this is my thread for my cadillac 472 build. it may be slow but i will post every update and have lots of pics whenever possible. so after acquiring a 1974 cadillac 472 engine with extra goodies and a th400 transmission for a low 500 dollars, i put the transmission away for a while and tear into the engine to read the tea leaves. i did this all day from morning till just before sunset, a little before 8 pm. first i remove the valve covers, these things hide dirty little secrets about the engine and they told on the engine. whoever had it most of it's life didnt change the oil as there was a lot of coke like build up all over the inside of the heads. so the heads are dirty and i look into the lifter valley and glance at the cam, it has two wiped lobes. ok strike two i'm thinking, this engine doesnt look good so far. the intake is an edelbrock and is in very good condition. new they cost 300-325 bucks so that made up for the negatives mostly at this point. the runners look almost like new with minimal carbon build up in the heat passage crossover. mating surfaces are in good condition and require only minor clean up. it needs a washing in general more than anything, it's just a little dirty. it will be painted the original color of the engine as unsealed aluminum doesnt like being touched with dirty hands and car parts, the looks are ruined immediately.
i took the accessories off so i could remove the heads and shed more weight off the engine so i could move it off the driveway. some bolts were hard but not frozen with rust. it did not have the ac compressor bracket and no compressor either. PS pump was empty, a little oily and dirty, typical PS pump appearance. alternator had already been removed but the brackets for it were still on. no smog pump but i did see a bracket that had been hacked on removing the air pump. it took a minute to get the harmonic balancer off and i have not removed the crank hub since i havent started on removing it yet. since i cant get it off i cant remove the timing cover so it's still on the crank but its no big deal right now. taking the heads off wasn't hard but the head gaskets just didnt want to come off the block without a fight. the heads' combustion chambers looked black and a smidgen sooty from all the use the engine had seen. the pistons had a little carbon buildup on them but nothing horrible. they also appear to be standard bore so that's a check in the plus column. the rings looked pretty good. a secondary ring was frozen in the land of one of the pistons but they were otherwise unremarkable . there was dirt in the piston lands but nothing heavy. the cylinders showed just a little wear. they have a very small ridge at the top, you can barely snag a fingernail on one.
removing the oil pan gave me a nasty surprise in two parts. first part was there was water in the oil pan and the second part is it still had about a quart of oil (he told me it was "dry")and when the oil pan came off i made a big mess on the driveway. after dealing with that emergency i removed the sump and broke loose all the nuts and bolts on the rods and mains. i removed and examined all the rod bearings. they were very good condition, almost no scratches of any kind, one had tiny scratches and that was just a couple. they honestly look like they're barely used, i was expecting half wiped bearings based on how the cam looked. unless they got away with installing new factory size bearings without having to turn the crank somehow. the areas near all the mains in the block looked normal as did the inside of the valve covers which surprised me, not baked on oil wax textured god awful atrocity to an engine. i didnt see any abnormal wear in the cylinders. maybe these run hot in the heads and it really does bake the oil on in multiple layers over time but i doubt it. it's removed easily though so that's a plus. the engine had some oil spots here and there on the outside of the block from minor gasket failures but nothing bad. the block is slightly rusty in a couple areas but nothing to get excited about but i did see the original paint and it's a nice dark blue almost like ford blue. i WAS going to paint the engine black but the blue color looks so nice i'm going to use that instead. the mating surface for the gears in the oil pump on the block still showed the original machine marks on about 2/3-3/4 of the area touched by the gears. the gear pocket in the pump also looked just as good so i can reuse the pump without having to repair it in any way but i dont think it will work with the sway bar so i need another one.
the main caps have dimples on them numbering them and BIG bearings. i guess they do run hot oil based on the size of the bearings. it seems like the block itself isnt that much larger than a small block but it is longer, they made the walls connecting the cylinders very thick. now i see how you can bore these things out .100" and larger. they put a lot of meat in this block and the bore is 4.300" to start. you could probably rebuild this engine 5 times each time doing an overbore and get a million miles out of the block. i imagine this also makes the block less prone to warping or shifting taking mating surfaces out of spec. i took the pistons out one at a time giving a good cursory inspection of each one. the piston skirts looked good with little wear on them. the bearings looked good and consistent among all 8 rods. i wiped out the cylinders and looked at them also. they showed very little wear on them. getting the cam out was pretty straight forward but the last journal on the cam didn't seem like it was going to go through the first cam hole. it came out a couple minutes later.
