Been racing Hemis for over 50 years, Tony. We've got 4 Hemi Nostalgia cars. A few years ago we had one go that bad when one of the old iron heads rusted out from the inside, and water does not compress. Even damaged the lifter valley. We DID fix it! We filled the block, machined it up, put new Eddie heads on it, used a 4.15 crank, it recently went 10.40s in a 68 RR with a crossram. Looking forward to seeing your progress! STILL a Hemi guy!!! Have been since 1964!!
426 dog rated at 425 Horsepower at 5,000 -- only 350 net at 5,000 rpm. 6,000 rpm 475 GROSS but only 380 NET...a 2023 5.7 in a RAM is 385 net and good for 150,000 miles better than the 426 that blew bearings before 10K. Get with the 21st century Gomer
@@bigstevesnostalgiadragraci4240 Been doing this as long as you Goober and my numbers are 100% fact----so instead of talking shit why dont you show us how my facts are wrong--you can't but we will wait anyway. I suspect for a long time.
oh shit! Tony will have an altered funny car with a Hemi called "Boogered Up" upon a closer look you will see blobs of booger welds with a lot of hammering and grinding done to it. I've heard that some Australian shops will buy blown up shrapnel blocks and they will piece and patch them right back into full blown race engines! The 426 hemis are rare engines and known for melting the pistons. I knew this guy in central Alberta who had 3 of these engines still shrink wrapped on shipping skids. Thieves broke into his shop and stole those Hemi engines. He called the police and all they did was put the case on the back burner for several months. They had no idea where to go and those engines were long gone! The guy who purchased these engines stayed diligent and kept searching classified ads and online ads for used Hemi engines. Sure enough his actual engines popped up in an ad and the guy called up his biker buddies and the whole group went down to take a look at these engines for sale. "Hey those are my engines!! still had the shipping tags with the guy's name all over them!" out came baseball bats, duct tape and tire irons. these poor crackheads got beaten and barely had their lives spared. The engine owner and his buddies carted all 3 engines out to the truck. two of those Hemi engines were bought as whole runners and one was a core engine still buildable all 426 Hemis. Sadly a few years back, the guy suddenly passed away and his family had no idea how to run the autowrecking business plus he was a custom harley builder. I had the priveledge and pleasure of meeting this guy only a couple of times before he passed away. His name is still well known and remembered all over Alberta. His name was Tim Lynch at Heavy Metal Auto Wrecking in Trochu Alberta. Tim was an extreme mopar nut!
One of my old neighbors had a pro streeted charger with a windowed top fueler block he repaired. I guess he said he did it back in the late 80s and its still working. Edit: 3:55 maybe that's why he repaired it
The dowels are to adjust bellhousing when using a stick the are offset dowels that’s why they have a screwdriver slot to turn them and adjust bellhousing with dial indicator and set screw is used to lock the dowel from moving after it’s where they want it
This suggests that the dowels are eccentric. Is that true? And that further suggests that there's some "slop" in the bell housing mounting holes. Also true? Finally, is this to insure that the tranny input shaft is precisely concentric with the crank?
@seabulls69 Using offset dowels is a common practice even on street builds. My first HotRod was a 74 Duster My Dad helped me swap a 340 and a 4spd in place of the original 318 auto. It ran great but there was a constant, minor driveline vibration. First time I had to put a clutch in it I indexed the bellhousing with the Direct Connection ofset dowel kit he made me buy that I was too lazy to put in the first time. The vibration went away and the new(used) clutch lasted way longer than the first NEW(but cheap) clutch
If you can bake the block to burn off all the oils, and use a nickel 55 rod that has been the best luck I've had welding a block. Finding a replacement for the 8L v10 block is beyond impossible.... So I've welded my 2 a few times.
Blue Demon makes a "no-preheat" cast iron repair tig welding rod. Very high nickel content. I welded my SBC 186 heads with this rod. It worked great, and Im an amateur welder
If you're interested in that sort of thing, Steve Morris did an hour long video about a month ago with one of the more knowledgeable people I've seen on the matter. I'm a welder and I got a lot out of it.
@dannymitchell6131 I saw that video. It was great! Im a power plant operator and am exposed to alot of that type of stuff, I jusy don't do it myself professionally. Just for fun
That was first thought also. But some one else commented about posiable aligned bore adjustment to trans and seeing one cylinder sleeves and block resets around cylinder for copper gasket? There is a possibility offset dowls were for realigning trans to new crank centerline ?
