'59 Plymouth Forum

Hello Group,

now it’s official. With a lot of help from a friend I became owner of a 361 engine. The engine doesn’t run and I still couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with it, but I’m already having fun disassembling and investigating it. The plan is to restore it to NEW and replace it then against my tired 318 engine. The best of all, I can work on the engine without loosing the 2007 season.
During the next couple of month I’ll try to place pictures of the work in progress here and of course you are invited to post comments, tips, suggestions or your own experiences here. Any help is appreciated. I hope you like the pictures.

Stefan

sportfury1959 wrote:With a lot of help from a friend I became owner of a 361 engine...

Yeah -- I heard about that! Way cool, Stefan! If the webmaster can ever get off his butt, maybe he can add another "how to from Stefan" page

Actually, while browsing one of your old pages on my laptop, I discovered to my dismay that some of the navigation tools at the bottom of the page smooshed into the table with images... Meaning, Internet Explorer handles "layers" differently on different machines. I was upset; it means a lot of folks see a jumble on some of the web pages.

(*sigh*) "layers" make it easy to drop a pic or a graphic anywhere you want on a web page, but they're not handled well by a lot of browsers. What this means for me, is that I've got to update the webpages using "tables" throughout... and that's got me, well, sitting on my arse.

I guess I'm just looking for an excuse to be lazy

Good luck with the engine Stefan! And keep us posted...

Dan

very interesting, Stefan...let us see how it progresses from "dead" to "living"

If the webmaster can ever get off his butt, maybe he can add another "how to from Stefan" page

Hello Dan,

That’s a good idea and we will do this, but the project will be finished not before autumn, so now you don’t need to move nothing.
At first I have to find all the parts and then the shipping will take some month to arrive her.

Roger,

Of course I’ll keep you posted, I hope it doesn’t go from dead to dead. Enjoy it!

Stefan

Here come the next pictures:

I started to remove the oil pan, front cover and oil pump. The inside of the front cover shows a thick layer of carbon black mixed with oil sludge. Seems, that during the 48 years of its life, the engine had periods when it didn’t see an oil change in years, whenever that was. Also some oil passages are plugged with sludge. The oil pump is severely scuffed, I just hope the consequences are not too bad.

Stefan

Oil pump.

1. Timing Chain

2. The 361 must be a gooood engine. Here's the proof. Valve seats with carbon and rust - yet the engine run - till that moment.

3. The valves are also covered with carbon sludge

Meanwhile I removed the cam and crank shaft – this is the moment of truth – unfortunately

1. The cam shows some wear – it's not worth to use it again – have to change it.
2. The crank shaft is a quite heavy piece
3. Also the here some wear, not good, but not too bad for it’s age. The rodbearing was already removed before I received the engine - the crank is severely carved on this place.

Conclusion: I’ll need oversize pistons and undersized main- and rod bearings to bring it back to life again. Meanwhile I believe that the engine had originally a 2bbl carburetor. It’s quite possible that also other modifications have been made. Does anyone know how I can find out if the camshaft is original or already replaced?

Stephan, definitely a dirty job pulling down a sludged engine as such. Once I tore down a 455 Olds engine, and was able to fill three large coffee cans with goo.

If the crankshaft journal is beyond turning down, most machine shops nowadays have the ability to build up the damaged journal, and turn it back to factory spec. Keep us posted on your progress! ---John

Thank you John for reminding me!!! This is in dead a good idea.

Stefan

Yesterday I had some time to investigate the 361 again. Last News -.the water pump housing has a hole. I most likely will go for a new aluminium light weight housing with pump.
This will be the last picture of “taking it apart”. In the next weeks I’ll try to find useful information about what parts to choose (camshaft, pistons & rings, etc.) and how to rework the heads. Can anybody help me here with information and/or his own experience?
Second question is, where can I get a master rebuild kit?

Stefan

sportfury1959 wrote:Second question is, where can I get a master rebuild kit?
Stefan

If NAPA doesn't have one, Stefan, I bet these guys have one...

http://www.egge.com/

i have never tried to get an engine kit for a vintage engine, but i have had good luck with northern auto parts, they r mail order, name brand stuff, super low prices (they deal in large volumes). if not them i would say kanter auto, another mail order. according to their catalog they carry kits for just about any vintage engine u can think of, their prices are a bit higher than northern though. all the local parts houses, ie napa and the like carry pretty much the same quality, if not the same brand of stuff. u can get it a little sooner there, but u will pay a healthy price for it. just fyi. keep us posted --jeremy

Thanks Jeremy and Dan,


does anybody have experience with the seller "clevite77" alias "maddog" on e-bay?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 854&rd=1,1

Stefan

I don't, Stefan. But his feedback rating is very high, considering the volume of sales he has. And his responses to the few negative remarks seems plausible.

Dan