My buddy Tim called yesterday. He’s got a 355c.i. small-block with a bunch of good rotating parts but the block was worn with more than 0.003-inch taper in a couple of cylinders so he’s been searching for a budget, 4-bolt main replacement. It had to be a standard bore block because his pistons for the original block were already 0.030-over. He called and said he’d found a block at the junkyard that was in a van and wanted to know if I could help him pull it out. I’d been stuck behind my computer for several days and it sounded like a great escape for a morning so I drove over to his shop.

We pooled our two ½-inch electric impact wrenches and Tim’s junkyard tool box along with a four-wheeled hand cart and set off in search of the van. This particular yard charges a fee to rent an engine hoist so Tim brought along a simple cable puller –commonly referred to as a come-along. I wasn’t quite sure how he planned to use it until we arrived at the van.

A previous picker had conveniently removed the entire front suspension and the transmission from this van. They left the engine supported by one of those tall steel pedestals used to support the cars. The front of the engine was overhanging the front steering drag link so we started by removing the water pump and accessory drive. Then Tim slipped the cable puller hook into the carb pad (the Q-jet was missing) and hooked the other end to a thin metal part of the dash just under the radio opening. He tightened the cable pull and I yanked the stand out from under the oil pan and then we slowly let the engine down until the oil pan was resting on the cart.

After that, we began disassembling the engine including the front balancer, timing cover, intake, exhaust manifolds, and then the heads. As soon as we took the valve covers off, the engine looked really nice on the inside – almost too nice. One valve cover had a GM Goodwrench decal that had originally led Tim to think this was probably a four-bolt main block. He had brought along a dial-bore gauge and as soon as we had one head off, he measured the bore. The pistons looked a little too new but the gauge read 4.020 – which seemed suspicious but still usable.

Next we pulled the pan and the pistons looked fairly new. But nowhere could we find any stamping that said STD, .030, or any numbers for that matter. Tim decided to go ahead and strip the rest of the block and we dragged the bare block up to the office window where they charged him all kinds of extra fees totaling roughly $130 out the door. We then took the block to our machinist, who was a little too busy to check it right away. He called me the next morning to give us the bad news. Our 0.020 over block was really 0.060-over and wasn’t going to work! Arrgghh!

I had a used shortblock at my shop that we thought might work, but it turned out to be 0.030-over so suddenly we were staring at strike two. Finally, Tim remembered that a mutual friend had a 4-bolt main block that he said was a standard bore piece so I drove over to his house and picked up that block after carefully measuring all eight holes.

At lunch the subject was all about two-piece rear main seal small-block Chevy blocks. Chevy still sells these engines as Goodwrench replacement engines and the blocks are cast in Mexico. While we’re not in danger of running short of these blocks anytime soon, but the last time this engine appeared in a production car was 1986. That seems like yesterday.

All told, it was still fun to spend a couple of hours in the junkyard with a friend spinning wrenches. We arrived at the yard at 9:30 a.m. and returned to Tim’s shop two hours later knocking the freeze plugs out of the block and washing our hands. Sure, the job was easy because most of the obstructions had already been removed. But now it’s just a lump of iron that’s pretty much only useful as a door stop. Tim purchased the warranty so he might be able to exchange it for another block that we can use. But we have to do that sometime in the next 30 days. The final dig occurred today as I’m writing this. The machine shop called and requested we remove that lump of iron from their shop! They don’t need any more door stops.