It was cool meeting you Uncle Tony after watching your videos for years. I am really excited to see how well your repair on this old block works out. She did look a lot better before the monsoon hit while it was in my truck bed. I enjoyed the postmortem on it. Keep up the good work and fingers crossed the cold welding works.
I always heard the LB in general was thicker . From what I heard it got thinner when they Raised the block height. Also heard the 400 had slightly bigger bore than the 440 RB? I had the LB 400 in my 1973 charger that was a fun car at least till I had to pull the starter and at least one of the plugs was kinda a cuss fest?
@@tonypace2009The 400 does have the biggest bore out of the B& RB blocks I just finished up a 451 stroker 2 going on 3 years ago that went into a 69 Plymouth road runner a mild build but with the good parts inside that made over 500 HP and 560+ ft lbs torque on pump gas with some worked iron 906 heads . My buddy is very happy with it but complains about the fuel mileage which he says is about 5-6 mpg lol .
@@peteloomis8456 5-6 miles a gallon sounds like he is having fun. I myself was told they are traffic lights not timing tree lights.LOL My favorite is Its a yellow light not a amber light . Of corse followed by green is not the trigger to release the trans brake I totaly agree with this every one knows if you wait for green you lose the 60 foot advantage. LOL
Have you ever heard of lock-n-stitch. It's a fascinating way to repair cast iron blocks. It's drilling and taping holes evenly using a spacer to follow the crack or repair. You lock Tight a stud in the drilled and tapped hole. Followed by grinding the stud flat. When you have gone down the Length of the repair. You off set the spacing, so you drill and tap over lapping the Previous stud. Makes for a very strong repair.
I worked at a place called Classic auto limousine service during the early 90s and the owner had 30 cars in the limousine service and some sports cars and muscle cars you could rent to limousines from a 35 Rolls Royce with a couple ghosts and a couple Bentleys & a bunch of other limousines but to get to the point he was a huge Packard guy and we had quite a few Packard coach built limousines that got rented out with a chauffeur for special occasions weddings anniversaries ect and the owner would buy extra Packard engines for spares mainly those Straight 8 Packard engines and he bought one from a guy that supposedly was sitting in a car that had sat in a swamp for years that he had me tear down to do a full rebuild on the engine that was going to go into one of his Packard limousines that he had just got the car completely restored and when I got down to striping the block it had some minor cracks in the block because it sat for years in a swamp with no antifreeze but obviously had partially filled with swamp water and froze and cracked part of this engine block I was tearing down . This thing even had dirt & grass weeds stuck into some of the intake and exhaust ports in the head because the intake and exhaust manifold was gone . So I get this engine torn down and cleaning up the block I see these cracks and show this to my boss and he said he know a person that could fix this block using this same method you are talking about here in this post . So I loaded up the block and drove out to this guy's shop and we pulled the block out of the back of our shop truck and he starts looking it over real good and says I'm pretty sure I can fix this so I told him call our shop when it's done and I will come pick the block up and he did a great job on it . Once that was done it was sent to the machine shop to have the bores machined for new pistons and the main caps for the crank resized and the crank shaft turned & cylinder head completely done & set up for unleaded piss water gas . Well when all said & done the engine ran beautifully and no external water jack leaks from the cracked block repair this guy did thank God & the engine went into this Packard limousine & was put into service with the rest of the fleet . Working for this company was one of the best jobs I ever had if not the best because of all the different antique cars I got to work on & test drive for the limousine service along with the sports cars and muscle cars he had that could be rented out by the hour or day which wasn't cheap. The limousines you couldn't rent to drive personally because they all came with a chauffeured driver but we were also sponsored by the MSRA Minnesota Street Roders Association so we had a lot of old hot rods street rods and muscle cars coming in to be worked on besides the fleet of cars we had at classic at the time that me and my boss had to keep serviced and running . I just subscribed to UTG because I'm also a Mopar guy besides most anything muscle car related as well as drag cars being when I worked at classic you couldn't be 1 brand specific and closed minded like some people are because once you work on as many cars and old trucks as I did at this place for all those years you get to see how each different make model vehicles you worked on how they were designed engineered built & that each make models all were different & how these manufacturers did things differently from one to another while trying to do the same things which was to try to build a car or truck to drive somewhat reliable for the everyday Joe schmoe yet everyone was unique and different with the approach they each used to accomplish the same thing which was transportation for the masses be it cheap transportation or the high end limousines for the rich & famous people who often times would buy these coach built bodied Packers limousines.
Those are used to fix water jackets in 100 HP flathead Fords. You can't install a plug that will separate a crack in a hole in the bottom of a cylinder or in a block rail that holds main caps in.
