new lifters and break them in to the cam, just like a new cam with new lifters. Otherwise they wipe out like yours did too. Makes sence on what happened, textbook result here.

Well I am going to pull the engine and go through it. I'm also getting a new cam and lifters and swapping out the torque converters.

That's good, pullin the engine. Decided on what size cam yet? I suggest around a 265 or a 268 grind, more on the 265, the 265 is one or two steps above an rv cam with a slight lope to it and works OK with stock torque converters, but torque converter with a 500 rpm stall speed above stock will work best, for both cams. Plus both cams will work with the stock valve train as long as lift is under 1/2 inch so look at the specs of the cams. Reason for this is your overall setup of the truck, 400 with 2 speed trans and probably 4000 lbs of weight or higher of total weight. You would be after torque, not HP. The 265 can will give the best torque on the low end too.

Oh and don't forget to break in the cam, which is 2000 rpm for 20 minutes, and use all the break in lube on the cam lobes so they don't wipe out again, and in the 20 minutes of 2000 rpm, give slight variations in rpm say every couple of minutes during break in. Then change the oil and good to go.

I got the new cam and lifters in and have the heads torqued down. I thought hell lets see what the block casting number is and well I have disappointing news. The engine in the truck is not a 400. It has block casting numbers of 3970010 which means that it could be a 302, 327 or 350. I looked at the engine suffix code which ends in TJZ which means its a 350 not a 400 as I was told.

I kinda got the same thing with my truck, guy said it was a 390 and its actually the sister engine, a 360. Engine size always goes up on sale date. at least its the second best engine for the truck.

I recognize the last 3 # of the casting of the engine block, 010 means its a 4 bolt main block. Which means the 3 main bearing caps on the crank have 4 bolts instead of 2 bolts. It's a real truck motor, good for racing.

Yeah I was told it was a 4 bolt main 400 but like i said that is only half true. It is a 4 bolt main 350

Heres a cool idea. Find one of them 305 gmc v6's to swap in and fool everybody.

motorizedeverything wrote:

Yeah I was told it was a 4 bolt main 400 but like i said that is only half true. It is a 4 bolt main 350

Never heard of a 4 bolt 400 block unless you made it with 4 bolt mains yourself. Only aftermarket blocks are made that way. The 400 was never a race motor, it was a stationwagon engine mainly and once in a while you would see them in an impala. They was never highperformance because of the shorter piston rods, made alot of drag and wore out the cylinders quick, and had a habit of overheating because of the siameze bores. Your better off with the 350. Way more reliable.