I posted the video of the engine removal and extent of the damage on YouTube, but I’ll go over some of the specific details here on this blog.

This engine was filthy with oil and dirt collecting on the outside surfaces for years, so the first thing was to get it power washed. I have an old fork lift at my shop that really comes in handy for jobs like this.

Since my driveway outside the shop is gravel, I can’t get my engine hoist’s wheels outside to set it by the power washer, but the fork lift can reach outside of the shop door just far enough so I don’t spray all this dirt back into my shop.

A clean(er) engine is much easier to work on and makes less of a mess in the shop!

Unfortunately, both my engine stands are occupied, so I had to start some of the disassembly on the ground. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I’ll be making progress on the other two engines so I can free up an engine stand, but for now, I’ll be taking ibuprofen in the evenings!

When I took the engine out of the car, I found one of the motor mounts had a cracked weld. Instead of putting this on the shelf, I went ahead and fixed the broken engine mount so I would save myself the trouble of doing it later. Trust me, my weld isn’t the sloppy part of this engine mount. The original weld is from the factory. It’s no wonder why it broke!

Not only was this engine leaking oil, but years of leaking gaskets also rusted some of the studs holding the accessories like the thermostat housing. The arrow shows the rusty stud that was fusing the housing to the engine block. I used penetrating oil, heat, and steady force to finally get this housing off. It probably took over an hour to remove this one part!

The water pump housing was no easier. What happens is through the years, the gasket weeps a little coolant, and it gets drawn up into the steel stud. The dissimilar metals causes the steel stud to corrode with the aluminum housing forming a powder that locks the parts together. It take patience, penetrating oil, heat, and careful force to get these parts apart. These parts are not available, so breaking them is not an option!

When I finally got the water pump off, I could see there were only two rusty studs that were causing most of the problem, but I managed to get the water pump off, and move onto the next issue.

When I took the valve covers off, I discovered one reason why this engine leaked so badly. The square cut seal between the chain cap and cam covers was missing and replaced with silicone sealant. Without this “o-ring” the sealant would have never stopped the flow of oil between these two parts. I’ll install all the proper seals to stop the leaking!

The only thing this much silicone will do is get into the sump and clog up the oil pick up.

The next step was to break out my head puller plate so I could remove the heads on this 330 engine. This plate used the rocker stand studs to attach to the head. Mild steel bolts are then held in place with nuts to push against the head studs once the head retaining nuts are removed.

The 1/6 bank came off with relative ease with only one stud showing the familiar corrosion from gasket weeping.

The 7/12 bank, however gave me a little more of a fight. With the head puller plate in tension, I carefully watched the gap widen between the head and the block, making sure I put tension on the puller to allow the head to slowly rise evenly front to back and side to side.

Generous application of penetrating oil, and steady even pressure allowed the head to slowly rise off the head studs. I’ve heard of heads cracking in half from heavy handed impatient hacks using brute force or the wrong tools to remove heads. These heads are getting harder and harder to find, or more expensive to buy, so taking a little bit more time and effort was worth saving these heads!

I eventually had both heads off the block and ready for the next step of the tear down.

Cylinder #9 had no compression, and it was obvious to see the problem. It looks like the valve seat fell out and broke apart in pieces. There were no signs of the seat, but the damage was found on not only the #9 head and piston, but parts of the seat were ejected into the intake runner and sucked into the #10 cylinder causing more damage in the adjacent cylinder. As bad as this looks, it’s all repairable with some welding and machining.