engine teardown

[homer41]

Well I bought both engines, the 230 is older, could be 41-42, confirmed the plymouth is P24  1953 218 for sure. I pulled the head looks good. The #1 piston is fifferent than the rest, it has a drilled and tapped hole in its center, what is that about? It also has L2101- STD on piston top.  Is it a standard piston or does it have a sexually transmitted disease?  So far so good, cylinders look good, most everything looks good. Several valves are sticky but they will move with help.

 

the 218 has a Rochester carb and the 230 has a stromberg, could they be original?    Dave

[dpollo]

I'd want to have a closer look at that piston.   They often have a lathe center dimple ....... but tapped ?

[homer41]

I will try to get a picture tomorrow. Now you are making me re think what I saw. Still think it was threaded, will get the picturd to you.  Dave

[Plymouthy Adams]

1 hour ago, homer41 said:

Well I bought both engines, the 230 is older, could be 41-42, confirmed the plymouth is P24  1953 218 for sure. I pulled the head looks good. The #1 piston is fifferent than the rest, it has a drilled and tapped hole in its center, what is that about? It also has L2101- STD on piston top.  Is it a standard piston or does it have a sexually transmitted disease?  So far so good, cylinders look good, most everything looks good. Several valves are sticky but they will move with help.

 

the 218 has a Rochester carb and the 230 has a stromberg, could they be original?    Dave

 

maybe in this case it stands for Seriously Troubled and Distressed....

[dpollo]

you would find a Stromberg on a Dodge  but the Rochester os probably off a Chev.    

Plymouths usually had Carter B&Bs

[Dartgame]

My guess is the L2101 STD is a TRW piston, standard size. Might be a forged piston, the old TRW pistons had a centered dimple about the size of a dime with a hole in the middle. The hole is not tapped and is blind.

[homer41]

Well, the results are in! I now have a few black feathers around my mouth from having to eat crow.  It looks exactly like Dart says and is not tapped. What did I think, I had a huge diesel? 

 

This thing looks really good so far, just to the casual eye. All of the pistons came out easily some needed a slight tap with a piece of dowel with no hammer, no ridge at cylinder top. Can still see hone swirls in cylinders. All bearings on rods look great. All I have seen on the crank so far is some slight marks on the #1throw. I have been dealing with stuck valves, I have all but 3 out and they are stuck, I have them soaking now. 2 have the keepers off, all are open. Just hoping soaking helps.

 

Any advice on taking the coolant tube out would be appreciated.  Dave

[classiccarjack]

The coolant tubes can be surprisingly easy, or be your worst nightmare.  I try to collapse it down on the outside, then try to fish it out.  Sometimes a welder will be needed to get something tacked to the tube in order to pull on it.  Best of luck to you, the last two I pulled were sweethearts to me, and came out without a fuss.  The first one I did, about 8-10 years ago, took 2 days and a ARC welder rod....  Sigh

[homer41]

If I rebuild this 218 will I need a 218 rebuild manual or will my 41 manual for a 201 work? At this time I have no idea what differences the two  have in them.  Dave

[casper50]

Dave I had Gary Muller in Sterling rebuild my 230 a couple of years ago.  He did it all for $1500 to include new pistons, oil pump, water pump and all the bearings.

[homer41]

That sounds pretty good. When I get this totally apart I have a neighbor coming over to measure and evaluate components. From what I have seen so far it looks really good, I will then know how much machine work is necessary.   Dave

[dpollo]

You may be able to clean it up and reassemble it with a minimum of parts.   Remove a top ring and check it in the bore for wear.  Since the engine has run, you can expect a gap larger than.015  but it will not be huge if the engine is not badly worn.    The valves that are stuck should be checked to see that they have not been bent in the removal process.

 

Good bearing shells may be reused if there is no dirt embedded and the clearance is within specs   between   .0015  and .002.  Keep them in order just like the pistons and valves.