the bore on the cylinders is 4.3005. they are square using perpendicular measurements and all are square. they all measure out to the same measurement. the 1st main bearings measured out to 3.252 i'll guess the crank is 3.250. it measured out to 3.2495" and the rod journal for the 1st and 2nd cylinder measured at 2.5005. so far everything is in spec. the only bad thing in the engine seems to be just the cam and lifters. i plan on having the block and heads cleaned and inspected for specs and potential problems that may arise. i think i can get by with a hone on the cylinders and a polish on the crank maybe but i'll see what a machine shop says. since i dropped a piston onto the driveway i cant use them now, it dented the edge at the top of the piston.
so far the only bad thing i see is the gunk build up in the heads. the head gaskets looked good and i found no failures on them. bearings, clearances and mating surfaces are all good. the threads in the block are very smooth, feeling little drag on most of the bolts in the block. all edges of parts inside the engine have a sharpness to them, the rods look great save for one that has some deformities in the casting of the short edge of the i beam running along 50% of that edge from wrist pin to bolt head. not that i want a ton of power because making it wont be hard by any means but i dont like the way it looks. i need to take pics and put them up soon.
the engine is an excellent core to start off with and it alone was worth the 500 i spent on it and the transmission if i do say so myself. this engine sat out in the weather for a while at some point judging from some of the rust on the block. i doubt the headers will fit the car so i'm sticking with the exhaust manifolds that i know i can use. the engine came with: a mechanical aluminum 7 blade 18" fan with heavy duty thermal clutch, an alternator, an hei distributor to replace the points distributor the engine still had, full length big chevy headers with a cadillac flange welded on and RWD exhaust manifolds held onto the engine with a couple of bolts each. rounding this out it also came with new in box chrome valve covers by spectre, PS pump still on the engine, alternator brackets still on the engine, a flexplate in great condition, teeth look like new. i got the transmission with a dipstick tube and stick, no convertor because he forget them and it has no yoke either. but the case is fairly clean looking, the fluid was a nice bright pink with no bad smell, potentially a good sign. if i can just use a th400 with the 4" tail and not have to get my driveshaft shortened i wont be keeping this one. i could MAYBE use the th350 in the car now but i dont think it will last long behind this engine knowing how heavy my foot can be from time to time.
my current goal is to do a more thorough examination of the engine and figure out what i want to do with the engine. then go over the entire block removing casting flash & smoothing surfaces so it will look nicer when it's finally assembled, painted and ready to install. one thing i enjoyed about tearing down the engine is all fasteners were in SAE sizes. pics will be up soon.
i took the accessories off so i could remove the heads and shed more weight off the engine so i could move it off the driveway. some bolts were hard but not frozen with rust. it did not have the ac compressor bracket and no compressor either. PS pump was empty, a little oily and dirty, typical PS pump appearance. alternator had already been removed but the brackets for it were still on. no smog pump but i did see a bracket that had been hacked on removing the air pump. it took a minute to get the harmonic balancer off and i have not removed the crank hub since i havent started on removing it yet. since i cant get it off i cant remove the timing cover so it's still on the crank but its no big deal right now. taking the heads off wasn't hard but the head gaskets just didnt want to come off the block without a fight. the heads' combustion chambers looked black and a smidgen sooty from all the use the engine had seen. the pistons had a little carbon buildup on them but nothing horrible. they also appear to be standard bore so that's a check in the plus column. the rings looked pretty good. a secondary ring was frozen in the land of one of the pistons but they were otherwise unremarkable . there was dirt in the piston lands but nothing heavy. the cylinders showed just a little wear. they have a very small ridge at the top, you can barely snag a fingernail on one.
