s#*(&# f*&^)!! (my 318 rant)

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dodgethis12

dodgethis12

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So....

My 70 dart has 63000 original miles

been sitting for a presumed 5-6 years

previous owner says "yea it runs great, its just been sitting"

so after 2 nights of frustration and checking.... still it wont run...

OK- something is definately wrong I checked everything and Im not this stupid....

Lets pull a valve cover...


Oh- LOOK!! only half of the pushrods are touching the rockers, the others are 2" too far down and bent and one is puched through the rocker like a spear!! Runs Great my A$$!!!!!

The bent pushrods are bent so bad that I cant even get them out of the heads... the last 1" or so near the lifter is bent at a complete 90* angle!!!


I check the timing... and its spot on... It appears someone broke a timing chain..replaced it- then realized how bad the damage was and put it all back together... ( then enter me into the equatio)

Not to mention the heads have some kind of light green painted springs that dont even fit correctly under the retainler!!

Looks like the heads have definately gotta come off now!!! Im just so pissed I dont know what to do.... NOTHING EVER TURNS OUT LIKE I HOPED!!!!:spiderma::spiderma::spiderma:
 
safe to assume you did not hear it run before you bought it??
 
No I didnt hear it run.... its not even the fact that its messed up! Its just the fact that everytime I got to do something it turns out the worst possible way!!

Not what I expected from a 1 owner 63000 mile car with the hubcaps still on it thats for sure!!! I can fix it.... but wouldnt have been just great if it was normal!!!
 
Take a deep breath.....you know it is what it is. I know it is frustrating but this Hobby is that way. I have my own war story's believe me!!

If you have the room I would recommend pulling the whole engine. At my age bending over pulling heads and replacing cams, timing chains etc, ruins my back really bad........It will all be fine in the end!!!!:cheers:
 
Well, it's always buyer beware. Just repair it and hope that's all that went bad. That much damage may simply be an indicator of worse. I'd pull the head on the side that bent all the pushrods and make sure the pistons are intact. A note to remember... Keep expectations low unless you can verify the story. Then you'll be pleasantly surprised rather than upset when and if things turn out otherwise.
 
dodgethis12 said:
No I didnt hear it run.... its not even the fact that its messed up! Its just the fact that everytime I got to do something it turns out the worst possible way!!

Not what I expected from a 1 owner 63000 mile car with the hubcaps still on it thats for sure!!! I can fix it.... but wouldnt have been just great if it was normal!!!
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pull the intake, use a set of knepex cutters or [known to be sharp' dikes and just cut'em out.
go to the junk yard and grab some new ones along with the rockers you need.

no big.

the springs sound like stock, they come painted greenish bluish ?
the factory retainers never fit tight, they move a lil on the spring, no big with that tiny .390 lift cam.
 
Mad Dart said:
Take a deep breath.....you know it is what it is.
Click to expand...
x2. what is done is done at this point. I don't think there is a person on this forum that has not had some really bad luck at one point. take a deep breath, have a few beers and tear *** into it......
 
Someday you'll probably laugh at all of it.......I know that exact same feeling tho'......that Murphy's Law feeling...
 
If you pull the intake you may not even need the cutters. You could just slide the bent pushrods out the other way. It would also let you do a good visual of the lifters. You could also inspect cam lobes if you pull the lifters from the bores. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to check the lifter faces for cracks or issues if you go into it that far. I hope the damage is minimal for you.
 
i know it sucks heres a short one. my first car my dad bought for me he brought it home and said here u go have fun as i started tearing into there was okie okie stuff done. ever hear of gum wrapers in the fuse box?house carpet in the car (shag),all kinds of stuff was wrong, but like evreyone else said take a shot and a deep breathe.
 
seems like every used car i ever went to look at has had a motor that's "just been rebuilt" must be some old law on the books that ya can't sell a used car without rebuilding thr motor first. antway good luck with the car, probably all that's wrong with it and in the end you'll know what's under the valve covers.
 
