Hello all,

I am in the process of resurrecting a 289 that has not run for 14 years. The hard part has been accomplished. I have had the motor running for short periods of time. However, due to having to replace all of the freeze plugs, repair the timing cover gasket and others I now have the motor out of the car.

Anyway, since I have the motor out and have had to pull the timing chain cover I figured I probably should also replace the rear main seal. It is the old rope style. To get the block portion of the old seal out I am going to have to pull the crank.

Are there any issues with just putting the mains and rod ends back on without replacing bearings or should I replace bearings while I have the crank out? I do not intend to rebuild this motor or invest a lot of money in it. I just want to get it running and use it for a couple of years while I build up a new motor.

All thoughts and comments are appreciated.

 

I go with the aproach as long as I'm there, do it right. I detest doing things twice.
Jim

 

I agree with 66GTKFB. However if the bearings dont look bad and there is no scoring or burning on the bearings or the crank you should be alright to put it back together.

 

Well I finally got the rear main seal replaced. Uh what a job. My good intentions led to a lot of work.

You cannot remove the block half of the rear main seal on a motor that has not been run for 13 years without pulling the crank. The old rope seal pretty much glues itself to the seal groove and will not come out. It definitely needed to be replaced though. It was very dried out and glazed over. Sucker would have leaked like a sieve all over my cleaned up engine compartment.

Needless to say pulling the crank involves removing the heads and pulling the pistons. During the process of pulling the pistons I found three with broken top rings. In addition, I discovered the the right side head gasket had a leak between the number four piston and the water jacket. Ouch. Turns out it was a good thing I decided to replace the rear main seal. The motor would not have lasted long with those problems.

So I have pretty much ended up doing a partial rebuild:
new main bearings
new main cap bolts
new rod bearings
new rod bolts
new rings
cylinder hone to clean up the walls and prep for new rings
new timing chain

Definitely much more than what I was planning to do. [&:] However, the motor should be good to go for a little while now. With some luck I will have everything back together by the end of the day tomorrow.