removing the oil pan gave me a nasty surprise in two parts. first part was there was water in the oil pan and the second part is it still had about a quart of oil (he told me it was "dry")and when the oil pan came off i made a big mess on the driveway. after dealing with that emergency i removed the sump and broke loose all the nuts and bolts on the rods and mains. i removed and examined all the rod bearings. they were very good condition, almost no scratches of any kind, one had tiny scratches and that was just a couple. they honestly look like they're barely used, i was expecting half wiped bearings based on how the cam looked. unless they got away with installing new factory size bearings without having to turn the crank somehow. the areas near all the mains in the block looked normal as did the inside of the valve covers which surprised me, not baked on oil wax textured god awful atrocity to an engine. i didnt see any abnormal wear in the cylinders. maybe these run hot in the heads and it really does bake the oil on in multiple layers over time but i doubt it. it's removed easily though so that's a plus. the engine had some oil spots here and there on the outside of the block from minor gasket failures but nothing bad. the block is slightly rusty in a couple areas but nothing to get excited about but i did see the original paint and it's a nice dark blue almost like ford blue. i WAS going to paint the engine black but the blue color looks so nice i'm going to use that instead. the mating surface for the gears in the oil pump on the block still showed the original machine marks on about 2/3-3/4 of the area touched by the gears. the gear pocket in the pump also looked just as good so i can reuse the pump without having to repair it in any way but i dont think it will work with the sway bar so i need another one.
the main caps have dimples on them numbering them and BIG bearings. i guess they do run hot oil based on the size of the bearings. it seems like the block itself isnt that much larger than a small block but it is longer, they made the walls connecting the cylinders very thick. now i see how you can bore these things out .100" and larger. they put a lot of meat in this block and the bore is 4.300" to start. you could probably rebuild this engine 5 times each time doing an overbore and get a million miles out of the block. i imagine this also makes the block less prone to warping or shifting taking mating surfaces out of spec. i took the pistons out one at a time giving a good cursory inspection of each one. the piston skirts looked good with little wear on them. the bearings looked good and consistent among all 8 rods. i wiped out the cylinders and looked at them also. they showed very little wear on them. getting the cam out was pretty straight forward but the last journal on the cam didn't seem like it was going to go through the first cam hole. it came out a couple minutes later.
the bore on the cylinders is 4.3005. they are square using perpendicular measurements and all are square. they all measure out to the same measurement. the 1st main bearings measured out to 3.252 i'll guess the crank is 3.250. it measured out to 3.2495" and the rod journal for the 1st and 2nd cylinder measured at 2.5005. so far everything is in spec. the only bad thing in the engine seems to be just the cam and lifters. i plan on having the block and heads cleaned and inspected for specs and potential problems that may arise. i think i can get by with a hone on the cylinders and a polish on the crank maybe but i'll see what a machine shop says. since i dropped a piston onto the driveway i cant use them now, it dented the edge at the top of the piston.
so far the only bad thing i see is the gunk build up in the heads. the head gaskets looked good and i found no failures on them. bearings, clearances and mating surfaces are all good. the threads in the block are very smooth, feeling little drag on most of the bolts in the block. all edges of parts inside the engine have a sharpness to them, the rods look great save for one that has some deformities in the casting of the short edge of the i beam running along 50% of that edge from wrist pin to bolt head. not that i want a ton of power because making it wont be hard by any means but i dont like the way it looks. i need to take pics and put them up soon.
the engine is an excellent core to start off with and it alone was worth the 500 i spent on it and the transmission if i do say so myself. this engine sat out in the weather for a while at some point judging from some of the rust on the block. i doubt the headers will fit the car so i'm sticking with the exhaust manifolds that i know i can use. the engine came with: a mechanical aluminum 7 blade 18" fan with heavy duty thermal clutch, an alternator, an hei distributor to replace the points distributor the engine still had, full length big chevy headers with a cadillac flange welded on and RWD exhaust manifolds held onto the engine with a couple of bolts each. rounding this out it also came with new in box chrome valve covers by spectre, PS pump still on the engine, alternator brackets still on the engine, a flexplate in great condition, teeth look like new. i got the transmission with a dipstick tube and stick, no convertor because he forget them and it has no yoke either. but the case is fairly clean looking, the fluid was a nice bright pink with no bad smell, potentially a good sign. if i can just use a th400 with the 4" tail and not have to get my driveshaft shortened i wont be keeping this one. i could MAYBE use the th350 in the car now but i dont think it will last long behind this engine knowing how heavy my foot can be from time to time.
my current goal is to do a more thorough examination of the engine and figure out what i want to do with the engine. then go over the entire block removing casting flash & smoothing surfaces so it will look nicer when it's finally assembled, painted and ready to install. one thing i enjoyed about tearing down the engine is all fasteners were in SAE sizes. pics will be up soon.
i do need to consider fuel economy even though it is a big block. thankfully i can get by with a higher gear like a 2.73. you dont need much gearing when you have torque.
