Breaking Down This LT1! First Look at the Carnage!

[00:00:00]So, I tore apart the LT1 that I picked up on Facebook Marketplace. And what did I find?

[00:00:05]Stick around and you'll find out. Here's the video.

[00:00:09]So, we're going to start tearing it apart.

[00:00:12]I'm not sure exactly what stuff I'm going to show you what stuff I'm not going to show you. Don't use this on a customer's car, whatever you do. We're just using it to break it free. I would never use it to tighten it up.

[00:00:26]And yeah, there's some There's definitely a little bit of coolant in there, I think.

[00:00:33]Hard to tell, but we're going to find out.

[00:00:38]Just got to get it drained out.

[00:00:41]And I got to tear it down.

[00:00:45]So, while that's draining, I'm going to start tearing the rest of this apart. I'm sorry.

[00:00:51]But we shall see.

[00:00:55]Got to take that air pump off.

[00:00:57]And here's that whacked out water pump.

[00:01:00]And there's the whacked out distributor behind it.

[00:01:04]So, the water pump is driven by that gear that comes off the timing chain. So, yeah, pretty bizarre setup, but that's how they did it.

[00:01:13]All right, let me start tearing this apart.

[00:01:15]Like I said, I'm not 100% certain everything I'm going to show you, but oops, we shall see. We shall see what I show you.

[00:01:22]Um, when I get to important stuff, I'll show you that.

[00:01:25]Um, I just want to see Like I said, I want to get this thing apart cuz the guy said, you know, just anything catastrophically wrong with it. Um, you know, spun a bearing, anything like that, which he doesn't think, but he said, you know, you never know. He said just let him know. So, that's I want to get this thing apart as fast as possible, so this way I can let him know the condition of it. So, all right, let's go.

[00:01:42]And one thing I want to show you, if you recall, we've always been told don't put ignition wires dead up against the engine block or up against metal separated by plastic. What does the factory do? They run it inside a metal bracket right up against the cylinder head. So, yeah, I don't know if you guys have ever done ignition wires on one of these in the car. Woo, that's not fun.

[00:02:02]Yeah.

[00:02:03]So, but yeah, I mean that's factory. That's what they do.

[00:02:08]Yeah, but they we've been told our whole lives don't do this, but yet that's how it was done. Actually, these are replacement wires. Somebody did replace them, but that's that's the factory routing. That's how they do it.

[00:02:19]So, I think it might go through here, but it still goes through this metal bracket. I mean, how they couldn't come up with something better than that, who the heck knows.

[00:02:27]Anyway, just wanted to show you that.

[00:02:29]So, I got the water pump unbolted, and you can see by the bolts that somebody did a water pump on this at one point, or at least had it off, maybe did a cap and rotor. And somebody went like really happy with the silicone, like a little too much. And in all honesty, I don't know if you guys know know the smell, but the smell of a blown head gasket when you pull bolts out, I can smell it. It stinks.

[00:02:48]So, I'm still hopeful it's going to be okay, but one thing I did notice is if you look at the nipple there where the cooling line going to the throttle body, it's all rusty. So, that tells me there's going to be rust inside this block, like somebody just put straight up water in it.

[00:03:04]So, we're going TO FIND OUT.

[00:03:08]>> [applause] >> BOOM, SORRY ABOUT THAT.

[00:03:16]AND ALSO, dang it.

[00:03:19]Sorry about that.

[00:03:21]There is a ton a ton of sealer silicone sealer here.

[00:03:30]So, yeah.

[00:03:31]That's the actual drive for the water pump right there.

[00:03:35]This thing [clears throat] is tight as all get out, too.

[00:03:39]All right.

[00:03:40]This thing, a lot of people think it's a socket when they find it on the floor, little they realize they forgot to put it in place, cuz it drives right on there. It's splined.

[00:03:50]See that?

[00:03:51]So, yeah.

