The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Where to buy 235 rebuild kit?

Been poking around just for a budgetary number. My engine runs pretty strong…but has some blow by and idle oil pressure once warm isn’t super impressive. I figure a rebuild is gonna be needed at some point.

Best price I can find on a re-ring kit for a 1962 235 is about $320. A master rebuild with pistons and an oil bump would be more like $600-ish.

Is that about the going rate nowadays? Or am I not looking in the right places?

How many miles on the engine?
Have you performed a WOT cylinder compression test? If yes, readings?

Some of the usual places for parts:
https://egge.com/
https://www.kanter.com/
http://www.rockauto.com

Tim posted this back in 2017. Prices will have increased since then:
1960 235. Good block, good head, bunch of new parts and machine work. They want $3220.83 for parts and machine work, including new cam, new lifters, new pistons and rings, new bearings all around, new valves and guides, plus boring the block, turning the crank, re-facing the flywheel, new seals, and a gasket set. Whew! more than I had expected, but I should end up with a great engine.

Food for thought:
If engine has been idle for a long time, the rings may be stuck. Search for stuck rings.
You can try running a different weight engine oil to raise oil pressure.
If you only drive the truck a few times a year, is that enough to warrant a rebuild?

Don't discount shopping for individual rebuild parts on Ebay. The people who assemble a "kit" add some dollars to their price for the convenience of having them do the shopping for you and packing the bits and pieces into one box.
Jerry

I did think about the piece meal approach. A quick math exercise with Rock Auto’s individual prices would have exceeded the kit price. But I should do the same with EBay.

Buoymaker - all good questions….

Engine history and mileage is unknown. I’ve done the diesel filled crankcase and various other ring-unsticking procedures. It’s better than it once was, but still not great.

Been quite a while since I’ve checked compression. But that was good back then. I would definitely re-check, and do a leak down test before tearing down.

At a bare minimum, this old mill needs valve seals and a whole pile of gaskets.

The most cost effective approach would probably be finding another running engine on marketplace or what not.

Probably want to talk to the shop that's doing the machine work for you. They may be able to get a wholesale rate on the parts cheaper than you can find them.

From my own experience and that of others, I would never buy anything from Kanter. It's absolute junk.

Now, do other brands use the same stuff with their own names on it? Maybe yes, maybe no. All I know is that if it comes from Kanter it will be worse than sub-standard.

Coil springs, leaf springs, rubber parts, rocker arms, pushrods are all crap and you'd be better off reconditioning your original parts.

https://egge.com/
https://www.kanter.com/
http://www.rockauto.com

ebay.com

LOL.

I’ve had pretty decent luck and saved a bunch of money with Rock Auto on other stuff. But it doesn’t look to be an advantage here.

Look up the closest outlet of the "Internal Engine Parts Group" with an online search. They have several regional distribution centers that cater to professional engine builders. If you have a local garage or a machine shop that you deal with, sometimes the savings can be considerable over retail sources like Rock Auto. I've been doing business with their facility in Nashville for 30+ years.

If you're thinking about doing an "in the frame" rebuild like we used to do regularly- - - -piston rings, rod bearings, valve job, and maybe rebuild or replace the oil pump, be sure to measure the cylinder taper. If it's more than .005" or so you'll have a very short life engine.
Jerry

Gotta buy through a shop with them?

JW51 My last best hook-up for overbore stuff was from Patricks,His son was helping out for a while but think that is over. Bought some -.002 bearings from ebay that was reasonable,they are in there running. Bought a good looking solid cam, chinese lifters not so good. Had a new old stock lifter body that has about double the crown of the chinese knock-offs.

They're a warehouse wholesaler- - - -since I've either bought with my own business name or a government agency (school system) the issue of retail purchases has never come up.
Jerry

Give them a call and ask if they'll sell directly. I've bought transmission parts from a wholesaler just by walking in the door. Also from a plumbing supply warehouse where I bought a boiler and all the stuff to install it (that may have been because I was in the trade then.) They just take your money. Probably doesn't matter where it comes from.

Here.. Hope this helps. As per another post google what you want and you will be inundated with ads and offers.

I’m not going to buy any parts until I know what oversize/undersized that’s needed.

But I was perusing the NOS bearings and rings on eBay just to get an idea of price. Came across some NOS 235 rod bearings that were supposedly “bronze.” Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

All replaceable bearings I know about are multi-layer, a steel backing, then a layer of copper or some other alloy, then Babbit, and finally a microscopic top layer of pure tin to allow the bearing to "wear in" to the exact shape of the crankshaft during the first minutes of operation. All the other terms are just advertising copy, thought up by someone who has never had his hands on a wrench!
Jerry

Northern Auto parts in Iowa has various engine kits and will put one together for you if not one of their standard kits. Prices seem reasonable, customer service will actually talk to you.

https://www.northernautoparts.com/

Anyone have a strong opinion on piston ring materials/coatings?

