rusted engine blocks

[Paul Precht]

Originally Posted by Dwight Southerland

Relevant and interesting story. When I was constructing my '67 Z28 in 1979, I came across two identical '68 small journal 327 blocks that were removed from city dumptrucks. (These blocks were unique in that they had fully machined crank bulkheads and used longer main cap bolts like on 350 4-bolt blocks.) Having heard about Grumpy "curing" blocks by burying them, I decided to give it a try. I first had both blocks Brinnell tested on the deck surface and the pan rail. I stored one in the corner of my heated shop and the other I buried under the frost line behind the shop. In the spring after the chassis work was done and the body had been prepped and painted, I dug up the "cured" block and had both of them tested again. The "cured" block was indeed 4 points harder than the "uncured" block. What was surprising to me was that both blocks had been run 75K miles in dumptrucks before I got them!

Could you share the brinell readings.

[Mike Pearson]

One of the main problems with the rusted blocks is the degradation of the threads in the block, Especially the head and main bolt threads. Corrosion eats away at the threads then they pull out when the proper torque is applied. I would shy away from a severely corroded block for this reason. Blasting and chemical cleaning only removes more metal making the problem worse.