ryanh0809

Okay, i'm pretty new, so bear with me. I bought a vortec 350 out of a 96 truck. It supposedly had spun rod bearing #3. Upon disassembly, I found not spun bearings, inf fact the whole bottom end looks, exceptionally clean.

However, afte removing the intake manifold and valve covers, I promptly noticed that EVERY SINGLE PUSH ROD WAS BENT!!! Atleast slightly, And I don't mean checked against flat surface, I mean you can visually, look and see that every one is bent. Now, one of the push rods on the cylinder he said was "missing" and was supposed to have a spun rod bearing, was completely off the lifter, and out of it's bore and just haning out in the lifter valley, and bent severely!!

As far as I can tell, it has stock valve train and stock camshaft in it. And where as I am a novice, the camshaft looks pretty clean as well...

Can anyone PLEASE, PLEASE, shed light on this for me.. What would cause this??

Thank you for any and all help!!

AKlowriderZ71

iTrader: (22)

Maybe he over-revved the **** out of it, floated the valves, and bent the pushrods? Do you know anything about the truck it came out of, and what he was doing with it?

ryanh0809

I have no idea. According to the guy, He, himself, had only owned it for a couple of days. It was supposed to only have 80k miles on it.. How do you over rev an engine like this one, I don't know about the vortecs, but my tbi 350 only revs to just over 4k. How does one over rev that motor to bend all the push rods like that?

thanks for the reply btw.. over revving seems to be the most reasonable explanation, as the motor was supposed to be stock. And the bottom end seems clean as hell.. Not even a ridge on the cylinder walls.. None.. bearings looked basically new.. No metal in oil, or pan..

AKlowriderZ71

iTrader: (22)

A retuned PCM could have allowed the over rev. But who knows...

ryanh0809

Thanks for the help!! I'm replacing all of this stuff anyway, and I have another set of vortec heads that I'm using, so this set is just a spare.. but I'll have the machine shop check em out and if they're decent i'll sell them for some relief on my project. I was just really confused about the information I was given and then what I discovered. What other damage could be hiding in this motor??

ryanh0809

given valve float or over revving?

AKlowriderZ71

iTrader: (22)

I'd have everything checked, just to be sure. Never take shortcuts when you're building an engine.

ryanh0809

You're right! Thanks for the info! I hope this project works out.. So far it seems like a got a better deal than I had expected.. Bottom end and roller assembly was all I wanted. Figured it was worth $100.

The crank rotated really freely once all the pistons were out, and even fully assembled. All of the bearings were clean, no scrapes to feel, no copper core showing, tangs were still in place. Journals were smooth as glass.. Cylinders are virtually mark free, can still pretty well see the cross hatching on the walls.. I mean, the machine shop will be the final judge in any case.. I'm just being optimistic.

AKlowriderZ71

iTrader: (22)

For $100, you've done okay. Very okay.

What's this engine eventually going to go into?

ryanh0809

It's eventually going into my 1995 c1500 regular cab, short bed 2wd. Unless while building it I find a nice nova or el camino deal. But either way, the build i'm doing is specifically for this truck. Then I'll start on the motor that comes out of the truck... lol. I wanted roller cam, and I wont know if my block has the provisions without taking the intake manifold off.. And I didn't feel like burning half a day and intake gaskets for nothing, or just to be sure as the maximum for my efforts. Plus, building a motor is always easier on a stand.. and this motor will be pretty much a direct swap.. take a day probably. or a week end at worst.