Yeah I’ll have to do that.
Im really on the fence with this car. I can get an engine rebuild kit (minus valves) on ebay for 800. I just dont know if I want to actually make this thing road worthy or sell it/trade it. Around here, in this economy a trade is much more likely to happen then somebody giving cash. I really dont know what I’d want to trade it for though. In some respects, its almost easier to just slow down, save some money and get it road worthy and enjoy it.
To me the key problem you have is the overheating. I would hate to “rebuild” the engine and still have it overheat.
Well it’s got a brand new water pump. All I can see outside of refreshing the engine would be the radiator needing to be rodded out, even though I did have it acid washed.
After that there’s no way it’d overheat
By the way I just got a new old stock rotor off eBay, put the old cap on and now it runs better than ever. Still have a fuel leak out back (it’s not near any exhaust pipes because they’re non existent!).
“After that there’s no way it’d overheat”
All I’m suggesting is that you solve that problem first.
Thermostat?
Well the engine rebuild is only in question because of the overheating. Basically I called a couple vintage car shops around explaining the situation and asking if they thought it might fix it if I had the freeze plugs pulled and the block washed out because of the rust. Their opinion was that it might be a head gasket causing the issue, at which point, if I’m going to tear it down that much, I may as well rebuild it. The oil is sludgy and I know theres rust in the cooling passages.
I m thinking coolant passages in engine might be rusty is main cause
waterpump?
thermostat?
it will have more value if engine is solid
I don’t understand the head gasket idea. If you had a bad head gasket I’d expect several problems, like coolant in oil, oil in coolant, exhaust gas in coolant, coolant in exhaust, etc, etc. Overheating isn’t at (or even on) the list, seems to me.
you have changed the oil a couple times right?
I like to change it when hot
I originally felt the main culprit would be rust bogging down the flow of coolant. Originally the car had no thermostat in it so I replaced that, but after finding it running hot I removed it to allow it to flow constantly in hopes it would help. Through my repairs and needing to drain the radiator several times I now just have plain water in the system because I work on it in a parking lot and cant risk leaking antifreeze all the time.
The mechanic at one of the classic rebuilding places I called suggested the head gasket because it could be leaking exhaust gas inside. Tough to judge any kind of smoke because there is just a rusted out system - and it basically flows out of the headers to a pipe that is rusted open before the muffler.
The water pump is brand new, however there doesnt seem to be a strong steady flow. The upper radiator hose (the send hose to the rad) isnt hard while its running, as if the flow is weak.
The oil is sludgy. Looks clean on the dipstick but when I went to drain it one day nothing came out. I had to stick my finger in the drain pan hole to break the sludge so it would drain. Granted, the engine was cold when I did this - not realizing that hinders the situation at the time. Outside of that the coolant is just rusty looking on the surface when I look in the radiator.
I will say, Ive got it running better than ever right now. Idles smooth. You’d think if the head gasket was leaking itd be running all rough, but I suppose only exhaust gas is getting into the coolant passages. I did see a few air bubbles when running it with the rad cap off the other day but figured maybe there was just some air in the system from when I last filled it with the hose.
I was told back in the day they used Litmus Paper (spelling?) and you hold it over the rad with the cap off and if theres exhaust gas in it, it shows you.
My thoughts are if I’m going through the trouble of pulling off the heads - (which means removing the old headers which are totally rusted - read:broken studs in head) then I might as well rebuild the engine at that point.
A quick check would be to do a pressure test on the cooling system. If there’s a bad head gasket the cooling system won’t hold pressure.
@Fender1325
This is what’s used to determine if you’ve got combustion gases in the coolant
holy moley that stuff is pricey.
how do you use it?
edit: never mind found a video on youtube. For anyone thats curious, you use a special cap that screws on the radiator, hose goes from that to tube filled with some blue liquid, and another tube out of that to act as an exhaust. If the blue changes to yellow after some time then you have exhaust gas present.
“holy moley that stuff is pricey.”
You’ve got to be kidding . . .
35 bucks for some fluid and a plastic pipe with a rubber bulb? That’s a lot to pay in my opinion.