Ryan Brutt has a pair of 426 Hemi heads with more cracks than I have ever seen on one set of heads. You might contact him, they would match that block nicely.
I have had people tell me and argue with me that engine blocks can not be repaired. And yet, during World War 2, the British were taking Merlin engines made of aluminum, from badly damaged Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters and repairing bullet holes and cracked/broken blocks. If the damage was not too bad, well then it flew again. If the block was pretty bad but salvaged, it went un-supercharged into a tank as the Meteor engine. It saved the country A LOT of money, it meant that less engines needed to be built as spares, and it meant that the factories did not have to place too much focus on the Meteor tank engines when aircraft engine production was the priority. And I made a point of mentioning the fact Merlin/Meteor engines were aluminum, as back in that time aluminum welding was a rare, and a HIGHLY skilled practice. There are pictures of Merlin/Meteor engines that have patches applied to them, and they were not welded into place, yet the engines would either fly again or make a tank move.
It’s usually more that they’re not worth the time and money to repair them. I’ve seen some amazing repairs done to high end blocks and heads. The value of the parts is high enough it’s worth fixing them. With most stuff it doesn’t make sense to spend a few thousand to repair something that costs a few hundred to buy another one. With things like the Merlin during wartime production was critical and they were using them as fast as they could make them. So, repairing damaged ones was worth it since it could keep something going. And, those would be expensive enough the cost of repair is generally justified.
While correct, there's a world of difference between the service life of a tank or war plane engine vs a civilian car engine. Many repaired marlins likely only garnered a few dozen more hours before being lost anyway, they were subject to regular maintenance and scrutiny, the labor to do the work was government subsidized etc. That's different than a guy finding someone with the knowhow, paying out the ass for the privilege, then expecting to just drive the car until the end of days without having to think about the repair ever again. Constant maintenance was the expected norm in ww2, even for a racing team where you could argue the same, that extra question mark is worth avoiding as soon as possible. Hence nobody really bothers with repairs like that if they have to option of buying a replacement part.
I have repaired one 27 liter Merlin Meteor block in 2020 which has a huge connrod failure. Need to cast some aluminium pieces to it before welding. Cylinders also heavily rusted and some pistons stuck. I made some picturevideos about rebuilt in my channel. (”Bluebird Meteor”, Part1)
The set screws are to hold offset dowels in the correct clocked position to maintain bellhousing alignment after dialling in, like compensating for a line bore on the main saddles. My guess is that it's been line bored in a past life.
Yes, even when a block hasn't been line bored to repair damaged mains, one will often find a bit of misalignment between the main centerline and the bellhousing pilot bore centerline. call it "stackup of tolerances" , courtesy of the less than perfect production line machining of 50+ years ago. This also affects automatic transmission alignment the same way, and is what usually causes cracked / broken flex plates with those. @@tonypace2009
I worked in the Chrysler Engineering transmission lab and we would always measure the automatic transmission pump bore to the crankshaft centerline. Tests were run on the flex plates to make sure they could handle worse case offsets.
Tony my guess thats a sprint car motor oringing the block was common in the 70's for 16.5 compression methanol and the set screws are to hold in the dowel pins as the mid plate is part of the chassis and the holes are threw not like a blind hole in trans and shakes like hell and the oil pick up is blocked because its dry sump and the those two rods left the chat about 9k rpms removing the side of the block as u said it has no numbers because it was sold as bare block were it got built a sprint car motor
Hi Tony, thanks for your videos, I really appreciate your presentations. I have a little story and a question. When I was 17, in 1964, I bought a very nice ‘53 Chevy two door hardtop. It had an unusual engine in it. The seller said it was a 313. It had a dual 4 barrel cast iron intake manifold on it, and a cast iron Torqflite, 3 speed auto behind it. The seller had let it sit over the winter without antifreeze and everything was cracked, the block, heads and intake. I bought a 318 short block, he agreed to replace the heads, and he also performed a cold stitching process on the intake. It was cracked all the way across the front and from front to back on the underside. He drilled holes all the way along the crack, about an eighth of an inch, threaded them, screwed ready-rod into them, and then peaned them with a hammer, to mix the molecules, to seal the crack! I’m wondering if you might know from what car and what year that 313, with a factory dual 4 manifold might have come from? For some reason Plymouth in Canada installed poly V8 engines of 313 cubic inches in their full size cars, where US engines were 318 cubic inches. I believe Plymouth produced a car around 1959 or so, with the 313 of about 290 horsepower, but my memory of the details is sketchy now. I thought you might know something about them. Thanks, I appreciate your view on things, especially modern electric cars.
