Hello everybody im new here and im looking for a little help with a project i have going.

sorry ahead of time for the long post.

So when i was younger me and my dad built a 383 for my first car 62 polara 500. He was a huge Mopar fan all of his cars are mopar and he worked on them since he was a teenager in the 60s. I learned what i could growing up but never enough and after cancer took my dad a few years ago im here trying to get this motor running again and could use a little help.

So this 383 we built allways ran hot, it plugged every radiator we put in the car, and we came to realize after having another engine block dipped that they wernt cleaning them out good after. and when we pressure washed that 2nd motor we found lots of **** coming out of the water ways. So we assumed thats what happened to the 383 as well.

I pulled the motor out of the car, removed the freeze plugs and water pump and have flushed the best i can out of the water passages. lots of stuff came out, but is there anything i could use in there to really make sure i get it all? im not looking to have the same problem again.

2nd thing im going with a smaller cam, I want to make it more drivable than it was. Im taking the solid lifter cam out and i want to go with hydraulic cam lifters. but do i need to change the push rods?

also would like to note the motor itself doesnt have alot of miles on it, like i said it allways ran hot and i kind of gave up on it for along time. so everything in it is pretty new.

thanks for reading and any info would be much appreciated.

 

Oh I like father son cars, the connection to your dad after he's gone will always be there.


A little more info would be good, what rocker assemblies are you using and just so it's understood your prepping another block?


Also have you looked at the radiator, had it cleaned is it large enough?

 

ok the rockers are what came on the heads which are 440 915 heads. and yes im using the same block, the 2nd one i was talking about was my brothers that we did after mine and noticed that it was still very dirty inside after having it hot tanked.

I tried 2 different radiators. the first one we had flushed twice because it was getting gunked up from the motor. we even tried putting a screen on the hose going into the radiator. the 2nd one was a 4 core radiator with elec fan and that still ran hot because it would just get plugged up inside.

 

And, where do you run the timing?

 

This doesn't tell us much. Are they adjustable or factory stamped non adjustable? "Be careful" with old parts, are you going to use a new cam and lifters? There were one or two or so years, where the lifters used smaller ***** on the lifter end.

Generally you DO need different length pushrods between hydraulic and solids as one or the other is taller. I never remember "which way" that is.

 

JR -

Did it run hot sitting in traffic, or the highway or both?
BTW - What do you consider hot?

Archer

 

Im not sure on the rockers i know there is a screw on the end that the push rods conects to so i can adjust it and set it in place. I will get a picture of them today and put it up so you can see.

I will be using a new cam and lifters. i just wasnt sure about needing new push rods or not, going from solid to hydraulic.

 

It would run fine when the new radiator was put in then after about a week it would start running hotter and hotter. even on the highway it wouldnt go down much. and when i took the radiator in they said it was plugged up. i did this twice with one radiator then i went to a bigger 4 core with elec fan and it did the same thing.

when i finally stoped driving the car because i didnt want to hurt the motor with it getting hot, it would peg the temp gage and water was boiling out the over flow.

 

Was the heater hooked up to the cooling system, and was there oil in the water or water in the oil?

There's a chance at some point the heater got plugged with radiator stop leak and was released into the cooling system.
Or you could have a head gasket problem.