If the timing chain did break... and it did jam it up so bad that it bent the pushrods that bad... on both sides.... are the valves bent?

I've never had a timing chain cut loose so I have never seen the damage on a small block mopar.

Is this 99% chance of bent valves?
 
running 318's are cheap and plentiful, clean 70 darts are not, I would rather find hidden motor problems than hidden rust or worse
 
I also feel your pain,everytime I do something I screwed in the end.Worst is I keep comeing back for more,I should be on crack.
 
seems strange to throw a timing chain after only 63,000 miles... maybe 163,000? Anyway, I'd pull the heads off to check pistons... look at the bores, etc... that way, you get a better picture of the condition of the engine...
 
I think tonite I'll pull the intake and see if I can cut out the pushrods. I have another low mile 318 ('77) that has a good top end and bad bottom end. I may just grab the pushrods and a couple rockers and see what happens without pulling the heads.
 
69B-Cuda said:
seems strange to throw a timing chain after only 63,000 miles... maybe 163,000? Anyway, I'd pull the heads off to check pistons... look at the bores, etc... that way, you get a better picture of the condition of the engine...
Click to expand...

Ding! Ding! Ding! Winner!

I just went through almost the exact same thing. I bought my Butterscotch Dart with a "blown head gasket". No biggie. After pulling the head, I find that I not only have a blown head gasket, but I also have dents in the tops of my pistons from the valves hitting them on the left bank. So I've got a bunch of bent valves. Timing chain was replaced by a PO. So I pop some new valves in it, lap them in by hand, and figure I'm good to go with a cheap fix (I pulled both heads and changed all the valves). After all, its got 85k on the clock and the PO said that's what it has on it. Plus, the car is super clean, so I figure its right on.

After putting everything back together, the 318 still runs like crap. I replace basically the entire ignition system looking for my misfire. Well, I should have checked the cam first when I had it all apart (my mistake), because after pulling the intake again the cam is flat. Timing chains in 318's last a long time (well over 100k usually), and so should the cam. 1+1= 185k on my car, and I should have just rebuilt it to begin with. Instead I'm out the time it took me to pull the heads and lap all the new valves, trouble shoot the thing for weeks and of course the money it cost to replace all the valves, valve seals, and all the gaskets for the intake, exhaust, timing cover etc, and it still needs a rebuild.

I'd venture to say your 318 has 163k on it. If you've got another engine to swap in, awesome. If not, I'd look at doing a rebuild on the one you've got. If it has that many miles (or its been abused that badly in 63k), you probably won't be happy trying to "fix it cheap" once other problems start to crop up.
 
If it was me, I might be a little "glad" that the motor was like that......then I could justify to my wife needing to "go thru the motor"......yeeehaww :toothy8:
 
Engine is pulled down in the car to the block. The valves are definately bent. I wacked them with a hammer before I started to see if they were free... Well... some of them went down and never came back up... they are so bent the valve springs dont even have enough power to pull them back up.

So I pulled intake and heads and you can definately see the half moon marks on the pistons where they hit.... Im almost 100% sure a timing chain cut loose. The block and pistons look STD although the head gaskets were a blue color and non metallic... I think someone has been here before, but I could be wrong. I have pictures I can email if someone would like to post them for me... Im at work and cant get to many sites...

Thanks
 
Sounds to me like your assessment is correct.
Go ahead and post pics when you can.
 
yeah sounds like it's had a top end or even a rebuild before...

which brings us to the next question of if it was rebuilt...was it done right, or right enough to fix the issue at hand and continue running the current bottom end?

the valves being bent wouldn't close all the way, stuck valves[sticky guides] won't move hence 'stuck'
 
To be honest with you.... its got me questioning if its even the original 318 to the car...


Where would I look on a 318 to find the #'s that would correspond to the car?
 
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