Edited February 20, 2018 by dpollo
correction of typo

[homer41]

Good thought on the rings, I will try that today. All rings were free to move and pistons actually look new,  Dave

[Plymouthy Adams]

1 hour ago, dpollo said:

You may be able to clean it up and reassemble it with a minimum of parts.   Remove a top ring and check it in the bore for wear.  Since the engine has run, you can expect a gap larger than.015  but it will not be huge if the engine is not badly worn.    The valves that are stuck should be checked to see that they have not been bent in the removal process.

 

Good bearing shells may be reused if there is no dirt embedded and the clearance is within specs   between   .o15 and .002.  Keep them in order just like the pistons and valves.

.0015-.002  dpollo just made a typo.....he definitely knew the specs

[Dartgame]

You might get away with re-ring and crank polishing. But you will need to check dimensions before knowing what the next steps are. Dial bore gauge is best for the cylinders. Although kind of cheesy, plastic gauge is what I use on crank bearing clearances...valves and guides are a little tougher service manual has some side clearance specs if I recall correctly. Back yard mechanic method for bent valves: check the valves by rolling the stems on a flat surface and watch for wobbling, any wobble = bad. If you have the guts from a 230 you can throw the crank and rods in your block and make a 218 into a 230 as well, no piston change. Cost is the same if you have to re-machine any of that stuff. I’d do that anyway, but that’s just me. 

Edited February 20, 2018 by Dartgame

[homer41]

Not to worry, I plan on doing this the right way. The neighbor I have coming to evaluate has all the proper equipment to do the measuring and do the machine work.  Dave

[homer41]

Not much progress today, I got side tracked a bit. A friend wanted to check out a fishing lake from the air, he wants to snowmobile in and wanted to scout the route. Great weather! Casper50, I must have been fairly close to your place, I was up near the upper end of the lower Kenai river, can not tell you exactly where because there was fog on the north side of the river.

 

I made some progress on the valves, now I only have 2 that will not come out, I might make some sort of puller. The water distribution tube is really stuck. I pulled the freeze plugs and found lots of rust plus extra junk, not sure what it was, some stuff was wire. There was another piece I could not ID, I cleaned it up and bead blasted it, still no idea. I dug a lot of rust out, will hot tanking clean it up?

 

I put a ring in a cylinder and came up with a gap of about .026, kind of loose!

 

I will have to decide if I want to tear the old 230 down.   Dave

[casper50]

By river miles I'm about 3 downriver from the mouth of the Moose River, 1/2 a mile up river from Morgan's Landing state park.  North side.

[classiccarjack]

Tearing down a nice flathead must be exciting.  Too bad those valves are stuck...  Even worse, the water distribution tube.  I hope that you can get it out.

[Merle Coggins]

When I disassembled my engine most, if not all, valves were stuck pretty good. I managed to get the cam to rotate enough to push all valved to their open position. Then I flipped the block up-side-down, so all of the tappets were away from the cam, and pulled the cam. Once the cam was out I could remove the tappets and used a long punch to drive the valves out from the bottom.

[homer41]

I thought about doing the remove cam and drive out from the bottom routine. My concern was I might damage the bore of the tappets doing that routine. I might give it a go.

 

Casper,  I must have been close.   Dave

[Merle Coggins]

I wasn't worried about that as it was going to get all new guides anyway.

[homer41]

Was not worried  about valve guides but tappet bores.

 

I got all the valves out today, made a puller that worked Ok, not great.

 

Started to teardown what I thought was a 230, NOT!  When I pulled the head I checked stroke, 4 3/8, now I have 2 218's. I think I will totally dismantle  the p-24 and evaluate. The Dodge has BIG ridges in the cylinders.

 

It had 4 bolts on flywheel, is that a 218 dead giveaway?

 

On the p-24 there is a date of 1-15-53, the other engine, Dodge, shows a 1-30 with a 51 above it. Do all engines have the date on them?  Dave

Edited February 22, 2018 by homer41

[Dartgame]

Yeah I think most of the 218’s had 4 bolt flywheel mountings, although Ive got an 8 bolt 218 crank I thought  was a 230 . Date castings are kind of sketchy - I’ve seen some engines that don’t. Casting numbers sometimes can help determine age, but that’s a crap shoot as well.