340 head gasket questions

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The little holes with the white sticks are open to water on my 71 340 block. (Of course the large ones are too but they are not in question)

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Grimreaper, the casting number on the block is 1971 or the VIN?

And thankyou for the fotos, perfect illustration. I have some more cleanup ahead of me then.
 
Inside looking through the three freeze plugs on each side, I see a raised rusty "node" but don't know if the nodes are made up of 100% rust or if the nodes are cast into the block.

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From the pictures I would say that somebody pressure washed your block but it does not look like it was hot tanked to me. I believe a Hot tank would have taken that rust out and remover the paint.
Reach up inside those passages with a long screwdriver and break that rust loose then flush that block out otherwise it' maybe going to run a little hot. And some of those rust chunks may go to places you don't want it to like plugging up those passages from the Block through the head or into the radiator.
 
Time to take the block back to the machine shop and have them clean it right!
 
Grimreaper, the casting number on the block is 1971 or the VIN?

And thankyou for the fotos, perfect illustration. I have some more cleanup ahead of me then.
The casting date on the block in the photos is 1-18-71 night shift. The VIN is 71 as well.

It does look like your block did not get hot tanked but probably got the "dishwasher" cleaning
 
Time to take the block back to the machine shop and have them clean it right!
I agree..... one local shop here has a 'rust tank' where really rusty blocks and heads go into for a few days. It never gets it all out but it'll do a lot better than what is shown here. Be ready to change the coolant in the engine 1 or 2 times after running several hundred miles each time. You would be surprised how much comes out later with engine heat cycles and constant flow/immersion when things are this rusty inside.
 
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