Building Burtz block

I live near Erie ,Pa … let that place be avoided until grass grows in its streets…. 1853 Horace Greeley , about 2 hours away ,but any how got back working on Burtz , installed cam and valve train .preset lifters to 2.5000 as recommended before installing.
 

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I got to this late in the party....but I have a little over 30k miles on my early Burtz block engine now.
I haven't heard it mentioned here, I can't stress enough cleaning the engine block prior to assembly, then cleaning it again, brushing out all the internal bores, blowing them out, washing them with soap and water, washing down with solvent, then cleaning everything again.
I washed out the cooling jacket, blew it out, turned the engine upside down and vacuumed it took a 3/8" cable with a frayed end on it and ran it all through the passages, blew it out and washed it again....still had enough casting sand in it to eventually wear a leakless water pump seal out.
Good luck
 
gdmn852 said:
I live near Erie ,Pa … let that place be avoided until grass grows in its streets…. 1853 Horace Greeley , about 2 hours away ,but any how got back working on Burtz , installed cam and valve train .preset lifters to 2.5000 as recommended before installing.
Click to expand...
Not necessary to preset to micrometer precision. 2-1/2" will get you close to the desired length upon final adjustment of the lash. You still need to use feeler gauges to set the final valve lash. I found my lifters out of the box were well less than 2-1/4", and inconsistent +/- 1/8", so preadjusting them saved me a lot of hassle getting that extra 1/4" once installed. Just use a tape measure or ruler. Unless you really like complicating things.
 
red or green said:
I got to this late in the party....but I have a little over 30k miles on my early Burtz block engine now.
I haven't heard it mentioned here, I can't stress enough cleaning the engine block prior to assembly, then cleaning it again, brushing out all the internal bores, blowing them out, washing them with soap and water, washing down with solvent, then cleaning everything again.
I washed out the cooling jacket, blew it out, turned the engine upside down and vacuumed it took a 3/8" cable with a frayed end on it and ran it all through the passages, blew it out and washed it again....still had enough casting sand in it to eventually wear a leakless water pump seal out.
Good luck
Click to expand...

Red,

Sorry to hear about your sand problem.

When you finally found the water pump problem was there a certain spot where you found that the casting sand collected?

1. Was it in a certain place in the radiator.

2, In some place in the block?

3. Near water pump or thermostat?

4. or ??

ANOTHER casting sand nightmare. I had a 79 Chevy Malibu Sedan with a 267 Small Block. It always had an overheating problem. Not real bad but enough to be noticed. Long story short, at 120,000 miles the camshaft lobes went "Bye Bye". This was a problem that some of these engines had, same thing happened with my 79 Wagon at 120,000.

What we found was that the bottom 1/4 of the water jacket in the block was full of crusted casting sand. No wonder it overheated!
 
Last edited:
Benson said:
Red,

Sorry to hear about your sand problem.

When you finally found the water pump problem was there a certain spot where you found that the casting sand collected?

1. Was it in a certain place in the radiator.

2, In some place in the block?

3. Near water pump or thermostat?

4. or ??

ANOTHER casting sand nightmare. I had a 79 Chevy Malibu Sedan with a 267 Small Block. It always had an overheating problem. Not real bad but enough to be noticed. Long story short, at 120,000 miles the camshaft lobes went "Bye Bye". This was a problem that some of these engines had, same thing happened with my 79 Wagon at 120,000.

What we found was that the bottom 1/4 of the water jacket in the block was full of crusted casting sand. No wonder it overheated!
Click to expand...
Black casting sand, not a whole lot after the aggressive cleaning ....what collected came out the low point drain
 
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