Well, I went and fired up my brand new rebuilt TBI 350 to break in the cam.

But once it fired I noticed my tach wasn't working. So I had a choice, shut 'er down and dink with the tach (knowing I'd have to re-fire the engine every time to see if it was working) and continue to damage my cam by not following the proper break in.

Or my other option, just play it by ear and hope I'm keeping her beween 1500-2000rpms as people suggest for cam break in.

The other factor is that I have NO time left for this...we're now in the 40's for highs here in WI and this is in my dirveway, plus it gets dark by 5:00pm.
So I adjusted the gas pedal to what seemed like a healthy rpm...and put a 2x4 against the pedal let her go, I walked around the front, looking for leaks etc.

I don't have an exhuast on this truck so the racket is quite loud and added to my sense of anxiety that something will go wrong, and preventing me form relaxing and keeping a level head.

Well, I kept watching the oil pressure since that was my most recent concern, but never really looked at the coolant temp...
after about 10 minutes I looked down to see the coolant gauge pegging out!! I freaked out and reached for the key just as coolant started blowing out the relief on the radiator!!

My heart lept into my throat throughts raced through my mind!! "Whats wrong!! The engine must be siezing! I've RUINED IT once and for all"....every terrible thing is running through my head as the smell of vaporized antifreeze permeates the air.

Then I calmed and down and started thinking through stuff...the radiator is the original with over 209k miles..."I'll bet I had too high RPMs and the cooling system couldn't keep up" I figured.... Great, now I'm SURE I ruined it, over-revving a brand new engine...then over-heating it, I'm such a dunce.

This poor engine deserves better...plus I almost had an anurism during this process, I'm taking years off my life with this stress of this project.

I would give a lot to know what kind fo RPMs I was pullin...now I"m second guessing myself...I'll bet I had the engine revving way too high.
I dinked with the tach for a while and let things cool down.

Then I added some more water and fired her back up, tach stil lisn't reading. My over-paranoid mind was sure the engine sounded different now...I could just picture black cylinders and burnt rings...the temp climbed back up over 210 pretty quick...so I shut it back down. Called it quits for the night, I probably should order a new radiator if I'm going through all this trouble with a new engine. Another$200 to add to the budget.

I peaked in the radiator, it is covered with scale inside, I'm sure it hardly removes any heat, I should've known better than to keep that old radiator. Rebuilt engines create a lot more heat with the tighter clearnaces.

Anyway, I'm pretty bummed out. Does anybody have any words of comfort? Any stories of how much you can abuse a SB chevy and how ti "still ran for 10 years" to cheer me up?

 

LOL Dude you should ok. But if it was me get that rad sorted out, new thermostat and run it a bit shut her down and change the oil and filter.

I seen motorcycle engines car engines and industrial engines over heat and you caught her in time.

Hell I had a motorcycle that would burp out coolant everytime I got stuck in traffic on a hot day. And it never did anything to the engine

Don't worry it will be fine

 

New engines sure generate a lot of heat until they're broken in. As long as you had oil pressure and it was getting everywhere it was suppose to, you should be fine. Especially since you can still crank it over - you know it didn't seize on you.

Check the oil level & condition and change it. It'll be cheap insurance in case it started breaking down due to the high temperature.

 

ok here is one,

had a 1982 Chevy 454 in a motorhome, had a nice towing/RV cam in it, headers, glasspacks.....LOL anyway soo here we are tooling down this half a** 2 lane road with a 10 foot deep ditch on each side about 1 foot off the road....look at the temp gauge, its climbing....ohhh $&*!..... no where to stop.....hmmm drive till we can find a place to pull over.....well miles down the road and with the factory gauge pegged and the after market gauge pegged, we find a church to pull all in to.......shut here down thinking yep it going to lock up......well lets fire up the gen set and cook some dinner, we will be here awhile.......mmmmm good dinner 2 hrs later.... well lets fire it back up, the interstate is only 7 miles back.. she starts...wow.....well longstory short, we fixed it (broken belt) and needless to say put another 10k on it before trading it in on a new one, and it never used a drop of oil or anything, let me remind you we drove 5 miles or more with the gauges pegged....it had 19k on the clock when this happened and the motor was 16 years old


you should have no worries

hope that helps you get a smile back on your face

 

You might have had some air pockets trapped in the engine. That can happen on first start up. Keep your eye on it and the problem might just go away on it's own.....

 

Thanks so much guys for your words of comfort.

It took me hours to calm my nerves last night. But I keep telling myself, the whole reason I bought this truck was to vehicle to learn on (since there was tons of broken stuff!) that I wouldn't need to worry about doing everything perfect like I would if it was a pristine classic.

Well, after you put acouple hours into a car, it doesn't matter how much rust or how crappy the thing is, you start to care about it, cuz now your invested, lots of time and energy. Not to mention you've been dreaming about how cool it is going to be when it all works.

So now that I"m so close to being done, the idea of making a big mistake now really freaks me out. When I was going to start it last night for the first time, I felt like I was going to puke I was so nervous!

I know...it is pathetic.

Well, I'll take all of your input and sleept well assuming things are not all lost.

thanks!

 

i know the feeling.

this wasn't on a new motor, it had 92,000 on the bottom end. i had pulled the heads and done a valve job, dropped the oil pan and replaced the oil pump & screen just before i put it in.
after i got the motor in but before i started driving the car, i didn't have the cooling fans wired to the fan switch or computer. my boss had pulled it out of the shop and left it
running. about 45 minutes later he noticed water under my car & went out to it.
when i got to work he told me about it, he said it was making all kinds of badly overheated sounds. needless to say i had visions of needing a complete rebuild, pistons & all and probably a set of heads too.
it was still very hot when i looked at, so i let it cool off until after lunch. i filled it back up with water & started it up and plugged the fans in. the lifters were not happy. it
sounded like it had solid lift cam & the valve lash was way way off. after a couple of minutes at idle the lifters noise started to go away. after about 10 minutes at idle, they
were dead quite. i got about 2 hours of run time on it that day & changed the oil & filter.

now, 7 years later and with over 110,000 additional miles on it, other than oil changes and complete tuneup 2 years ago, i haven't done anything to the motor.
this is my only car, i drive it every day and haven't even thought about that overheat event until reading your post.
it has no start up smoke and uses very little oil between changes.
but i have been thinking lately that its probably about time to replace the intake gaskets again.

is that a comforting enough story?

 

Denn shah

That is exactly the medicine I needed!! Thanks for taking the time to share...now I feel like my engine must still be like new!!

 

engines can take a lot more than most of us give them credit for.

i was driving my camaro home after getting it back from the transmission shop and while i was sitting in traffic i saw a puff of smoke come wisping out of my cowl hood.
knowing that i had an oil leak, i figured a drop of oil hit the headers and since it never happened again for the rest of the trip, i let it be.
well i get home and shut off the car and something is different. i cant put my finger on it, but something is definitely different, but its late and dark and i want to hit up the case of beer in my fridge...
next day i fire it up to go to work and it runs just fine.
get to work and the same thing is bugging me. something is different. then it hits me. the fans are not turning off because they werent on to begin with.
pop the hood and find out that that wisp of smoke was the relay and wiring leading up to it frying.

turns out i drove all over the place and sat in traffic with no cooling fan.
some of the driving was even just idling.

replaced my relay, wiring and fan motor (the motor was shot and drawing buku amps which fried the wiring) and havent had any problems since.

 

did you get a thermostat that came with a steam hole? if not, drill one yourself, with a 1/16"-1/18" bit.