Engine Block

Everything is removed at this point except the oil plugs.

So far I don't see any deal breakers. I can polish the crank out here. I bought new rings, cam, main and rod bearings for it.

It's really simple, drill the oil welch plug with an 1/8" drill bit, screw in a long sheet metal screw in a ways and use the claw hammer to pull the screw out. The plug comes right out, rather alarmingly easily I might add. Rinse and repeat.

To remove the dribbler plug in front and the plug recessed in the distributor well, remove the rear plugs first then drive a rod from the back side and lightly tap, they pop right out. Done diddly done.

Now I am just waiting for a day when the wind isn't blowing 40+ MPH and I will pressure wash the block.

Notes 1:

The refreshed heads are just temporary. I just need an engine that's reliable for 50K miles or so and I need one quickly for the golden XL as it's pretty much dead (well down to 6 cylinders). After all the other car projects are completed I'll come back and build a replica fuel injected 390 (500+ horse) like I did on the other two '66's. But I would like to be able to drive the car for now, so if I can backyard refresh this tired Z390 engine for about 1500 dollars and use that for now, that will be just fine. I am lucky to have found the parts even for a stock Z 390 rebuild. I was scraping the barrel on that. I'll count myself lucky just for this.

Notes 2:

Since I had to buy new valves anyway because most of them had worn stems and that was a good portion of the expense. The guides were 60 cents apiece and drilling and installing them wasn't too long. It took longer to clean those heads than do the guides. Another problem was some of the guides were drilled oversized (3 oversized valve stems) and some were so worn they might as well have been oversized. I am not sure if knurling would have worked or lasted any length of time with those.

These were pretty bad with that old oil stuck in the guide and it just plumb wore everything out.