[00:03:53]I seen that happen before where people forget to put that in. They see it laying on the floor, they think it's a socket or something like that. So, yeah, it creates a curfuffle. All right, let me continue unbolting stuff. I just wanted to show you that.

[00:04:05]Let's take the valve cover off to see what we got here.

[00:04:10]I do not know what I'm going to find.

[00:04:16]Uh it's a little money.

[00:04:18]Yeah, this thing was not super well maintained. That's for sure. You can tell by looking in there.

[00:04:27]See the build up? But, that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot just yet.

[00:04:32]Like I said, as long as it didn't eat a roller lifter and as long as it didn't eat the a bearing, then it should be all right for use. So, but let's keep tearing at it.

[00:04:45]All right, let's pop the intake off and see what we have underneath it.

[00:04:51]Yeah, kind of what I expected.

[00:04:57]Not horrible, but not great.

[00:05:01]So, at this point, we got to take the rocker arms and that off and take a good look at the um and then get the lifters out and take a look at those. See if anything got eaten up. All right, let's take all the rockers off. You saw saw this all in the last video. So, I'm just going to I'll show you when I come across something interesting.

[00:05:25]Let's take the head bolts out. Remember this is where I broke one on the other head on the other engine.

[00:06:08]>> All right, all those came free without anything breaking. Let's uh go to the other side.

[00:06:13]Oh, I did drain the coolant out of the block.

[00:06:21]I didn't drain this side, though.

[00:06:28]>> [snorts] >> And that bolt was loose.

[00:06:59]So was that one.

[00:07:08]Who wants to bet we're going to find a blown head gasket in that area?

[00:07:11]All right, let me get all the bolts out and then we'll pull the heads off.

[00:07:15]Okay, I don't know if these heads had ever been off. I know the intake was off. I know the water pump was off. I know somebody broke the snot out of the um OptiSpark.

[00:07:26]But I don't know if these heads have ever been off.

[00:07:30]Try to get in there.

[00:07:34]Do something out of the ordinary.

[00:07:38]Oop, I forgot this thing has It's got a water pipe in the back of the head here. I got to take that off.

[00:07:57]That's because this thing does not have a water passage in the head that for the intake.

[00:08:07]That's the reason for that.

[00:08:15]All right. I think these are replacement head gaskets. But, yeah.

[00:08:19]Just as I suspected.

[00:08:22]That burned up right there.

[00:08:24]See how the gasket's all pitted right in there?

[00:08:27]That is a burned-up head gasket. But, these two bolts or a couple of these bolts here in this area were not torqued correctly. So, this head has been off of here.

[00:08:38]I don't know what had happened.

[00:08:40]And you can see actually you can see how those pistons are kind of on a clean side.

[00:08:47]It's oil, but it's all right.

[00:08:49]Okay, let's get this head off.

[00:08:51]See if I have a surprise awaiting me on that side.

[00:08:59]And this side is kind of gooey.

[00:09:05]And it's got a little bit of rust in the cylinders, too. That's all right, that'll hone out. Um but this appears to be an original head gasket. This one doesn't appear to be blown, though.

[00:09:19]I mean, they could be original gaskets.

[00:09:20]I don't know. I can't tell.

[00:09:23]This side has a little bit of rust in the cylinder, which is fine. That's not That's not detrimental. At least, I don't think it is.

[00:09:31]I think I can hone that out.

[00:09:33]I'm going to probably send this thing to a machine shop regardless. All right, let me take the tray out of here so I can get the lifters out and then let's inspect all that.

[00:09:44]Got all the lifters out and they all look good. I mean, you know, they got wear on them like they should, but they're not all destroyed. You know, they're not like that one that was all pitted out. They're all like in this condition, which is fine. That's perfect. That's what I wanted to see cuz that just tells me the metal is not flowing all throughout the system. I still got to look at the bottom end. So, let me get the front of this apart.

[00:10:04]I'm not going to make the same mistake with that. But, let me get the front of this apart and then um we'll drop we'll turn this thing over and we'll get the bottom end apart.

