The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop 216 Rebuild

Hello All,

I have a 216 Chevrolet motor that has sitting idle for a decade or even possibly decades. There is a similar story attached to a 235 Blue Flame that I have as well.

I would like to disassemble them both and then run a gasket kit through each of them before I try and breathe life back into them.

What things should I look out for during disassembly and reassembly?

Is there a Tech Tip for rebuilding these two stately motors?

I would greatly appreciate your insights.

Kind Regards
Lionel

Other than the standard rebuilding protocol I would spend a LOT of time getting the passageways in the block clean enough to eat off of.

I wouldn't waste the time, energy, or money on replacing gaskets before you start them up to see if they have any life left in them.
Drain the fluids into containers which you can visually check their condition (no water or ground up bits of metal in oil, no excessive rust in the coolant).
Add a few tablespoons of oil in each cylinder through the spark plug holes. Manually turn the engine over a few times to check for tight spots due to rust in the cylinders which had open valves while dormant. You can do all of this on an engine stand.
If there are no tight spots, turn the engine over with the starter with the spark plugs out and ignition off. You can do all of this with the engine sitting on an old tire or on a wooden stand.
If it turns over nicely, you can then get started on carburetor and ignition system.

I wouldn't waste the time, energy, or money on replacing gaskets before you start them up to see if they have any life left in them.
Drain the fluids into containers which you can visually check their condition (no water or ground up bits of metal in oil, no excessive rust in the coolant).
Add a few tablespoons of oil in each cylinder through the spark plug holes. Manually turn the engine over a few times to check for tight spots due to rust in the cylinders which had open valves while dormant. You can do all of this on an engine stand.
If there are no tight spots, turn the engine over with the starter with the spark plugs out and ignition off. You can do all of this with the engine sitting on an old tire or on a wooden stand.
If it turns over nicely, you can then get started on carburetor and ignition system.

You can say that again, Carl

The 216 will require some connecting rod bearing fitting skills that began going out of style about the time I started learning the automotive trade- - - -back in the mid-1950's. If you can find a 70-something year old geezer to mentor you, by all means listen to everything he has to say about setting up the rod shims for proper oil clearance. Since the bearing material is integral with the rods, simply replacing bearings isn't an option.
Jerry

When I had my engine machined the rebuilder told me there is only one place in the country that does poured babbet bearings (mostly for Fords). They said they could machine the rods for insert bearings for less $$ than sending the rods out. They did a great job on my engine. runs nicely. This was in Portland OR.

They lied.
Jerry

Hello All,

I had a quick look on the interwebby and found a couple of sites offering different choices:

1)Getting the babitts re-manufactured https://egge.com/info/babbitting/
2) Reconditioned babbitt Accessed May 16, 2017, from, http://www.vapinc.com/chevy/Bearings-Engine/main.html

These two links were found pretty quickly - there are bound to be heaps more just lurking around in the ether.

Kind Regards
Lionel

A search here on babbitting also gets a few results.