68 327 Piston and ring question

[Happy_dan]

It's alive!! Running great. Broke in the cam this morning. I can't rotate vide on my hosting site but it's running and that's all I care right now. Time to change the oil, top of coolant and transmission fluid.

https://photos.imageevent.com/happy_...h/IMG_8210.MOV

[pjmoreland]

Your engine rebuild helped inspire me to do the same. I found it to be a fun project, although putting so much money and effort into it made it a bit stressful for me toward the end when waiting to see if it would run well. How is your engine doing now, almost a year later?

[Happy_dan]

That's great and I know exactly what you mean. Before firing it up everything I could have done wrong ran through my head and I was almost as scared firing it up as I was excited.

Sadly I sold the truck. It was too nice for me to change anything and not at all practical for me to drive. No AC and no power brakes or steering. I considered updating it all but decided it would not be fair to that awesome truck. I miss it greatly already but it was the right thing to get it to someone in a better climate to enjoy it. It is running great!

[pjmoreland]

It's good to hear that it's running great. I understand the issue of having a vehicle that is too nice to enjoy. Nonetheless, I imagine it was hard to let it go.

[Happy_dan]

It sure was, I agonized over the move. Hopefully I will find another someday, probably after I retire. One that is solid but not so original I can make it my own.
I am purist when it comes to originality so I just couldn't bring myself to ruin this truck and the new owner has exactly what he was looking about.

[68mg]

Happy_dan - Thanks for posting all this great information. I'm planning to get my '68 327 block cleaned and see if I can get by with just an overhaul and possibly use the original pistons. It's the original one for my truck and has around 120,000 miles on it. It's also a later '68 one so it has the larger journals and a forged crank. Thanks again and hope you get another one!

[BigBird05]

At 120,000 miles I would be very surprised if you could get away without at least a .030 overbore. The older blocks a very small amount of nickel in them and they wore out quickly. It is not to expensive to bore a engine an get new pistons.

[MikeB]

Originally Posted by 68mg

I'm planning to get my '68 327 block cleaned and see if I can get by with just an overhaul and possibly use the original pistons. It's also a later '68 one so it has the larger journals and a forged crank.

Those forged, large journal 327 cranks are rare. When I built a 327 several years ago using a 350 block, the only ones I found were very expensive. People knew what they had!

Ended up using a cast 307 crank (large journal). The shop that balanced it used Mallory metal to compensate for heavier 327 pistons. Man that was a fun engine with a Muncie 4-speed and 3.42 gears!

[Happy_dan]

I was very happy to give back in such a small way. This is one of the best boards I have ever been part of and the knowledge here is amazing. I could not have done what I did without the help of others here so I am glad is is useful to you. I still follow threads on this board and hopefully will have another 67-68 truck one day.

[toms68cst]

I was faced with the same decision with my pretty low-mileage original 327 about 15-20 years ago. The machine shop said my bore was on the edge of needing to be machined 030 over. After some sleepless nights and posting a thread on this site, I decided to go for it and get it machined. I never regretted it. It still runs like a top today. I did a valve job only on another 69 block I had many years earlier and after about a year, it started to blow by in one of the cylinders.

Oh, and don't let anyone tell you the color of your alternator bracket is wrong! There were a few 68's that came that way. The vast majority of SB alternator brackets of the time were black. I've seen several 68/327's there that were clearly orange from the factory. It's one very unique thing about some 68's.

Great work on your engine. You took your rebuild exactly the same direction as I did several years ago. I'll see if I can dig up a pic from the time.