[00:10:14]All right, I got it off without the epic fail I had last time. All right, learned my lesson.

[00:10:19]Yep, learned my lesson.

[00:10:21]Good on that last one. All right.

[00:10:23]Let me just keep going.

[00:10:25]There it is.

[00:10:27]The wonderful OptiSpark in all its glory. The worst ignition system ever created.

[00:10:32]I do want to see if this side is like the other side where nothing will come out because it's just loaded with corrosion.

[00:10:41]That's how the other engine was.

[00:10:46]Oh, no, this one actually is draining. Okay.

[00:10:51]Stinks, I will tell you that.

[00:10:53]Let's pop the pan off.

[00:10:59]It's money. I mean, it doesn't look terrible.

[00:11:02]I mean, I I've seen worse. I've seen better.

[00:11:07]All right, let's uh All right. Basically same thing as what I did before. I'm going to take everything apart there and then I'll show you as I get it apart.

[00:11:19]Okay, got all the pistons out. There was no spun bearings or, you know, ruined bearings. I mean, the bearings are wiped out. You know, they're worn.

[00:11:27]You know, no big deal. One thing I did notice and this is because of lack of oil changes.

[00:11:32]See how this doesn't want to like rotate nice and easily?

[00:11:37]Now it does.

[00:11:38]Like they don't want to do this. Sorry.

[00:11:42]Yeah, basically that's from lack of oil changes. So, there's carbon and sludge built up on the piston pin. So.

[00:11:49]But yeah, the main bearings, they're worn out, but nothing's hammered. The crank doesn't look bad at all.

[00:11:56]I can probably polish that out at home.

[00:11:59]So, I think that's probably what I'm going to do. The little bit of rust that was in that one cylinder really it didn't affect pulling the piston out.

[00:12:07]So, all the pistons look okay. All the bearings look okay. I mean worn, like I said.

[00:12:11]So, last but not least, I got to get that cam out. So, let me get the crank out, lay that on the ground, and put the caps back on.

[00:12:19]Cuz I got to decide what I want to do. I may just send it to get boiled out.

[00:12:23]Just because it's so full of mung, so to speak. So, yeah, let me do that. Let me just get the crank on the ground and put the caps back on, and we'll go from there.

[00:12:33]So, the cam itself, you can see it does not look bad. The bearings are actually copper-faced, which I didn't expect that, to be honest with you.

[00:12:42]But the other ones, you can remember you could see like the heavy grooving in there.

[00:12:46]So, but I'm going to have I'm going to have this block boiled out. There's just too much going on with it. And then also, the water pump drive, because whoever it was was not big on changing oil, this bearing is like binding up.

[00:13:00]So, that was ready to fail had this thing kept going. It's actually it feels like a bad wheel bearing, which essentially is what it is.

[00:13:08]I'm assuming you can get just that bearing. I'd have to find out. Although, I do have the other one for the other engine, so I'm not overly concerned.

[00:13:15]So.

[00:13:17]I think what I'm going to do is take this thing to work. Cuz we have that that bath there that parts washer that we could put it on. It's got a turntable. I think I've shown you that before. And we use those for transmissions and engines and stuff like that. So, I might just take this to work and cuz I'm going to be there all next week and I'll just bring it there and just clean it there. What the heck, right?

[00:13:41]So, all right.

[00:13:43]That's going to end this video. I hope you got something out of this. I'm I'm happy with this. This This was going to work out exactly for what I need. I do have to send the heads out. I don't trust the heads. I'm going to send them out. At least I have a total of four.

[00:13:54]So, and they're all the same head, left and right, I believe. Yeah, they should be the same. Um they have that water port at the back, but there's a plug for the front side, so it should be a water port that just passes all the way through.

[00:14:07]Uh but yeah, so anyway, that's it. All right, guys. I hope you got something out of that. If you did, hit that like button. If you could, please subscribe.

[00:14:13]All right, have a great day and keep wrenching.