Bad News

Well after enlisting the help of my father last night we decided that the best course of action was to pull the oil pan off and take a look into the lower end of the engine. After draining what oil was in the engine and fiddling with the oil pan bolts for 45 minutes (alot of them are in tight spots) we were able to get the pan down and take a look inside.

Remember when I was talking about the bits of metal in the bottom of the pan....well I found out what they were....and there were alot of them. They were piston parts....never a good sign in the bottom of an oil pan in a broken engine. Looking into the bottom of the engine, most of the cylinders looked like they were in good shape....all except one. The one that had the crooked piston...there was quite a bit of rust runs down the side and into the crankcase!

My dad and I decided that we should remove the piston and see if the cylinder was damaged. We took the cap bolts off the I popped the piston out (which I thought was WAY too easy), and as soon as I climbed out from underneath and got to the offening cylinder I knew I was done for....the piston had nothing left except for the head and connecting pin...the sides/skirt was ALL gone. And I found where the coolant came into the engine....when the piston had broke (or if it was previously broken it had been rubbing), it wore two giant cracks into the sides of the cylinders...guess the water pressure was finally enough to do it in when I was climbing that hill back in October!

So here it stands....the old engine is pretty much trash for now (well, at least the block)and unless I can find some way to have it fixed (maybe a new bore and a sleeve)it will never power another vehicle....it'll probably become a coffee table in my house someday :).

So now I'm gonna take the rest of the engine apart down to the block alone, and take the thing out. Gotta grab a bunch of parts for the spare engine off the old one, and hopefully slap it right in...we'll see how that goes and when I can get it done.

Take care!
Josh
70-C1