The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 235 engine rebuilding- who??

Well the old original 235 in my '54 pickup, is finally getting old and tired. Its the low oil pressure babitted engins, so instead of rebuilding it, I've just purchased a '58 full oil presure engine from one of out stovebolters. Now, the question is who to build it. I'm really attracted by the price Autozone gave me- 1274.00
which includes head, and offers 1 year/50,000
guerantee. darn, I don't think I can do this myself for that price- the machine work alone would be that much. anybody used these guys?
And while we are at it, how about Fenton headers and maybe twin carbs on an offy manifold?

RUN, do not walk, away from anything Auto Zone offers. Call John Rippetoe, Jr. at Standard Motor Parts in Nashville about getting your machine work done, and call me about assembling the engine. I run the auto mechanics shop at McGavock High School in Donelson, TN. There are still enough of us around who worked on those things when they were new, that you don't have to rely on some low bid contract to get an old stovebolt back on the road reliably. There's no telling where that Auto Zone engine came from, or how well it's been assembled!
Jerry

Well there is a warranty on it- I would check into Autozone and see if you can tour their work areas and stuff-really check em out b4 taking the offer of rebuilding you engine...

Fenton headers? OK- it has been done more than a few times...Not sure on the carbs...

I'd go with Hotrod on this one,,run as fasst as you can. AutoZone dont rebuild any motors, they just bid them out to place for that serice. You wont get back your orginal engine, and will have wasted what ever you paid for it. I'd pretty much guess its going to cost you around 2 grand to do a six correctly, more if wasn't a good engine to start with. Other than the braking system, the engine is the most important part of the truck. Everything else you do is just fluff around it.

I agree with Iowa trucks.... I have a friend that rebuilds starter and alt. for Autozone....

... there work is Farmed out.

Cliff59

Thanks for the tip Hotrod- clearly the lads agree with you. I'm trying to reach John and see what he says. I guess I'd prefer to deal with a PERSON- especially if he's in the local area. Contact you when you are back in school Hotrod.

I must say that the Auto Zone price does not seem realistic. There is just too much involved to be able to do a decent job at that price.

AutoZone and Discount auto use a supplier named ReCon.....Advance price was $1300 for an engine classified as a 1960 Biscayne replacement. The same engine from AutoZone was $2300. delivered to their store in less than a week. Advanced/Discounts core charge was low and I intended to keep my old engine to rebuild personally at my leisure. AutoZones was double that of Discounts. Something didn't make sense!

The AutoZone manager (a personal friend) called ReCon....got shuffled around to several departments until we got the actual rebuild shop. The bottom line was that they had no 235 cores. You ship them yours, they rebuild it and ship it back. That's assuming your core is good. Our question about what would happen if a block or head could not be rebuilt went unanswered. Turn-around time was 4-6 weeks....maybe.

Time to bite the bullet! There is no cheap, fast way to get a quality rebuilt. Cheap, fast, quality....pick 2 out of the 3!!!

I wound up buying a 2nd good engine, so I could keep my truck on the road, found a quality machine shop with a knowedgeable guy that knew about converting to full flow filtering, drilling the crank for removing and installing the harmonic balancer and setting up some accessory bosses on the passengers side. Also going to do a dynamic balance on the rotating assembly. Up front his time estimate was 4-6 weeks. So far he's on schedule, he keeps me posted on progress and his shop is a marvel of efficiency.

The point I'm trying to make, is that our old engines are not sitting on rebuilders racks waiting for delivery in a week. If you find one, that's reasonably priced, you still don't have any real guarantee of it's quality. Before you take some suppliers word as gospel, you'd better do some research and make sure they can deliver what they offer. I guess it's just a sign of the times!!!

I have no experience with them, but the closest specialist I see to you is maybe Hart's Machine Service in Cecil, OH. I have also been curious about a shop for myself. One is Engines by Schmitts in Doylestown, PA and the other is Fred's Engine Service in Chester County, PA. Has anybody ever had experience with either?