I really enjoy these rambling type of video's. You're clearly a Mopar expert, and the fact that you're also a Jeep Cherokee enjoyer, is icing on the cake. I would like to ask you, considering you're knee deep in the jeep's 4.0L, do you have any similar insights into that motor?
UTG I was remembering some outfit was making or going to be making hemi Head's for 440 blocks, maybe it was the 80s or 90s? It was a while ago, what ever became of it? You must have heard about it?
It was stage v engineering. The same stage v that makes hemi heads, rockers, and valve covers. Mopar re- released hemi blocks and it kind of made this option short lived. Before I found my hemi block I called them and inquired about them (in the early 2000's) and they were still selling them.
@@jamessheets9205 thanks 👍 watching Tony talking about the difference between the hemi and wedge made that memory Pop back from my memory. They were talking about putting the hemi head's on 440s and 383s right? I remember thinking a 440hemi would be pretty Cool 🤔
@@dionrau5580 Yes. They were hemi heads that fit wedge blocks. They had external oil drain backs on the corners of each head. I feel like the rockers might have been specific to these heads as well but don't quote me on it as it has been 20 years.
In addition to your flux core wire, I'd like to see some of those cracks welded with Muggy Rod. Been around a while, but it seems ideal for some of this 🤫
Damn....I thought the 426 HEMI was going in the Cherokee for a Tow&Drag Jeep..It could be quicker than the test cars it is supposed to tow,Oh well...Maybe you can repair it (never give up) lol.. *I am tired just did 12 hour road trip non stop for another old Mopar..
Are those dowels offset at all? I could imagine having the set screws to keep offset dowels straight to keep the input shaft concentric with the bell housing.
Thanks for sharing this with us. i recently got the bug like you, and started doing things for FUN. Not because it's a faster or more affordable way, but because i want to enjoy myself and work at a leisure pace
I'm a "Doubting Thomas". I want to believe, but I need more proof. What I am trying to very respectfully say is that, correct me if I am wrong, but the 361 repair has not truly proven itself yet. If I followed along correctly, that 361 is the propane motor. The engine has never had a proper pressurized cooling system attached to it, much less been in a running, driving car yet, with all the torsional stresses applied to it. I'm not saying that it will leak. I'm saying that calling welding the 361 block a success is a little premature.
Tony I'm a few years older than you. Sometimes you have to do repairs that get you through the current situation. I had a governor fall apart on a 904 torqueflight and It blew a quarter size hole in the tailshaft. I took some aluminum sheet metal and JB Weld and made a patch. It lasted over a year till the trans needed a complete repair. Hey I was only 19 at the time. No welder available either. Great video! Keep them coming!
A 30 min long vid is not long and it is a treat by a real door slammer/Mopar/mustache/pistol grip guy like yourself Tony. See if you can throw one together with what you have and simply make it run. Almost certain a series based on a classic 426 concave chamber Chrysler motor of old would definitely get you views and subs
Glad to see you get back into a Hemi after practically swearing them off for life. Hope you can really fix it and do something cool with it! Looking forward to following this series... 😁
Well the only thing you missed was the build info on the pan rail and on my block the car info is stamped into the pan rail. Mine lost #1 rod and broke off the lifter bores and put a knotch in the bottom of the cylinder which the lifter bore were welded back on and the cylinder should be sleeved but could run it. I am going to sleeve it anyway. Would love to talk with you and get your spin on that repair too. I may do that. Your a hard guy to get a hold of lol. Also do you know ron kirkpatrick from PA he was going to help me with some parts. He has tons of hemis.
Almost bought a 440 with a nasty crack in the cam bearing area, wasn't sure It could be fixed, I thought at least masage out enough bearing to get the cam back in throw it back together with as little money spent as possible and see how it would do
Engine blocks can be "stitched" together for where a connecting rod exits the chat. They will sell you a kit or do it for you. Also there is the age old method of brazing it. This is the old way, my Dad and his friends did this method. I saw Graveyard Cars did that on a Hemi to keep the car original. Heating the engine and getting it malleable is possible. I don't know that it is worth it... I am just mentioning it.
You can get small sheets/ blocks of cast iron and braze them in. That is what i have done for fixing cast parts like your block, but im very interested in your plans and how they work out.
