250GTE

I really like that silver 250GTE and the new owner seemed to appreciate it as much as I do. We knew that the engine smoked but as we spent some time tuning and running the car we realized that the engine was tired. It made an excessive amount of mechanical noise which came from many worn out timing chest bearings and totally worn out roller followers. We figured that the time was now, not when something breaks and chews up some castings.

With the engine out and we broke her down we saw just what we expected, stuck and broken piston rings, roller follower bearings with .020" run-out and timing chest bearings that were nearly beyond turning. We were happy to find that there was nothing broken or in need of major repair, just replacement of numerous wear out items. We have seen so many engines with major internal issues due to sloppy workmanship from another shop that I always enjoy seeing a largely original worn out engine.

We did a engine overhaul on a 330 engine that had a number of sloppy and strange workmanship. The valve guides were hammered into the heads but the machinist did not hone them open to the proper clearance which resulted in valves sticking and eventually bending. I had to use a 3lb hammer and punch to get the vales out of the guides. This same engine had .005 shim stock only under half of the rod bearing shells. Not half as in 6 of the 12 rods but between the bearing shell and rod cap! With the heads off, the engine took double the torque to turn it over. The flywheel ring gear teeth were polished to a razor sharp edge from the starter.

We just finished painting all of the engine castings on this 250 GTE engine and soon will assemble it with all new forged pistons, re-con rods, full valve job with all new valves, guides and seats, rod and main bearings and all other necessary items. As you have seen from prior posts, we spent the requisite 6-7 hours drilling the plugs and cleaning the crankshaft oil
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