[Purcell69]

Friday morning I opened up the 360 for a closer look at what remained. The camshaft was clearly damaged due to a bad roller lifter. Once I looked at the other lobes, I spotted at least two more heavily worn cam lobes, so there are no less than 3 lifters that are bad. I unbolted the cylinder heads and removed them both. The left side of the block appeared to be in good shape. The cylinder bores still have crosshatching from the original assembly, and there are no ridges at the top of the cylinders, not bad for a 200k+ motor.

When the right head came off, the problem revealed itself immediately in the form of a blown head gasket at the #2 cylinder. In itself, a blown headgasket is not that big a deal, however, water had been left standing in this cylinder, probably since the truck was parked years ago. The piston was not frozen in the bore, but it did several good hits with a rubber mallet to get the piston past the rust and scale that now made up the upper half of the cylinder wall. The cylinder wall has heavy pitting from the corrosion, which will require at least a 0.060 overbore, or a sleeve to be installed. The head does not have an obvious crack, but the combustion chamber for #2 is heavily rusted as well.

At this point, I think I would be better served to buy a known good used engine and replace the cam in it, along with fresh gaskets. I've spotted a few Magnum 360s on CL for a reasonable price, even with under 100k miles. I could get one of those, install a new cam and be monetarily ahead of where I would be if I were to rebuild the motor I have now. For now, I am going to start prepping the frame for paint and sorting out my cab mounts.

-Joe
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