My hemi story: 1970, Two high school kids stole a Mopar something or other and removed the 426 Hemi engine. The cops were closing in on them so they wrapped the engine in plastic and buried it in an old cotton field on the edge of town. Both boys got arrested on other charges and were shipped off to a prison some where. Decades went by and I ran into an old friend who knew the thieves and had found out the exact location of the buried Hemi. No one else was interested in the engine so I figured it was going to be mine. I went to the location and was shocked to find a golf course now replaced the cotton field with huge houses scattered all over the perimeter, and of course, the biggest million dollar house was now built right on the spot where the Hemi was buried.
I have a similar story! Local kids stole a 66 Hemi Satellite...this was around 1977...brought the car to a baseball field, flipped it on its side and shoved the engine out of it onto the ground. A third kid bought it from them. He stripped the engine on the spot and brought it home in the trunk of his car. This kids dad was a NYC cop, and he was terrified of getting caught with it, so he stuck the engine into a 55 gallon drum that was in the back corner of the family garage, filled the drum with waste oil, piled stuff on top of it and just left it to ferment. Couple of years goes by, this kid gets a job, moves out of town. Then, his parents move out of town and leave the house to his sister. Couple more years go by, and the sister sells the house without telling her brother. Cleanout crew empties the garage for the house's new owner, and the Hemi in a barrel goes off to scrap.
The set screws in dowels tell me it was a test mule engine for a dyno shop, using it to test set ups and dyno combinations and that was just a step they didn’t need to take, I know old school guys that would use a bell housing on a dyno to protect from that little slip yoke hook up for extra protection incase of a problem
Did you check your id pad ? ive got a 1967 383 and they put dowel pins in the back and set screws they also put set screws in my main caps to stop the main studs from loosening up the shop that built it was Dick Landys DLI it has super stock on the opposite side of the id pad
He has fantastic content, anybody that does repairs of their own to anything metal. Should watch his channel, lots of the methods he practices can be used by anyone with a good mechanical inclination. Or at the very least, you learn some of the limitations of a machine shop.
Hey Tony, I have a quick question. I have an original 70 Rallye gauge cluster in great shape. I’m just wondering what that would be worth in todays market. I’m a Pontiac guy so I have no idea what they go for. Thanks for your time and I love your vids👍🏼
I've welded engine blocks, mostly from marine applications that froze up in the winters and had good success with them. It is a bit of a learning curve and castings don't weld like plate steel but it isn't that hard. Go for it.
Hey unkie, could it be those dowels on the bellhousing flange are offset and the builder used setscrews to prevent em turning and having to redial in said bellhousing?
Could the setscrews on the bellhousing dowells be to keep offset dowells clocked? How would a block for Nascar be prepped? Maybe a Hemi for Riverside or another track where you're shifting a lot had a more precisely located bellhousing?
It being something like an old NASCAR block is something I’m curious about too. Might explain why it has some racing modifications, but not a full on Fuel block. Kinda wonder if it blew, then someone else bought it and patched it until it blew again.
I talked to wj a long time ago about that it was either english town mopar parts nationals or gator nationals can't remember the exact track but i do remember he used a 6.5 detroit diesel from a chevy truck those are known for internally cracking he then pre built the internals so the block would slip down on top of the skeleton it was an interesting story he was pretty detailed. used the same system to attach it as id use to do repairs to this hemi
Tony, Go for it!!! Years ago I picked up a 1968, 340 block with a cracked & bent lifter bore. I've been waiting for the right time to fix it. I'm gonna do the same thing you did with the Harbor Freight welder and put a lifter sleeve for reinforcement in the damaged lifter bore. I'm not sure what I'm going to put the motor in. But I do have a 1981 Diplomat cop car. that has a factory 727 tranny and a limited slip rear end. That might be a fun build.
$400 USD for a scrap 426 street hemi block, how much would a comparable 'no numbers' block in serviceable condition but needing a full refurb (rebore/line hone etc). be worth ?
depends on whether numbers matching matters. A lot of original Hemi car owners are looking for "their" block that the car was born with - in that case, they would pay thousands of $. If numbers don't matter, brand new iron Hemi blocks are around $5-6k
Dang. Not a series?? I was looking forward to watching several hours of nothing but weld after weld............😂😂😂😂 Seriously, it'll be interesting to see what comes of this block.
Not sure if the transmission will hold up honestly. I had a 99 and if you are hauling that kind of weight, it's going to be downshifting a lot to make it up hills.
Chrysler made 3 different hemis, the Dodge, the Desoto, & the Chrysler, all different sized blocks, & they made low deck & raised deck versions of each. They made polysphere versions of the low & raised deck dodge & the low deck Chrysler...All this & more was going on but for the 2nd gen hemi Chrysler was just like "Screw it, use what we have laying around"=the raised deck wedge.
