Found my dads original 1971 duster!

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340sFastback said:
Could be car sat for decades some passage got rusted shut that is not visible? One doesn't know. But sounds like engines been dyno tested shop said its got a clean bill of health. So get it put in car burn some tires up. Cars are like woman some times you can't figure them out. If ***** working seems to be fine bark up some other tree move on.
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Yep. That’s kind of my thoughts as well. I don’t know how big the passages are, but rusting or corroding or whatever are kind of what I was thinking must have happened. I should be driving the car within a month, if all goes well. Engine is supposed to go in the car this coming week. Thanks for your message :)
 
My 2 cents.......Ask the questions, but don't sweat it. They run these things so they don't have the problems in the car. When a dyno guys says it was running "hot" doesn't mean that it was necessarily overheating. I couldn't imagine a pro shop letting it run that long without shutting it down. The best time to catch any anomalies is when it's on the stand. Enjoy your car.
 
340sFastback said:
Could be car sat for decades some passage got rusted shut that is not visible? One doesn't know. But sounds like engines been dyno tested shop said its got a clean bill of health. So get it put in car burn some tires up. Cars are like woman some times you can't figure them out. If ***** working seems to be fine bark up some other tree move on.
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Also, it’s clear to everyone that I know nothing about engines at this point….but I know even less about women. Lol
 
CFD244 said:
My 2 cents.......Ask the questions, but don't sweat it. They run these things so they don't have the problems in the car. When a dyno guys says it was running "hot" doesn't mean that it was necessarily overheating. I couldn't imagine a pro shop letting it run that long without shutting it down. The best time to catch any anomalies is when it's on the stand. Enjoy your car.
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Thanks a million! That definitely makes me feel a bit better about it
 
I’m leaning this way. They did not try to hide anything. Had they caught the bad head prior, you would have had to buy one anyway. They noticed the temp issue and pulled the plug. I doubt they would risk there reputation buy screwing you on this. I kinda see the warranty thing. Someone could go out and be ridiculous With it and blow it up. I’ve kinda been down this road. I think you are gonna be fine. Let it go. You can’t worry about something that hasn’t happened and may never. Doesn’t hurt to send emails and ask questions. Be polite. If they start being defensive and rude then you may have to turn it up. I don’t want this to ruin this experience you are having. Basically buzz kill this. The motor should be broke in if it was dynoed. All you need to do is drop it in and run it. You could film that maybe for some proof if something goes wrong. Hope this helps. I agree a lot of money for the engine work. However, it may have been a little rough from sitting all that time outside. Hope this helps give you a little piece of mind.
 
moparker said:
I’m leaning this way. They did not try to hide anything. Had they caught the bad head prior, you would have had to buy one anyway. They noticed the temp issue and pulled the plug. I doubt they would risk there reputation buy screwing you on this. I kinda see the warranty thing. Someone could go out and be ridiculous With it and blow it up. I’ve kinda been down this road. I think you are gonna be fine. Let it go. You can’t worry about something that hasn’t happened and may never. Doesn’t hurt to send emails and ask questions. Be polite. If they start being defensive and rude then you may have to turn it up. I don’t want this to ruin this experience you are having. Basically buzz kill this. The motor should be broke in if it was dynoed. All you need to do is drop it in and run it. You could film that maybe for some proof if something goes wrong. Hope this helps. I agree a lot of money for the engine work. However, it may have been a little rough from sitting all that time outside. Hope this helps give you a little piece of mind.
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Thanks, moparker! Ya, I appreciate everyone’s concerns, but it is definitely a bit of a buzz kill. I know the situation that is at hand and really appreciate everyone’s suggestions moving forward.
I can’t imagine them risking their reputation either. Especially combined with the fact that I filmed dropping the motor off to them for a video log of the car build. They are also aware that myself and my son (mostly my son) have a huge social media following.
At this point, I’m going to just enjoy the final stages of the car build. There will definitely be pictures and video taken of the engine install and first start up!
 
