A few months ago I bought a 350 block from a junkyard for $100, with plans on building it up for my '85 T/A. Well I have a friend who races dirttrack and has experiance with cars and he says just the machine work on this block would be about $500. Its a 4-bolt mains, 010 block probably from a late '70's truck. Could it cost that much just to get the block ready? How much should it be just to get the block honed?

 

honing it will cost next to nothing but, to redo a block you have to check for deck surface flatness, most times align hone the mains. Overbore a lot of times 2.

500$ in my mind sounds quite reasonable but, if you only want it honed go buy a drill and a 30 dollar hone from summit and do it yourself. It would probably cost more than that to have it done by them.

 

honing it will cost next to nothing but, to redo a block you have to check for deck surface flatness, most times align hone the mains. Overbore a lot of times 2.

500$ in my mind sounds quite reasonable but, if you only want it honed go buy a drill and a 30 dollar hone from summit and do it yourself. It would probably cost more than that to have it done by them.

 

FBodMan,
$500? That seems really cheap! Your friend's estimate for "MACHINE WORK" probably isn't TOO bad but it's not very realistic to use that number as a target to aim at for the install of that J.Yard Motor.

My son and I did a "Bare-Bones" rebuild of a '70's truck block/heads and spent well over $1000. We wanted to use this as a LEARNING experience for my son so it was a good move. However, MOST people will be best served by purchasing a complete BRAND NEW Long-Block from one of the big name outfits. (About $1500 after shipping)

We used a machine shop that was VERY reasonable on price. Here are some of the charges for the SHORT-BLOCK we paid that you cannot skip no matter how good your J.Yard motor is. Keep in mind there WILL be MORE you HAVE to do to get the motor ready to run.

BARE Minimum Shop Services.......
Torque Check and Brush Rods - $50
Torque Check Mains and Brush Hone - $90
DeGrease and Professionally Inspect Block - $80
Install Cam Bearings & Freeze Plugs - $60
Polish Crankshaft - $50 (we had ours cut .10 under and actually paid $100)
Hone Cylinder Bores $60 (we had ours cut .30 over and actually paid $140)
BARE MINIMUM Cost assuming the motor is in PRISTINE condition and your Pistons and Every other component is re-usable in it's current condition.
$390.00 + Tax Etc.

Plan on spending a minimum of $1000 after all the parts and supplies to put it in the car. Maybe you get off a little cheaper but don't count on it!

Sincerely,
Kurt

 

I'm with Kurt on this one. After looking at the cost of the most reasonable local guy that does rebuilds and machine work, the costs were looking northwards of $1000 pretty quick.

We decided that a GM crate engine (generic replacement engine as this is not a race car, just a cruiser) was a good buy at about $1400-1500 and much less hassle to boot.

However, if you really like to turn a wrench and learn in the process, then the $500 doesn't sound too bad at all. With my busy schedule, the crate engine was the fastest way to accomplish the mission.
The swap should be done by late March, so I am looking forward to taking a few days off work for this adventure!
Brad