* Seems like cast rings are adequate for most applications, and break-in easily
* I think one of the Hastings sets has a chrome top ring. I’ve heard very favorable and very unfavorable reviews of chrome piston rings.
* I’ve yet to find anyone who sells a moly coated ring for a 235

From the perspective of 60+ years' experience building engines, the material a ring is made of has a lot less impact on a successful job than the condition of the cylinder it's being installed into, and the preparation the cylinder gets prior to engine assembly. Most of the exotic material rings were developed to compensate for them being installed in tapered bores, or improperly honed cylinders. At 2K RPM, a ring running in a taper-worn cylinder is flexing 60 times per second to try to maintain a seal with the cylinder wall. To do that, rings were developed with lots of spring tension, and it was necessary to incorporate a self-lubricating material (Moly) or a hard chrome facing to minimize friction wear. A straight (rebored) cylinder with no taper stops ring flexing, and also eliminates the need for exotic ring materials. Proper cross hatch honing creates the right conditions for quick ring seating, and the crosshatch also traps a microscopic layer of oil to keep the rings and piston skirts lubricated during ring break-in.

Some engine blocks such as the Hudson inline sixes and some of the early Ford OHV V8's had such a high nickel content that a chrome ring simply refused to seat. Those blocks also wore at such a slow rate that a re-ring job didn't need to have the block bored and new pistons fitted. GM has always used a much softer (less expensive) alloy in their block castings, so a rebuild with chrome rings resulted in pretty good ring seating, but at the expense of rapid cylinder taper wear.
Jerry

I'm old now and can't fight as well as I could when I was young, but it would take somebody like Ali in his prime to make me ever put another top chrome ring in anything. And he would have his work cut out for him. Cast rings are very good for a 235. They begin breaking in when you start running the engine (if your machinist knew what he was doing when he honed your cylinders). Talk to Jerry about that...he knows it chapter and verse. I've never had good results using chrome rings...and I tried them in many engines in the 60s and 70s. Everyone thought these were the answer. Also, find a machinist who can and will bore your cylinders correctly. To do this correctly each piston must be bored and marked for each cylinder...and please use the GM specs for both piston clearance and ring gap. Once again Jerry has forgotten more about this than many people have ever learned. I've seen some engines that were bored so incorrectly they were going to run like an engine with over 25,000 miles on it right from the start. Another thing is your crankshaft. Have it ground by somebody who knows EXACTLY what they're doing. Mistakes are very bad and expensive to fix. The 235 is ok at .020 over. At .030 over...well you can do it, but you won't find too many people getting on that bandwagon. You'll find those crankshafts being used to hold up mailboxes on farm to market roads. If you get your crankshaft ground so that your main and rod bearings run at the lowest end of the GM specs, you'll be a much happier guy. Good luck!

Jon G:

When you say ground to run at the lowest end of GM specs…you mean the tight end of the clearance spec range?

Proper boring and honing….that brings up a related question.

The interwebs seem to think that a cylinder simply cannot be properly honed without a flex plate. I understand the theory. “Round” once the head is torqued down is different than “round” on a bare block.

I strongly suspect my local machine shop doesn’t keep a torque plate for a 235. Don’t sweat it???

I assume (yep, I know what that makes you and me) that Jon's "30 over" is intended to mean "undersize" on the bearings. If the bearing and the shaft is matched up properly, the actual undersize is irrelevant. I like to shoot for a .0015" oil clearance. Stovebolt main bearings were available in sizes as small as .050" undersize, and I've seen 40 under rod bearings at times. It's far more important to make sure the hole the bearing fits is round, and the proper diameter. I recondition every used rod I put into an engine, down to the minimum factory specification. Ditto for main bearing bores whenever possible. Finding a machinist willing to line bore a stovebolt block with four different main bearing diameters is about as likely as finding a chicken with lips, which is why I bought my own portable line bore machine. I've also got a Sunnen connecting rod hone. The Rube Goldberg stroker engines I'm building will have a connecting rod journal almost 1/4" smaller than the original stovebolt rod bearing, yet those Nissan bearings are used on 800+ HP turbocharged engines.
Jerry

The iron in that stovebolt block could probably be recast into 3 or 4 modern 4 cylinder engines. I doubt that you'll be able to notice any difference in cylinder roundness whether a 235 is honed with a torque plate or not. If you're really concerned about it, torque a junk cylinder head onto the block and hone the cylinders from the bottom side. I'd love to hide and watch that procedure!
Jerry

Fair point. There’s a bit of heft to a 235 casting.

My son and I have been piddling with a 5.0 F0rd lately (I tried to raise him better). I’m amazed how easily a guy can move around a bare 5.0 block.

That 5.0 engine began life as a 221 cubic inch V8 in 1962. It was Ford's first venture into thin wall castings and a more or less "throwaway" engine design. They also got away from the high-nickel block alloy with that one. It grew through the 260, 289, and 302 configurations with bigger bore and stroke and finally got modified into the small block 351 Windsor by making the block a little taller to accommodate a longer stroke crankshaft. Most of the external dimensions are the same, similar to small block Chevy engines from 265 to 400 cubic inches.
Jerry