Awesome....Great attitude. BTW.....How long has the complete project been going on? It seems like you're really moving along.
 
thanks :)
Well that’s a whole other story. Lol! The car was supposed to be done by last fall. The project started late April, of last year. The builder said that he’d have me driving it by fall. I felt that was a very short period of time to do a car build, but he assured me that he really wanted the story of building my dads car and that he would easily have me driving it by that fall (5-6 month build)
Its now been almost exactly 1 year. We’ve had some hiccups along the way, but my exciting level is finally where it should be with this build! I get progress pictures every Friday now. So I should hav more coming tonight, to post on here! I’m driving out to pick the car up in approx 3 weeks. So he will have to keep at it hard and steady from this point on!
 
It's a shame the engine build wasn't a straight forward success but it is a success at this point. You have to understand this forum and all forums in general. When a problem is spotted, no mater how it turns out, some members will jump on it like a bulldog on a ham bone. Im sure the engine will be trouble free for a few reasons. The builder hid nothing and put it all in writing. He gave the defective head back to you for examination. He has a reputation as a premier engine shop to protect.
Don't worry about the engine, it will be great. One thing you might ask them is could they send a technician to oversee the initial start up. They may do that to ease your mind and also further their reputation.
Good luck and go have some fun.
Jerry
 
Shenango said:
It's a shame the engine build wasn't a straight forward success but it is a success at this point. You have to understand this forum and all forums in general. When a problem is spotted, no mater how it turns out, some members will jump on it like a bulldog on a ham bone. Im sure the engine will be trouble free for a few reasons. The builder hid nothing and put it all in writing. He gave the defective head back to you for examination. He has a reputation as a premier engine shop to protect.
Don't worry about the engine, it will be great. One thing you might ask them is could they send a technician to oversee the initial start up. They may do that to ease your mind and also further their reputation.
Good luck and go have some fun.
Jerry
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Thanks, Jerry. Much appreciated!
Well….I definitely would ask them to oversee the first start up, but the car is being built 25 hours from their shop (23 hours from my house). Lol. Like I said….the car build is a whole other story! I might as well sum it up here:

When my father had passed, I put a “wanted” ad up on kijiji. I was wanting to have a car built in memory of my father. The builder from Saskatchewan contacted me saying that he’d love to build the car for me, as hes all about family….and his is a family run business. I was in he process of making a deal with him, as he had several dusters on hand, to do a build with. I was just to search out an engine and transmission for the build
After thinking it over, I cooled my jets and realized that the car was just too much of an investment to make, to just have a car that was “similar” to the one I used to ride around in as a kid……BUT that’s the part of the story where I was able to actually track down my dads car! Then it made sense to me to make the investment and bring my dads car home, to where it belonged!!
So from that point on, I felt obligated to the builder in Saskatchewan. It’s been a struggle at times, not being able to see things or keep things moving along, but in the end, hopefully it all works out. It was an expensive fuel bill to drive the engine and transmission out to him once they were built here closer to home (but I wanted warranty to be where I live…not 23 hours away). I guess that was a moot point. Lol.
But I wanted to drive them out rather than ship them, so that I could see the progress and quality of the build on my car while I was there. He definitely knows what he’s doing and I was also able to see other complete cars while I was there. So I’m hopeful that I will love the car, in the end!
 
I wonder if the head was a deflective casting and came from the factory like that. If it was on the PS of the block originally maybe it wasn't much of an issue. But if it was swapped to the DS during the rebuild, maybe the restricted coolant flow became a problem where it wasn't before.

Either way, good thing they dyno'ed it and caught the issue. Imagine the frustration if the motor was in the car and overheated several times and a ton of money spent on radiator/fans/etc. and still no solution because who is going to look at the cylinder head to see if it is restricting coolant flow.
 
Majority of ppl get an engine rebuilt, drop it into the car, and pray to god no issues arise. And if there are issues take engine back out or lean over fenders to take it apart been there done that. Basically you are about 5 steps ahead of the average Joe being engine has been dyno run, an issue was flagged and corrected, and engine run again on dyno to verify yes issue was resolved. Shop was transparent an f-up happened and it was fixed. So I would have a lot of confidence in that engine if I were you.

