Hi all,
Likely my first post here.

I have a 1962 c10 that was my granddads, I rebuilt the body (amateur backyard style) and got it on the road. Only took 4+ years of welding on the body etc.

So the truck was in another state at my dad’s house the entire time. He got the brakes working and got it running and driving, and stored it.

When I went to load it up to bring it home… apparently we both forgot that one of us had drained the oil at some point….

Basically idled it for roughly a mile without oil in it. I thought it was the noisy clutch, as it had been 6+ months since I had seen or driven it.

So when I got it home I drove it a bit (with oil in it of course), low power, cylinder 4,5,6 (or some combo) not making power, and burning oil. (Split exhaust so I know at least two of those cylinders were not firing. And a good bit of oil burning from 4,5,6.
After about a dozen test drives I pulled the original engine and popped in a used 235 I found for free. (This used one also burns oil and had low power, and cylinder 4,5,6 not firing (that turned out to be some combo of ignition: plugs, wires, distributor etc as I now have it firing on all cylinders, but still burning oil))

Anyhoo…. Ran without oil for a bit…That explains the worn bearings. And low oil pressure once hot at idle.

The low power was some combo of throttle/carb/etc as it now has decent power with a new universal carb from mikesCarbParts.

But…. Today I got the engine on a stand and pulled the pistons… to my surprise the rings look quite good, cylinders look pretty good (other than the hatch marks gone).
(Certainly will re-bearing and re-ring it).

Can just the lack of hatch marks on cylinder wall explain the burning oil?

(The valves guides are also quite sloppy) and most of the o-rings in valve stems were broken… )but this thing smoked all the time, especially under load.

Also, can I somehow measure the cam… maybe measure highest point? To see if cam is any good?

Also, is it likely the crank survived? With bearings showing copper (or whatever other metal) ?


62 c10 rebuilding it cheap
Family rust bucket 2of2