In 2018, I bought a rough looking 1968 Olds 98 4 door for the motor. At only $750 for the whole car, I thought I was just buying a core. Imagine my surprise when the 21K on the odometer turned out to be original mileage. Here are some pics.

Motor sitting in car


This is what the motor looked like when I pulled off the valve cover (no cleanup)


Rockers removed. See inspection marks at head bolts.






Here is the valley. Again, no cleaning before pic


Here is what the head bolts looked like, again no cleanup before pics



The car was off the road since 1985. The oil was still like new.





Original timing chain with absolutely no play. Obviously I replaced the timing set with one not using a fiber cam gear.


No stiction visible anywhere in the motor



After light cleaning




After light cleaning. Torquing inspection marks still present.

 

Amazing. That oil pickup looks brand new. What's the deal with the yellow valve springs?


I've NEVER seen one looking like it just rolled out of the factory. Keep that gear and put it in a museum...

 

That's a clean engine!

Show us a pic of the cross-hatch in the cylinders and the ring ridge (if any).

 

Jesse, I enlarged the picture showing the pistons and cylinders. Didn't see any cross hatch or ridge. Of course with a 20k mile engine I wouldn't really expect to.

 

At this point the 455 is back together and running in my 72 holiday coupe. This is by far the cleanest engine I have ever torn apart. I thought my 80K mile w34 toro engine looked pretty nice until I tore down this one.

68 Toro 455


68 98 455


I am not sure what the deal is with the coloring on the springs. The odd thing is that they were not all painted the same (some exhaust valves painted one way, others painted another way, etc.) When I put it back together, I used new stainless valves, a new cam, lifters, push rods, valve springs, etc, but I do still have all of the old stuff in the boxes the new stuff came in.

There was absolutely no ring ridge at the top of the cylinders and hardly any carbon build-up. Cross hatch still looked great on the cylinders as well.

 

AWESOME! I thought I saw some cross hatch in those pics. Thanks for sharing.

BTW, I seem to recall seeing painted valve springs on Oldsmobile heads in the past. I imagine it's something the factory did for assembly. I rebuilt a set of J heads 20 years ago in school that had some painted springs. I actually just disposed of them about 5 years ago. I got $40 salvage for the iron in those heads and alot of other parts. One of the dumber things I've done.

 

Every now & then in life a great deal will happen. Congratulations.

 

That is a very nice core! After a person takes a Roloc to a deck, I've seen it take .009 of a cut to clean up.

 

I only ever use the green rubber fingered Rolocs. They are soft enough to remove gasket material, but not dig into the metal. After 20 years of rebuilding engines (BBC's, SBC's, BBO's, SBO's, LS's, etc.) I have never had them cause a problem I have seen the brown cookie Rolocs destroy motors when the abrasive material goes through the oil system and chews through all the bearings.