And yeah every project has hick ups unexpected issues crop up that is all situation normal. My two cents.
 
DionR said:
I wonder if the head was a deflective casting and came from the factory like that. If it was on the PS of the block originally maybe it wasn't much of an issue. But if it was swapped to the DS during the rebuild, maybe the restricted coolant flow became a problem where it wasn't before.

Either way, good thing they dyno'ed it and caught the issue. Imagine the frustration if the motor was in the car and overheated several times and a ton of money spent on radiator/fans/etc. and still no solution because who is going to look at the cylinder head to see if it is restricting coolant flow.
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Hmm. I didn’t know that they could be installed on either side of the engine. That’s an interesting theory
Ya man, good point. I’m glad it was noticed. I can’t imagine the frustration of having a “brand new” car and engine and instantly having to deal with trying to diagnose a major issue
 
dads71 said:
Hmm. I didn’t know that they could be installed on either side of the engine. That’s an interesting theory
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On some motors, they are side specific. The GenIII Hemi is one, they are machined for a certain side.

But on the LA motor like yours, the heads can go on either side. The intake then blocks the rear coolant ports in the intake face of the cylinder head so coolant only flows out the ports on the front of the motor. If the blockage was in the back of the head when it is on the passenger side, it wouldn't be much of an issue because coolant doesn't flow out of the head there in that situation. But if the cylinder head was then swapped to the other side, now coolant that needs to flow out of the head and into the intake headed to the radiator can't and would cause an overheating problem.

You might poke your finger into the outer most ports on the intake face on the junk cylinder head, or maybe shine a flashlight in there. You might find something different between the two, with the right one being the suspect one.
 
dads71 said:
Thanks. I appreciate your thoughts. He explained it to me when I picked the the engine up. He said that when they were test running the engine, they monitor temperatures and noticed that it was running too hot. They then determined that it was a clogged j head, so they luckily had an exact date correct j head in inventory to swap it out with. He said that they still had no idea where or why mine was blocked, but that after swapping heads, the temps were good. He sent my old head home with me.
He seemed as surprised as everyone ok here that it could have a clogged head. I have no idea if it should have been caught by them during the reconditioning of the head, long before the test run of the engine
My hopes are that the heating up won’t be an issue, or he would have just swapped heads and not said a thing to me…..if he felt that it was their error and that the heating up may cause issues in the end. I dunno. Not much use stressing over it, I guess. But the “doesn’t really come with a warranty” definitely worried me. When I acted surprised at that comment, he said “well if there are ever any issues, you can definitely come back to us and we will take care of you”
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This sounds way better.
 
dads71 said:
Thanks :). Ya, it was a late build that year, so it has the blue 340 engine….which I think is pretty rare. They changed plants that year and switched from orange engines to blue, apparently. I think it will look pretty nice with the blue engine in the blue car
It needed new frame rails and floor pans

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First off wanna say cool car, cool story and thanks for sharing. I have a 71 340 duster as well. The build date is Dec 2/70 and it was originally a blue engine as well.

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DionR said:
On some motors, they are side specific. The GenIII Hemi is one, they are machined for a certain side.

But on the LA motor like yours, the heads can go on either side. The intake then blocks the rear coolant ports in the intake face of the cylinder head so coolant only flows out the ports on the front of the motor. If the blockage was in the back of the head when it is on the passenger side, it wouldn't be much of an issue because coolant doesn't flow out of the head there in that situation. But if the cylinder head was then swapped to the other side, now coolant that needs to flow out of the head and into the intake headed to the radiator can't and would cause an overheating problem.

You might poke your finger into the outer most ports on the intake face on the junk cylinder head, or maybe shine a flashlight in there. You might find something different between the two, with the right one being the suspect one.
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Wow. You know your stuff! I’ll have a look. Thanks for the info!
 
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