Over the last 6 days I have learned quite a bit about my 324 olds engine. At the moment I am leaning toward rebuilding the engine myself. I have a friend in town who does machine work and he is exploring a rebuild kit for me. He is going to do a hot tank (?), check the block for square, check the cam, all the bearings on the bottom end, check the seals and I think I'm going to have him bore it .030 over. Does anyone have any idea on good parts places? I think I am going to need/want a new intake and possibly carburetors. Any suggestions for a rookie that is going to reassemble this motor (me)?

Dave

 

A word or two of hard-won experience. If he hasn't rebuilt Olds engines before, find somebody else. It's not a Ch#vy or F*rd. Clearances have to be loose...what seems "too loose" to the generic motor man. Lots of tricks that they just won't know.

Go with Olds experience. Don't ask me how I know...my fingers are too tired to tell you the whole story.

Just trust me. K?

C.J.

 

Rember If this was a actualy Marine engine there could be alot of diffrences your average machine shop may not know about .I expierenced this on my own boat the hard way $$ Larry

 

Redoing heads with rotators is different. This may not apply to you, but they sure f^cked up my motor.

Porting heads is a whole different science.

Non-adjustable valvetrain going to an adjustable one for higher lift cams.

Bearing tolerances are HUGE for Ch#vy guys...they figure it can't be right and "fix" them for you. A friend of mine fried his "new" 455 in less than 200 miles, thanks to this.

Something about the cam button, but I can't remember right now...

Also, combinations that work on a Ch#vy will not run for squat on an Olds.

Anyone else?

C.J.

 

I can't say from experience since I got a good machinist when I did my 455 and he knew about Olds engines. But from second hand experience and reading lots of posts over at Realoldspower it is evident that what C.J. said is true about bearing clearances, block preperation concering oiling (oiling is very important to an Olds), cam button, etc. Just take a jog over to R.O.P. and read some entries in the general engine forum. You can find enough posts to keep you reading all day long.

 

Thanks for all the info guys! I got a chance over Christmas to talk with my wife's grandfather who helped her dad build the boat that this motor came out of. He told me it was right out of a 56 olds (he can't remember which model) and that it is just a plain old car engine. He said if anything the manifold is different but I was planning on changing that anyway. He said my father in law completely tore down that engine, had it bored/stroked and possibly even ported. I am very interested to see what this brings. I have not had a chance to speak to the owner of my buddies shop about his experience with olds engines but the shop itself has been in business for 25+ years. I will speak to the owner later today. Damn this is cool!

Dave

 

Another Olds fanatic for life..........