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Restoring A Chevy 350 Small-Block - Goin' Green Er, Well, OrangeRecycle The Hot Rodder's Way From the December, 2008 issue of Street Rodder By Jim Rizzo
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In this day and age, when everyone seems to be going "green," I realized that I've actually been recycling for years without even knowing it. Heck, I always thought I was just cheap. What I'm referring to is my penchant for never passing up on the chance to save a perfectly good running engine from the trash heap. For example, not long ago, my pal and Street Rodder publisher Tim Foss mentioned he had an old, greasy, but running small-block Chevy he'd love to get out from behind the garage. Well, never being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I instantly agreed to swap that resting place behind his garage for a perfectly good resting place behind mine, and swung by and scooped up the less-than-lovely hunk of iron. And, true to my word, I took it home and unceremoniously plopped it in its new resting place among the rest of my cast-iron castoffs. Recently, while diggin' around that stash of car goodies (also referred to by Candy as that big pile of sh- on the side of the house), looking for an old Saginaw four-speed Rob Fortier (my best friend and Classic Trucks editor) needed for one of his many projects, I spied the aforementioned small-block-which, of course, was blocking easy access to said transmission. Well, after successfully retrieving the trans, and surprisingly an old Hurst shifter assembly for it, I decided that instead of moving the engine back to its original resting place, I'd drag it around to the garage and maybe actually do something with it. I knew it had been a good runner and figured a few hours of inspection and elbow grease may very well yield a decent powerplant for either a yet-undetermined project or possibly be a source of some swap meet cash. A quick perusal of related parts from the same parts stash revealed an early Chevy cast-iron intake, a good Rochester four-barrel, a '57 Chevy oil-bath air cleaner, an old points-style distributor, and a pair of matching early-style valve covers. Heck, if I just added a gasket set and a few cans of engine enamel, I might be able to, as the old saying goes, make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, creating a neat, stock-looking early small-block clone while doing my part as a hot rod recycler at the same time. So, let's take a look at what an afternoon's worth of time and a couple rattle cans can accomplish.  The object of my attention...  The object of my attention was this less-than-photogenic 350 Chevy I'd snagged from my pal, Tim. The engine came from, I believe, a mid-'70s Suburban and was a decent runner when it was pulled. It spent quite a few months under a tarp out behind his garage before he offered it to me, and then an equal amount of time in my collection of cast-offs and orphaned car parts.  The early oil-bath air cleaner...  The early oil-bath air cleaner I used came from another friend here at the magazine, John Barkley (it was the original from his '57 Chevy). The valve covers were a $20 swap meet find from the last Goodguys show up in Pleasanton.  As I said earlier, the 350...  As I said earlier, the 350 was a good runner that just needed a bath and a bit of a cosmetic makeover. After doing a compression and leak-down test, and a quick bearing check with some Plasti-Gauge, I determined it was more than worthy of a bit of attention. My aim was to clone a stock-looking early 283/327 with no or little chrome, just Chevy orange and black.  A putty knife, three cans...  A putty knife, three cans of engine degreaser, a 1,500-psi pressure washer, and about an hour out of a Saturday afternoon produced a squeaky clean starting point for the makeover.  After the bath, I turned my...  After the bath, I turned my attention to the '57 Chevy air cleaner. Its big, bulbous look appealed to me, but its oil-bath design was something I thought would be better to do without.  A quick search through one...  A quick search through one of my parts cabinets turned up an el-cheapo 6-inch-diameter air cleaner assembly I thought I'd use to convert the oil-bath to a paper element. I initially thought I'd use the filter's base, cutting out the floor of the oil-bath housing and welding in the one from the chrome one. The paper filter base had a large opening for use with a modern four-barrel like a Holley or Edelbrock; however, the Rochester I'd be using had a smaller diameter, so I scrapped that idea. It worked to my advantage, though. I just tossed the small base and set the paper element right on the floor of the large air cleaner, dropped on the small chrome top, and snugged it down using a length of 1/4-20 all-thread.  The oil-bath air cleaner lid...  The oil-bath air cleaner lid was then dropped right back down into place and snugged down with a second wing nut, hiding the paper filter inside its confines-easy as pie.  Next, I cleaned up the cast-iron...  Next, I cleaned up the cast-iron Chevy four-barrel intake and oil filler tube and gave 'em a coat of primer and Chevy orange engine enamel.  I also painted the distributor...  I also painted the distributor hold-down and thermostat housing, as well as dropping on the Rochester and newly modified air cleaner, just to see how it looked.  The early Chevy valve covers...  The early Chevy valve covers were treated to a couple minutes in the blasting cabinet to remove their multiple coats of old paint so I could re-prime and repaint 'em. Here, you can see a before-and-after shot.  With the old layers of paint...  With the old layers of paint removed and a dent or two pounded out, the next step was a couple coats of primer.  After the primer was dry,...  After the primer was dry, I sprayed the center portions of each valve cover with a few coats of gloss-black engine enamel.  Once the black was thoroughly...  Once the black was thoroughly dry, I then laid a strip of 2-inch painter's tape over the Chevrolet script and pressed it down so the script showed through the tape crisply.  Next, I dug around until I...  Next, I dug around until I found my razor knife and trimmed the tape at the edges of the script. This protected the black from the soon-to-be-shot Chevy orange.  This part of the process was...  This part of the process was by far the most time-consuming of the makeover, second only to the cleaning and de-greasing phase.  After a couple coats of orange,...  After a couple coats of orange, I carefully peeled away the painter's tape, revealing the shiny black Chevrolet script. Looks pretty good, eh?  Aside from one more valve...  Aside from one more valve cover to complete and the installation of the early point-style distributor, the once forlorn small-block is lookin' pretty darn good. A bit more work and a little more detailing, and I'll have a neat-lookin' stock-style engine. Maybe I'll even have to build a car around it-what do you think?
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