60 Dart Seneca 2dr.

[lloyd3]

Well...not ready to walk away just yet. The good news is that we didn't appear to do any damage. The lash wasn't all that far-off on any of the exhaust valves and only a little snug on one intake valve. WHEW! We also compression tested it today and got somewhat mixed results. All the cylinders were in the 95-100 psi range and really didn't change much when oil was added, which surprised me.  From my reading I know that 125psi and up would be more normal/healthy. The fact that it smokes is more telling for me so... I'm going to push for a ring job anyway. We'll see if my buddy is up for that challenge.

[lloyd3]

Coming out means something different here...



After a brief tidy:



My buddy has some really great equipment for this little job. Makes a huge difference when tackling it.



First blush leaves me with this: We found a cracked exhaust manifold and a stuck heat-riser. Upon removing the freeze plugs and block-drain plug (on the passenger side of the engine) the water-jacket passages look just fine. Some buildup on the interior walls but really... nothing significant. It appears to be a typical 140k mile, 60-year old car engine and it needs rings (and little more than that, surprisingly). The recently re-done head still looks brand new and the cylinders are still at 3.40 on the nose so...not 0.010 over-bored, not scored, and not anything obviously wrong. The pan and harmonic balancer are painted a metallic green for some reason (replacements?) and the timing mark (finally found it) is wildly off (~20 degrees BTDC when number 1 is TDC). Whatever rebuilds it might of had in the past were clearly inept and thankfully...superficial at best.  My 16-year old son's been leaning on me pretty hard to go with an electronic ignition, headers, and a 4-barrel carb set-up, and... while I fully understand the motivation, I don't think I'm up to funding that one just yet (surprisingly pricey). I'll pull the parts I need tomorrow off of the donor car in the Colorado Springs junkyard (another Carter BBS in better (IE. less molested!) shape, a non-cracked exhaust manifold (w/a working heat-riser hopefully), and some throttle-linkage parts (his are abysmal). Then I'll order rings, a gasket set, hone the cylinders and put it back together.  We will inspect the timing chain and gears to see how things look first, but I'll likely go ahead and replace them anyway (my one extravagance).  If we get it up and running properly on the stock equipment, he can fund the hot rod parts later.  I'm still faced with the expense of a new wiring harness in the engine bay, a disk-brake conversion, some significant body work (better fenders are on the way), and God knows whatever else we'll likely find before we're done putting it back together.  I'm going to inspect everything for function and then clean it up, paint it all one color, and stick it back in the car. With a new temperature sending unit installed, an open heat-riser and a properly adjusted valve-train, maybe it won't be running quite as hot as we thought it was?

[lloyd3]

Well, darn it, we've got babbitt material in the pan and it didn't come from the mains or the rods. Has to be the cam, right?

[DAY CLONA]

Mike: Thank you as well. Always good to have yet another source of supply. we'll have had to replace almost every component to make this car viable. Sure hope your daughter is have better luck with her(your?) project.

Lloyd,

Sorry to hear you had to pull the motor, but it'll turn into a good project for your son to cut his teeth on, if your not going to swap the motor for a v8, and your going to repair the 6, the babbit in the pan might just be cam related if the rods/main look good, but you have it out, might as well do a general budget rings/cam/main/rod bearings/cam/etc/etc rebuild to freshen it up, I know it wasn't in the cards but you know the drill... shit happens,.... but do spend the money to have the block magnafluxed to make sure it's not cracked before dumping any coin in to it...

As far as my Daughter's car, we've replaced the gas tank/sender with repros, changed out all the fuel/brake lines for stainless, I'm currently getting an E body 8 3/4 rear ready for a swap to get rid of the 1961 pressed axle/drum dual servo from hell set up!... the power disc brake set up is next on the list, plus we just sourced some 15x7 steel wheels and new repro full dress hubcaps to upgrade from the 14's that are too small for these cars, now the kid has to come up with the cash for repro wide white walls she wants... finding a 4 barrel manifold for this poly v8 was harder than sourcing 426HEMI parts! ....dual poly 4's were dime a dozen...luckily Tony's D'Agostinos Parts had one, the kid wanted quads, but with her lead foot...uh..No!...lol!

Wish you and you son the best on your project!

Mike

[lloyd3]

Mike: Thank you. Her car will be really neat when you're done with it. 318 polys w/a stick are a great combination and I'm guessing that with a 4BBL it will be even better.  Thanks to COVID, both my buddy and I have the free time to screw with this little project now. A God-send, really, and a nice distraction for us both. My son's in school and working after now so his participation is, sadly, only peripheral. I'm hoping this engine rebuild gets this project over-the-hump, so to speak, and gives him(us) a good place to continue on from.



Any guess as to what the BCBCCC means? If it was a Volvo it would likely mean piston size.



Back in the yard early this morning (to avoid the heat-woke up the junkman to get in!). Got the factory (?) aluminum intake and the parts carb, linkage and a second (better?) distributor for $75. That early metallic turquoise (like the balancer pictured above) is clearly the original color we'll be needing to find for this rebuild. The exhaust manifold was cracked and the heater box was wrecked, so I'll order the re-pop one from eBay.

