Have I ruined my engine?

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UOP

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Cliffs Notes: Cooling passages completely clogged in engine.

I'll start with a little bit of history.

I built this engine in early 2007 as a spare for a turbocharged Ramcharger I was tinkering with. It's nothing special, just a simple rebuilt magnum 360 with a small cam. It sat in my garage until early 2009 when I decided I wanted to use it for another project. My curiosity got the better of me so I built a test stand to make sure it ran since it's the first motor I've put together. It ran fine as far as I could tell. No weird noises, never overheated, or anything else that would throw up a red flag. I ran it several times for my personal amusement for a total of about 1 to 1.5 hours.

After about 2 months I decided to take it off the test stand and put it back on the motor stand to gain a little room. When I drained the water it was real nasty and full of rusty junk, but I figured I'd just flush it real good when I got it in the car so I wasn't worried. I just used regular tap water, no antifreeze. In hindsight it probably was a bad decision to not drain the block when the engine was on the stand. The motor has not been run in over a year.

Now, I'm to the point to where my build is coming together so I tried to flush the cooling passages in the motor today. Here's what I did.

1.) Made an adapter so I could connect a water hose to the intake manifold (where the heater hose would normally go).
2.) Plugged the thermostat opening, bypass, and heater hose connections with rubber expansion plugs.

The idea was to let the water come out of the water pump inlet and drain into a bucket when I turned on the water hose. Radiator wasn't hooked up. Well, it didn't quite work out the way I expected.

When I turned on the water (I didn't crank it open, just until I heard water flowing from the valve), nothing came out of the water pump inlet. Nothing. I figured the motor was filling up with water, but after about 20 seconds I turned the water off to see what was going on. I loosened the rubber plug in the thermostat opening and it popped off like a champagne cork. Nasty water went everywhere. When the geiser stopped I realized that the intake manifold was holding water and NOTHING was draining. And it held A LOT of pressure.

Sooooo, I'm assuming the coolant passages are completely clogged with rust, which really sucks because I'm so close (or atleast I was) to getting this thing on the road. I'm open to suggestions because I have no idea how to deal with something like this. Any of you dealt with something like this before?

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
knock the bottom frost plugs out of the front and rear and fill the engine from the t-stat housing...see what u can wash out of there...
 
Yeah I would knock the plugs out too and start rinsing it out. You could take the intake off and see if the passages in the head are clogged there.
 
I used to purchase a lot of junkyard engines when I was a kid. They would always be full of rust when I go them,I would flush them and run them. So, what I would do, was install a screen over the upper radiator hose so it would catch the rust exiting the engine before it entered the radiator, then mixed a little muratic acid and filled the enigne with about 10 - 20 percent muratic, into the water, ran the engine, flushed the engine several times, each time cleaning the catch screen and mixing in muratic acid into the water. My run / flush procedure was to fill the cooling system with the solution (no thermostat) run it at varying rpms for 15 minutes, completely drain the cooling system then re-fill and repeat. After 3 flushes cycles, I would then soak the final flush cycle for 15 minutes, then take off the upper radiator hose and point it in a safe direction, stick the garden hose full blast in the upper radiator port so the radiator sucked in clean water, rev the engine to about 1500 rpm, this would blast water out the open upper radiator hose, totally shooting all left over junk out. This process worked very well on many engines. After flushing several times with water at the end of the procedure, I just ran the car with proper coolant mix, occasionally checking my screen trap. This would easily cure any overheating issues from clogged radiator or block coolant passages. Some would say the muratic acid may dissolve a head gasket or a freeze plug. I did it many times in engines with 100 - 200 k on them and not one issue. Most of the engines were from the 70s. I did have a 64 260 ci ford with rusted freeze plugs, which had to be replaced prior to the procedure.
 
The way you had everything plugged up created pressure.
Pour the water in the intake threw the top thermostat opening and pull the block drain plugs.
When you get it running flush it a few times.
The motor heat really helps with rust removal.
 
I can,t see it being plugged with rust after rebuilding 2 yrs ago?I would just fill and run,then drain a couple times.It should be fine.IMO.
 
Thanks for the replies fellas. I'm gonna work on it today and will let you know how it works out.
 
The way the system flows, it goes in thru the lower hose in the water pump, and out the thermostat housing. The hearter hoses form a loop that you closed when you plugged it and truthfully won't flow much anyway. Ring up a way to run the hose into the lower hose opening, remove the thermostat and run the upper hose out of the way and flush that way. I'd also second removing the freeze plugs and just plan to repalce them... Finally, the last thing you do after running an engine on a stand is PULL THE BLOCK DRAINS in the sides of the block... You wont have much rust if you let the water out when it's still warm and it dries it all.
 
Got it flushed yeasterday. Turned out to not be completely clogged with rust, but it took a whole lot of water before it turned clear. Thanks again for the replies.
 
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