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HOW dead is my engine?

Metalhead47

Metalhead47

1/2 ton status
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Nov 30, 2007
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Location
Whidbey Island, WA
Never fails.... spent a few hundred bucks & several months rebuilding the brakes on this rig, get to drive it a couple days, now the engine dies. Here's the skinny: 1990 3/4 ton 'burb 4x, 350/th400. Left home today & started to notice a real subtle ticking or knocking noise going up a hill. Just over the hill the ticking very quickly got much louder. Got it pulled over & shut down pretty quick, and it was running till I turned the key off. Wouldn't even crank after that tho I can hear the starter clicking & the battery was good. Checked the oil and zip, nadda, nein, nothing. Just a dirty film on the dipstick.:doah:

So I'm guessing my engine is seized. Got it towed home but I havn't had a chance to play with anything & won't until next week. So what can I look for to figure out if this engine is fixable or a new paperweight? :deal: Figure I'd start by pulling the plugs & belt & cranking it over by hand, maybe pulling the oil pan seeing as how it's conveniently empty now.

I'd sure like to know where the &*%$#@!!! a gallon & a half of oil disappears to. Truck's been sitting in my garage since before new years, barely a drip there. Nothing on the driveway, nothing on the road. Couldn't have burned that much oil in the 75 miles or so I put on it after I got the brakes done. Is there any reason to drain the engine oil when replacing the tranny?
 
If there was little to no oil in the oil pan, you are most likely looking at crank bearing, rod bearings, rings, lifters, and probably more that I am forgetting about. So short answer, is you just created yourself a new paperweight. It is unlikely that you will find it able to crank over without major work, and it is going to require much more work to keep it running if you can get it to run again.
 
Even if you wasted the engine the good news is you can get a complete rebuild kit from Northern Auto Parts for about 160 bucks(less the crank) and don't always resort to getting a new crank either, a machine shop can probably turn it and polish it for a quarter of the cost of a new crank.
 
yettieman95 said:
Even if you wasted the engine the good news is you can get a complete rebuild kit from Northern Auto Parts for about 160 bucks(less the crank) and don't always resort to getting a new crank either, a machine shop can probably turn it and polish it for a quarter of the cost of a new crank.
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or just get a GM crate motor.
 
If I planned on keeping the truck for more than a year or two, I'd go with a new motor. You can get GM goodwrench 350 for less than $2500 look to JEGS. (I caught mine on sale and it was less than $2,000.)

Good warranty too. After all, it's made by General Motors.
 
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Sorry I guess not every one can rebuild a 350 with there eys closed. Crate engine is a better idea if you've never rebuilt an engine before, that and If the block is toast then you'll be spending some big bucks there.
 
rod bearings
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that's what killed mine at 266K miles. spun a bearing and a few seconds later, the rod let go (pretty much pealed right off the crank) and jammed bewtween the crank and block. get a breaker bar on the balancer bold and i bet you can turn the engine backwards at least a bit. if yours is in the same shape mine was, a rebuild wouldn't be that costly or difficult. i would have had mine cleaned and magnafluxed, then i was going to replace the entire rotation assembly and upgrade the valvetrain, all for under $500. for a little more than that, i got a professional reman with plenty of little upgrades (4-bolt mains, better flowing heads, more aggressive cam) and a warranty. lazy sure, but if i blew the crap out of it offroad....uh i mean on I-35 :wink1:, they'd take care of it.
 
yettieman95 said:
Sorry I guess not every one can rebuild a 350 with there eys closed. Crate engine is a better idea if you've never rebuilt an engine before, that and If the block is toast then you'll be spending some big bucks there.
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Dammit, typed out a nice long post & the stupid forum went screwy & lost the whole thing.

Anyway, to paraphrase: A crate engine just isn't in the budget at all. I'd like to make an effort on resurrecting this engine if it's even possible. Can someone point me to the procedure for running the oil pump with a power drill to reprime everything? I'm holding onto a slim hope that some fresh oil & a can of seafoam run thru the engine might get another few thousand miles off it.

A quick search shows tested junkyard engines in the $500-$1500 range around here. I'm not opposed to rebuilding it if it's rebuildable. Always wanted to rebuild an engine, just wasn't figuring on it THIS soon. If I have to go that route I'll spend the extra few hundred to step up to a 383 stroker, no sense not to at that point.

For now I need to figure out HOW bad the damage is. Without removing the engine, what can I tell from pulling the oil pan & any other bits about the extent of the damage?
 