[DAY CLONA]

 Mopar blocks will sometimes display in paint/chalk the piston bore sizes in B/C/D/E/F sizes, crank journals are usually Q/P...just make sure to measure the bores/pistons and mark/return them to their designated holes, check your engine pad for any "extra" stamps that might denote various under/over bore modifications/notes when it was assembled...undersized cranks, lifters, pistons, bearings, etc can be installed from the factory

Mike

[lloyd3]

I have yet to find the pad on this engine. Below the distributor like on the v8s? I've yet to see that location mentioned in the reading I've done on the subject, such as in this article: https://www.slantsix.org/articles/dutra-blocks/slant-blocks.htm

[Nacho-RT74]

you can allways to BLOW UP the engine



more details:

https://axleaddict.com/cars/slantsix

[Nacho-RT74]

BTW, just found this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mopar-225-Slant-Six-Intake-Manifold-Never-Used/154055633981?hash=item23de6e6c3d:g:vO8AAOSwwDxfQX8S

[lloyd3]

Aw heck....don't let my son see that.

[Nacho-RT74]

In Argentina Mopar guys are deep into the /6 engines, since most of the Mopars built there are /6. Maybe 80% of the old Mopars there are /6 and I have seen several on the web with blower setups.

The 4 barrels intake is a bargain! And hard to come by latelly.

[lloyd3]

Natcho: They aren't all that rare if you pony-up the usual $400 + shipping  price tag.  Then there's the cost of the 4bbl carb ($400) & the modified linkage ($50), & the modified exhaust system ($400) to justify the price of the now-necessary dual header system ($400) The costs spiral out of control very quickly for a 16-year old high-school kid who works part-time at Home Depot. All for a vehicle who's entire life-mission was to be a prudent and semi-dependable form of transport (and little more).  IF this car was even remotely "sporty" then... maybe, but as it stands now, it's a "heap" needing so many uncounted things as to even begin to resemble a safe & hopefully-viable form of transport.  The only reason the car isn't still moldering in our turnaround (after doing so for nearly 9-months now) is that my good friend and I are at loose-ends because of all the COVID horse-manure we've been forced to endure here, so he & I can now afford to waste a little time to do this little fix-up job.  Hopefully, it will be some fun for us both.



This aluminum intake clearly doesn't display the classic Pentastar logo anywhere. Anybody have an idea as to who might of produced this unit? In a now-defunct eBay advert, this guy implies that it is a Mopar unit designed to be used in hotter climates:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1960-Dodge-Plymouth-Aluminum-1BBL-Slant-6-Intake-Manifold-Mopar-2121675-/154012255535?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l10137.c10&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true

I suppose it could be OEM as there is a remnant of the original block paint color showing on the bottom.

[hemigeno]

This aluminum intake clearly doesn't display the classic Pentastar logo anywhere. Anybody have an idea as to who might of produced this unit? In a now-defunct eBay advert, this guy implies that it is a Mopar unit designed to be used in hotter climates:

It's an original Chrysler part, as evidenced by the "DPCD" (or is it "DCPD") logo embossing to the left of the part number.  That stands for Dodge Chrysler Plymoth DeSoto.  I don't think my '58 & '60 Poly manifolds had the pentastar on them, but that's going from memory.

Now - what your manifold's application was, I have no idea.  Galen's little white books don't mention that casting number, and I don't have many resources from that era.

Sorry I'm not any more help than that.

[lloyd3]

hemigeno: Thank you for that! Just the sort of deep institutional knowledge that I was hoping for here.

[lloyd3]

Well....using this book:



I've determined that this engine is not original to the car. It decodes to March 1, 1962.




No matter, really, just nice to know.

[lloyd3]

While we're waiting on a few parts, a little sheet-metal sure makes a big difference.

before...



after....





Those fenders were darn hard to come up with.

also....the one-year only green used on the slant 6 in 1960:



I took the motor mount in for color duplication at the paint shop last Friday.

The other one-year only slant 6 engine part:



The other lesson here has been the struggle to find parts you would otherwise think would be easy. Things like points and rings and other things that should be commonly available as they were used for over 20-years on later Dodges. Also, NAPA used to be the gold-standard for parts quality, but they're clearly competing with the lesser parts stores and have cheapened their stuff to price-match. You have to double check everything.

[Daytona R/T SE]

The fenders are a huge improvement.  

The Exner era cars are awesome.

I hope to get one someday.

[Kern Dog]

The slant six didn't get hydraulic lifters until way later, sometime in the late 70s if I recall.

[XH29N0G]

Thanks for posting on this.  It is a lot of fun to watch the progress.  Also fun to imagine what it must be like for you and your son.

[lloyd3]

Daytona R/T SE: Thanks, they sure do.

Kern Dog: Something like 1982 I believe.

XH29NOG: Glad you're enjoying the journey.

I've actually joined the Slant 6 forum for a little more insight into how (& where) to answer some questions and find some of these obscure parts. A little different, but interesting and extremely knowledgeable bunch of fellas there.  

[lloyd3]

Making progress...

[lloyd3]

Ready to install...

[RallyeMike]

Looks great 

[b5blue]

Very nice 

[lloyd3]

Thanks Guys. Good before shot...