Re: 1938 Super 8 1605 - adventures with a newbie

Posted by kevinpackard On 2020/5/18 13:06:21

Flack - thanks. And yes, it was a real blow to morale for all of us. After we found the water we all kind of went into a funk for a bit. We had spent dozens upon dozens of hours getting this thing back to this point only to have it fail immediately.

And I do understand that used blocks are exactly that...used. And they are very old, so there is certainly no guarantee. With the previous corrosion on this block before it was cleaned up (boiled and magnafluxed as well) and the overbore we had to do on the cylinders, it just left the walls too thin. Sleeves would work for the cylinders, and we could probably find and weld the small leak in #6 valve area, but the shortness of the block can't be fixed (as far as I know). It would be much easier to just replace/fix the block, as the lower portion of the engine is a complete fresh rebuild and is in stellar condition.

As far as the car history goes, it came from somewhere in Texas, but the town name escapes me. The car has two A/C systems in it from the previous owner. One for the front and one for the rear. To be honest, I'd prefer that it not have A/C because it has made everything far more complicated. And being up in eastern WA state, it's a drier heat and we can certainly live without A/C for the most part.

BTW, the 39' water pump worked excellently during the short time we had the car running. Putting a hand on the upper radiator hose you could feel the water rushing through at an incredible pace.

-Kevin