Pull the oil pan and look for metal shavings in the pickup screen and bottom of the oil pan. If there are none, you might be ok. Next step would be to return the oil pan to the truck, after replacing the rear main seal (doesn't hurt to do it while you are there). Then pull the distributor and get a priming tool and run it on the power drill to bring oil up into the engine.

You may also want to check each rod bearing, and re-torque them if they are undamaged. First place that damage will usually occur is at the bottom end, since the tolerances are so tight, it only takes a momentary loss of oil pressure to begin burning the bearings.
 
The noises and lack of oil you describe sound bad, there is probably no quick fix for your engine problems.

Rebuilding a 350 is pretty cheap and easy, you should be able to keep it low cost (under $1K for sure)

A 383 requires special pistons (not too expensive but you can't reuse your old ones), a 400 crank turned down to the 350 journal size (i.e. a few $$ in machine work) and an externally balanced harmonic balancer and flywheel/flexplate. The 383 option isn't too cheap unless you're replacing all that stuff anyway.


If I were you, I would just rebuild your 350 yourself. Replace all the bearings and seals and bore the motor over as little as possible (the machine shop will tell you how much you need to bore your current block). Reuse the crank, rods and pistons if you can. You should be able to rebuild your current motor for well under $1K, probably closer to half that.
 
If it lunched rod bearings you can still be ok. If a main let go the block is done.

Just as a price check, this is a Ford 302 but gives ya an idea.

Block only, cam bearings removed.
Cleaning & inspection: $100
Boring cylinders: $180
Engine kit less crank from same machine shop: $359

I'll press in/out the wrist pins, install cam bearings, disassemble and clean the heads bla bla bla.

The machine shop will hit ya for the wrist pins, cam bearings and such if you don't have the tooling to do it. So ya better add that all in.
Gotta watch it though, before ya know it ya have a grand in machine work.

And if ya ran it out of oil I would replace the rods, at the least ya should get them resized. But for the cost of that and pressing the pins ya may as well just get Eagle full floating rods and be done.

And that is how it starts.. next thing ya know ya have $3500 in the engine.
All the local machine shops sell short and long blocks around here. I imagine it is the same in your area. I believe you can get a SBC short block for $600.
A Ford 302 short block was $800 when I was pricing things out for that.
 
there's a yard down here that sells u-pull engines and trannies for $50 apiece and pre-pulled for $200.

have you checked craigslist and ebay? the internet is awesome.
 
Somebody tell me if i'm off base here but, I thought that even if there is No oil on the dip stick, there could still be some oil in the pan, because the dip doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the pan, and that a 90 should have an oil pressure switch to shut it down if no oil pressure.

Are you sure it just wasn't REALLY low and just needs to have three or four quarts dumped in it? I watched my oil pressure gauge bounce off 0 on the fwy 5 years ago, nothing on the stick, poured a few quarts in and its been running ever since. Maybe you will luck out as i did.
 
This is true, even if there is no oil on the dipstick there can still be oil in the engine. But... You should have had oil on the dipstick if you checked it right after you pulled over because of it sloshing around. If you cleaned it and then re-checked it and there was no oil on the dipstick then your at least a good 1.5-2.5 quarts down or lower.
 
I would fill it with oil and try and start it. Most likely it won't start and you are out a few quarts. It might start and live for a while. Worst case it starts and windows the block, not likely but possible.
 
RaisedK5 said:
Somebody tell me if i'm off base here but, I thought that even if there is No oil on the dip stick, there could still be some oil in the pan, because the dip doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the pan, and that a 90 should have an oil pressure switch to shut it down if no oil pressure.

Are you sure it just wasn't REALLY low and just needs to have three or four quarts dumped in it? I watched my oil pressure gauge bounce off 0 on the fwy 5 years ago, nothing on the stick, poured a few quarts in and its been running ever since. Maybe you will luck out as i did.
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That's what I'm hoping for. After it had sat for a few minutes I checked it again & had a couple drops of black crud on the end of the dipstick. Once I can get it pushed around to the shop I'll start by pulling the drain plug & seeing if anything comes out. A couple quarts of more black crud would be promising at least. Like someone else said, I'll throw in some old but unused oil up to the line on the dipstick, then (to avoid windowing the block) I'll try turning it over by hand first & see where that gets me. If I need a new engine then so be it but it won't cost me anything to try life support on this one. I'd be happy if it'd run another 5k miles on a steady diet of synthetic & give me time to plan & save for a replacement.


Everyone else: Too busy during the week to do individual replies, but I AM reading everything that gets posted here, thanks for all the info.
 
$1,550, from JEG'S.
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