A few months ago I picked up a 383 engine out of a 69 dodge sweptline pick up; the young man had been trying to sell it for 3 or 4 months on Craigslist for $400-$550 but was kind of out of the way for folks to get it. As luck would have it, I was out his way for a few days and would have some time to pick up the engine. I'd been told the engine wasn't turning over, but wasn't frozen up (???), and after checking it out some, figured for $100 what the hey. From what I gathered the truck had overheated once back in the day and the guy parked it and let it sit until this young man bought it early last year. I did notice some of the freeze plugs rusting out in both the block and the heads, but attributed that to the truck sitting out for years in tall grass with the hood off of it.

Fast forward 3 months later and I decide to see what I had. I figured there'd be some good surprises, but I didn't anticipate anything like this! I drained the oil and got about a qrt of water out of the pan before the oil started coming out! It didn't get much better when I removed the number 7 spark plug and water flowed from it. So I finished stripping the top half of the engine and all I can say is wow! Cylinders 5,6,7 all had water in them. So this is where I'm at now; I drained the water out of the cylinders, WD 40'd them, cleaned them out, WD 40'd them again, and called it a day. I'm pulling the cam, crank, pistons out tomorrow......more to come.

 

Well, ya got it apart. So thats not too bad. My wife drowned a 2.5 in a Cirrus, and I drained 3 gallons out of it! Pulled the plugs and cranked it....it looked like the fountains in Vegas! water everywhere! Still put another 100k on it after that!

 

PB Blaster. Worked on my 318 from my Demon...well, that and beating the hell out of it LOL!

If you are trying to save THIS particular motor, then worse case you can sleeve the cylinders. If it doesn't clean up, you might be better off finding another motor to start with. I Have two 400's and two 440's ( one that looks like yours ) so...who knows, maybe you can save it...

j

 

Actually, that motor is not that bad. I've seen worst.

My biggest concern would be how the journals are on the crank and rods. The cylinders can be honed and then bored if need be. I good machine shop can make that motor look like none of that rust ever exsisted.

 

u should have a look at mine it was every cylinder looked like ur worst on lol. 4.5 hours and 2 cans of panther ****(pb blaster) later it was apart.... mine was also 383. i wish ya the best

 

Well day 2 of the disassembly didn't yield much work. I got the oil pick up tube out and the rear main seal cap off. I loosened up all the main caps and what connecting rod bolts I could get to. Those pistons are definitely attached, as I couldn't turn the crank. I went ahead and flipped the engine right side up again and drenched the frozen cylinders with liquid wrench and will wait till my brother in law gets back into town in a few days so he can help out.

All in all, I feel pretty good about the situation now; it helps the initial shock has worn off. I figure if I take care in getting those pistons out, and nothing else on the block or heads is compromised, I should have a nice solid base for the next project. Hmmmm.......this would look sweet in a 67 Charger or 67 Belvedere.....DANG YOU CRAIGSLIST!

I'm also encouraged that this isn't that bad. While I don't want to imagine worse, I'm glad what I've run into isn't nothing new.

 

yea we had to beat the pistons back and forth to get all the rod caps off

 

383 engine disassembly take 3. I enlisted the help of my brother in law for the crank and piston removal. We got 5 of the pistons out but still couldn't get the crank to turn. We coated the 3 remaining cylinders with some oil and went over them with some medium grit sand paper to try and take off some of the rust in the cylinders. Next, a 2x4 and framers hammer made an appearance and after about 30 minutes we had them all out. I'm not too sure if the rods are bent, hopefully not, but we'll see. The crank looks good, no pitting on any of the journals or any of the bearings, but the cam is trashed! So here's the bare block, not as bad as I originally thought but we're not out of the woods yet. Next stop is the machine shop.

 

So how did this turn out? Take it to the machine shop yet? I have had engines like that before...some were ok while others were not. Bring us up to date.

 

I wouldn't try to use that engine without a re bore

 

X two
Probably needed one befor the rust any way.

 

I haven't had time to mess with in the last couple of months. Work is keeping me pretty busy through the summer. I've got 2 projects stalled out right now

 

Take heart my fellow mopar fanatic,
There are worse reasons for stalled projects. Like no work or no money.
Or worse of all "the old lady said no"