Is a block worth anything? how about the heads?

sleeper

sleeper

Former LOD President
I have a bad motor that I am going to take apart. Going to see what went wrong, at least.

Does anyone really buy these blocks or heads used anymore? It's worth $.40 a lb at the scrapyard, but if I can get more than scrap value selling it to someone who would use it, I'll do that.

What about the trans? They worth anything as a core?
 
sleeper said:
I have a bad motor that I am going to take apart. Going to see what went wrong, at least.

Does anyone really buy these blocks or heads used anymore? It's worth $.40 a lb at the scrapyard, but if I can get more than scrap value selling it to someone who would use it, I'll do that.

What about the trans? They worth anything as a core?
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I'm not sure about the block, but the transmissions are a dime a dozen here. When I got a lower-mileage unit from a salvage yard swapped in, I believe the core was like $125. With the core return, I bought another 4R70W with 70,000 miles for about $150. Dirt cheap....
 
36 bucks for the block is about what you will get in scrap, if there is no damage to the block you can get $200 on ebay minimum, i sell blocks still no problem on ebay, not as much as i used to, but i get about 2 bills for a block.
 
That's good to know. I figured at least $40 in scrap, they said $.40 a lb for cast aluminum. If it's not messed up, I'll stick it on ebay or craigslist. It probably costs a fortune to ship, though. I bought a whole running engine for $400 from the junkyard, so I didn't figure a bare block would be worth $200.

Are B heads worth anything?

Think a trans shop would want this trans as a core?

I was going to tear the engine down today to see what's up inside, but I didn't get around to it. It stopped suddenly, but at low engine speed, and it's still locked up tight. It made a ticking noise for a long time that seemed like it was in the top end, so i'm thinking it might be valvetrain related.
 
they dont cost alot to ship i just shipped one a few weeks ago. 500 jeremy wtf? i have a hot tank maybe i should try it too man o man i'm getting raped!
 
sleeper said:
That's good to know. I figured at least $40 in scrap, they said $.40 a lb for cast aluminum. If it's not messed up, I'll stick it on ebay or craigslist. It probably costs a fortune to ship, though. I bought a whole running engine for $400 from the junkyard, so I didn't figure a bare block would be worth $200.

Are B heads worth anything?

Think a trans shop would want this trans as a core?

I was going to tear the engine down today to see what's up inside, but I didn't get around to it. It stopped suddenly, but at low engine speed, and it's still locked up tight. It made a ticking noise for a long time that seemed like it was in the top end, so i'm thinking it might be valvetrain related.
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I want the torque converter as a core for Ford. PM me your contact info, I'll swing by and pick it up ;)
 
No prob, you should take the whole trans while you're at it. I'll PM you.

I tore the motor down to a shortblock. I don't see any evidence of a catastrophic failure - the only thing I saw was some debris in the cylinders and a little bit of rust in one cylinder. I still can't turn it over. I didn't see any evidence of failure on the head gaskets, and the cylinder with rust isn't clean like you'd expect from a bad head gasket letting water in the cylinder. None of the valves show any evidence of contact with the cylinder heads. Timing chains were intact, as were the guides. Tensioners looked fine. I'll have to take a closer look when I pull out the internals.
 
Two bent rods. One just barely tweaked, one bent good. Not sure why I didn't notice before, but at that time I was just pulling what I needed off of it to fix the car so I missed it. Right front had the rod bent good, not sure where the slightly tweaked one was (didn't notice that until I had it on the bench).

The counterweight on the crank smacked the piston but the crank appears to be fine. 6 rods and 7 pistons appear to be fine. The block appears to be fine but it needs a hone in the cylinder that locked up - there's some slight surface rust there.

I think it hydrolocked. I think my uncle drove it through a puddle or something before it locked up, and just didn't tell me. The engine wouldn't budge, though, at all, until I pulled off the bent rod.
 
I called my uncle and asked him about the puddle theory. He said no puddles. The oil was also not milky. I would have expected milkshake oil if enough water made it into the cylinder to hydrolock it. I thought maybe an injector hung up, filled it with fuel, and locked it up, but that would be tough.

The piston was at the bottom of it's stroke when it locked up. So if it was water or fuel in the cylinder, there was a lot of it. And there's no sign of it now.

And the other cylinder with the bent rod kind of kills the fuel theory, as 2 injectors would have had to fail open nearly simultaneously.

What else could cause this?
 
No, it was a completely stock '93 engine. Only known issue was an intermittant tick that I thought was top end.

I doubt it was overrevving, because my uncle said it locked up as he was coming to a stop. Also, it was a stock engine with no tune, the rev limiter should have been set much lower than the actual engine can handle. I revved a previous engine to 6800 regularly. The stock rev limit has more to do with the torque converter than the engine, these engines will rev to the moon.

Maybe piston slap, and the piston got cocked in the bore?

Maybe the rods were very slightly bent when I bought it, perhaps from a previous hydrolocking incident, and the piston just managed to cock itself slightly and then "bang!"?

I posted all the parts on craigslist last night around midnight and I already got one email. So hopefully I'll get a few bucks out of this.
 
I already got 2 calls on the intake manifold. I priced it at $75. Why so much demand for an intake for a '93 mark? I've never known of these failing! It is complete, though, with IMRC's, fuel injectors, fuel rail, and throttle body. I figured it would be the last thing to sell.
 
I got $160 for the block and the valve covers, and I threw in all the hardware that came off the engine (bolts, tensioners, chains, guides, etc.). Not too bad, considering I only paid $400 for a running junkyard engine.

The block did have two stuck bolts in it (which I pointed out to the buyer, of course) and the buyer noticed a nick at the bottom of the sleeve where the rod hit it that I had missed. He brought a friend along and they both thought it would clean up with a .020" bore, and the sleeve did not appear to have shifted. Considering the condition I think that was a fair price.

Now to get the trans, heads, and intake gone. That's the stuff that's taking up all the room!
 
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