My 383 teardown w/pics...

360dusted

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Just thought I'd share some pics of the 383 4-bbl out of my '69 Polara I recently "overhauled" (new gaskets, timing set, cleaned/painted). The odometer says 99k miles and judging from how the inside of the engine looked I assume it hasn't rolled over...

Here's pulling the engine, good friend of mine sort of a "classic car guru" in his late 20's suggested pulling the heads off the engine and pulling the short block by itself. He said it would clear the hood and by God, it did... But it was close lol. Did this by myself btw, obviously putting it back in was another story:violent1:
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Here's one of the heads while swapping the valve seals
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Closeup of the valve springs
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Here's the number 4 main bearing; looked like pretty normal wear for 100k miles, I expected worse due to the sludge in the oil pan I found.
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And I think the number 6 rod bearing... Also not too bad but some debris in there for sure
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Stock timing chain, had an inch or so of play on the slack side
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[ATTACHED PIC is of new timing set not sure how that happened]




Here's the pan after being cleaned, had a 1/4" thick layer of black sludge all along the bottom.

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And a factory-style windage tray for good measure
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Excellent pics, nice work! I took advantage of pulling the heads off before pulling the engine for the same reason, I was by myself at the time and couldn't remove the hood.
 
If you block up the front of the hood, on most of the older Mopars the front hinge bolt was close enough to the front of the hinge that you could remove the rear bolts, then let the hood down on a shorter block. Then you could remove the front bolts and grab the hood from the front of the car, tip the rear up and back away. The '67 & '68 300s are a bit rough with the point on the front edge gouging into your gut, but when there is a will there's a way.

I like the old '60s Dodge pickups/trucks that opened straight up, and on the few formals that I had, you could just unhook the torsion bars and stand the hood nearly straight up as well. Just be sure there are no boobs around that will knock your block out and drop the hood on your head.
 
If you block up the front of the hood, on most of the older Mopars the front hinge bolt was close enough to the front of the hinge that you could remove the rear bolts, then let the hood down on a shorter block. Then you could remove the front bolts and grab the hood from the front of the car, tip the rear up and back away. The '67 & '68 300s are a bit rough with the point on the front edge gouging into your gut, but when there is a will there's a way.

I like the old '60s Dodge pickups/trucks that opened straight up, and on the few formals that I had, you could just unhook the torsion bars and stand the hood nearly straight up as well. Just be sure there are no boobs around that will knock your block out and drop the hood on your head.

Yes but the weight alone on these hood mixed with the size would make it impossible to move. You might lower it but getting it of the car?
I've done it this way on my A-Bodies many times and even a 55 Chevy but on a C-Body? I have to use a hand truck just to move the hood across the yard.

But what might work would be to loosen the rear bolt and remove the other two then push the hood up higher with a couple lengths of wood.

Yes you got to love the 60's Dodge trucks, no hitting your head on the hood latch.
 
Hey guys just wanted to update... The car is completely back together, in fact today I just went and got the alignment done. I added a 1" plastic 4-hole carb spacer for extra torque and a new reproduction "unsilenced" air cleaner from Mancini. The car drives fantastic, that 383 sounds wonderful through the glasspacks and has plenty of zip for such a huge car. Can't imagine how this engine would do in my Duster with just a cam swap and aluminum intake, I can plainly feel the difference in the torque curve between this 383 and the 440 in my cousin's '72 Polara. The 383 definitely likes to be spun up a bit before it pulls hard but the 440 just has mad torque at any speed. Now I would just like to find out what kind of gas mileage this thing would get, it's set up well for economy as it is.

Here's a video of the car when I first got the engine back in and running...
[video=youtube_share;cFoc7BcwpR8]http://youtu.be/cFoc7BcwpR8[/video]
 
If you block up the front of the hood, on most of the older Mopars the front hinge bolt was close enough to the front of the hinge that you could remove the rear bolts, then let the hood down on a shorter block. Then you could remove the front bolts and grab the hood from the front of the car, tip the rear up and back away. The '67 & '68 300s are a bit rough with the point on the front edge gouging into your gut, but when there is a will there's a way.

I like the old '60s Dodge pickups/trucks that opened straight up, and on the few formals that I had, you could just unhook the torsion bars and stand the hood nearly straight up as well. Just be sure there are no boobs around that will knock your block out and drop the hood on your head.



On Formal's.. ''nearly'' is the ''key'' word, anything past that equals a broken windshield.
 
On Formal's.. ''nearly'' is the ''key'' word, anything past that equals a broken windshield.

That Effen point on the bumper is a killer. Add another 12" to the lift over and in...
 
Drove the car about 10 miles yesterday to my actual home and noticed it was running kinda hot, also when I arrived it seemed to be misfiring a bit but it was hard to tell. Am I correct in that the temp gauge should always stay below 1/2, more around 1/3 up from the cold side? It was running a little above half, almost 2/3 the way up. This morning I went out to top off the coolant and noticed an old crusty sticker on the rad crossmember saying "USE ONLY 180* THERMOSTAT and proper chrysler coolant blah blah blah" I have a feeling someone before me replaced it with a "standard" factory 195* one. I also looked around the spark plugs and found the #8 wire had fallen off completely, damn these things run smooth even on a dropped cylinder; any non-car-person would probably not have even noticed lol.
 
I get 13.2 mpg or so in my challenger with 3.23s and a holley, put a thermoquad on this summer went up to almost 14.I have some fuel system issues to work out and I think I can get up to 14.5 pretty easy.
 
Well replaced the t-stat and took it for a spin, temp gauge stayed around 1/3 up where it ought to be... Engine runs better too from not being so hot. Just need to get the choke hooked up properly and it will be good enough to drive every day.

70bigblockdodge the car has a factory-style (but not original to car) Carter AVS and 2.76 gears, I think it could get MPG in the high teens on the highway. My '70 Duster with built 360, Carter AFB, cheap 2500 stall converter and stock 2.76 rear end got a best of 17.5 MPG on a long highway trip.
 
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