The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Allstate Rebuilt Engine

After slowly taking apart the engine I found a tag that says Allstate Rebuilt Engines with a few hand inscribed numbers. Has anyone ever found one of these before?

My engine is seized. So since this was rebuilt once before does it mean it can not be rebuilt again? Thanks!

What year and size is the engine and what type of vehicle. If its a 216 you may want to consider upgrading to a 235 or 261 if you want to do a simpler change out unless you have a V-8 in your vehicle. Again need more info.

If you have a older inline 6 from up to 1962 then it will be easier to remove the clutch housing with the motor unstuck. Believe me I know, I was not as fortunate and had to remove everything and drop the crank with the flywheel to get to the 4 hidden bolt behind the clutch housing.

My advise is to you is to try and free up the motor and do a compression check and look things over. If you can not free it up then your are looking at a complete tear down. If you tear it all the way you can take the block to a machine shop and have it hot tanked, inspected, and magnafluxed to see if you can rebuild the block. If this is an inline six they are not cheap to rebuild like a small block Chevy. Before you waste a lot of time and money its best to figure out what you want to spend and if your going to replace it with something else.

Sear, Montgomery Wards, J.C. Whitney and many others use to sell rebuilt engines back in the 40's and 50's. Interesting find.
Is the engine seized from running with a lack of oil or possibly stuck from sitting??

John

Well, I belive it's a 216 engine. It's coming out of my 1942 but I believe the motor is a replacement engine built in 1948 and apparently rebuilt by Allstate Engines in year.....? The two center pistons are stuck and will not free. We've had oil in them since October when I got the truck and when I took the head off yesterday for the first time, the oil had seeped through all the pistons with exception of the middle two. The truck had no carb and I believe water found it's way into the manifold and into those two pistons.

The tag from Allstate is a bit hard to read but (I believe) it says RODS UNDEIRISIZE : 020 MAINS UNDERSIZE : 050 ? and CYLINDER SIZE : 040 or 046

So if this was already rebuilt is it even possible to rebuilt again?

Mains sound like to much. Generally they can only go .030 on both rod and mains. The cylinders sounds like it is bored .040 over.
You can go to .060 over and it is possible to use a 235 Chevy 6 piston in them so I'm told. Your rods could go another .010 up to .030. I wonder if it was replaced with insert type bearing rods?
But till you get it a part and measure everything that is the only way to tell what is what.
John

Allstate was a Sears & Roebuck brand name. They took low-bid contracts for huge quantities of rebuilt engines and sold them nationwide. It was not uncommon to find bore sizes and crankshaft undersizes that local rebuilders would not allow.

A 216 crankshaft with .050" undersize mains is only good for holding up somebody's mailbox, so you definitely need a crankshaft. The cylinders can go another .020" oversize without a problem, and maybe as far as an 80 overbore if you don't plan on rebuilding it more than once. Try to free up the stuck pistons without making any deep gouges in the cylinder walls or you might end up needing a couple of sleeves. At that point, the cost of machining would probably exceed the price of a better-condition block to start out on. you'll need reconditioned connecting rods to match the rod journal size of the replacement crankshaft, or have your rods bored to accept insert type bearings.
Jerry

In '65 I was at McLellan AFB in Sacramento, CA and bought a
rebuilt inliner engine from Sears for my '60 Chevy. The engine
was tagged Jasper and in a Jasper crate, don't remember if it
was branded Allstate. It ran fine and I put many miles on it
with no problems.
DG