Hey guys. I've been looking at cars for my brother... found one today that needs a rebuild. it's an 85 t/a ws6, lg4 5-speed... it's solid, but is in rough shape, has a number of small spots of surface rust, never been rebuilt, and has 130,000+ miles.

Owner was asking 1200... i beat him down to 700...

There was a puff of blue smoke every time during acceleration when you put it down. With that many miles on it, i'm thinking this engine is going to need to be rebuilt in the extremely near future.

I was wondering how many of you have rebuilt your own eninges, what kits you have bought, how much you wound up spending total, how long it took, and the overall difficulty of the job.

Any help here would be hot. Thanks

 

I asked a question similar to this a while ago, you might be able to find it by doing a search.

Turns out the bulk of the cost will be machine work. Proper block refreshing involves a hot tank (cleaning) and magnaflux (checking for cracks)- if you've got a cracked block, why rebuild it? After a hot tank, the cam bearings must be replaced (tricky job, special $250 tool, much cheaper & smarter (avoiding a burnt up cam) to have the shop do it). Do you want them to bore/hone the cylinders? What about ensuring the deck (head-to-engine mating surface) is flat? Clean up the crank bearing surfaces? Magnaflux the rods & crank? Shot peen (strengthen) the rods? Press the rods onto new pistons? Balance the rotating assembly? Where do you stop? Why not take care of the heads at the same time, because, hell, you've got the motor apart now. You can have the heads hot tanked & magnafluxed. Hopefully they're not cracked, because you'll need to get another pair from the junkyard- and I bet you'll want THOSE hot-tanked/magnafluxed, too. The shop can do a valve job for ya, and do you really want to take the heads off later? Maybe a port job should be done at the same time! Geez, after a port job, you should get new rockers and pushrods to go to the full potential, right?

I was told to buy the rebuild kit from the same shop that did the machine work. Reason is, if they know you're also buying a rebuild kit from them, they'll take the extra care to make sure that kit will fit perfectly (bearing clearances, piston sizing, etc). Yes, it'll be more expensive than buying a rebuild kit from http://www.pawinc.com , but the machine work might come out better, which would make for a stronger motor. But what kind of kit do you want? A cheapie re-ring and main bearing job? Or do you go for the works? Do you replace the cam, and if you do, do you install a stock cam, or a performance cam? Don't forget a new timing chain. Will you want a better oil pump than the one in the rebuild kit? Will you reuse the original balancer or buy a new one?

Are you going to put it together yourself? Will you ask the machine shop to check clearances, or will you do that? Do you have the tools, and if not, how much will they be?

Best bet is to grab a book on engine rebuilding, make a checklist, and go down to the local machine shop.

 

If the car is running, you may find it beneficial to invest in an engine stand, spare 350 from a bone yard, and slowly do the work youself. You can farm out all the machining, acquire the parts and supplies you need as your time and budget allow, and spend plenty of time modifying everything you want (like porting heads, etc.) without having the car sitting uselss and taking up space. You'll also have plenty of time to research the options and modifications you might be wondering about.

While all this is going on, you can still drive the car and discover/repair its other problems. Once you're ready, plan a weekend and perform the swap. Dump the old engine, or rebuild that as a spare if you wish.

Offer him/her $650 cash and drive it away.

 

Going to buy it for $600 cash, picking it up saturday. I'm going to swap out my 15 inch wheels for this car's 16's, and i'm definitly grabing the dual snorkel air cleaner he put on from a junkyard!! (b/t the wheels & the aircleaner, it's worth the $600!) and I think after that, just try to sell the car again after a little work is into it for a grand or so. win/win situation.. i get some bigger, better wheels and an l69 aircleaner, and a few hundred in my pocket.... more $ to find a better bird for my bro. hehe.