Today Is........

Just think about riding one for a few, and those feelings will go away.

 

The heck with it, I'll just take a cruise on this for a while, I'll get over it!

 

http://www.ranchero.us/forum/index.php?threads/pray-for-dennis-crenshaw.25214/

This will help keep your butt off the seat.

 

Your right, cerebral wavelengths back to properly focusing on the Ranchero. Thanks ForistellFord!

 

Thanks 72GTVA. I wanted to keep it original, so much to do to her, not sure where I will go. Guess just need to break this engine down and see how bad it is as suggested by handy-andy-cv64. Assuming if I beef it up I may need to replace rear end or at least gearing also.

 

Yeah, you'd better stay in bed, since you "deer" to ride a motorcycle...that could get all unbalanced.

As for the 429, no...you'll want a C-6 behind it. But you should examine the Cleveland first, and you may have to tear it down to see if it really incurred any damage, especially if it really was freshly rebuilt.

 

Yea its worth a look. There is no doubt when I removed the timing chain cover that the chain and gears were new, no wear at all. Spoke to a guy today that I have known, and he has been in business building race engines for over 40 years. He would build it for me for around $3500 or I could take door #2 and he would build it to produce 425HP for around $6000.

 

Thing is, those prices are starting from square one. If it was rebuilt, there would not be all that much to doing it up nicely. Shot peen and deck the block, deck the heads, verify main and rod bearing tolerances, swap the cam, measure for new pistons and pushrods, verify valvespring integrity, ensure oil flow is unimpeded, most of the machine work's already done, if the engine was rebuilt. That should give you at least a 40% savings, if not more. BUT, if you do go that direction, you'll still have to replace the trans; that savings could help you buy a race-built AOD, and then buy a diff regear.

 

He did state savings could be recognized for work not needed. Jacking up the engine ideal I love but all the other changes pushes the budget way up. Alot of other issue to address. Got to decide if I want to invest that kind of money, truck proably would never return my investment or even get close. Right now I only have about $800 in her.

 

I don"t know why but I just have a compelling feeling to save the old girl that I can't seem to shake.

 

Hell yeh!Save if you can.Pull the engine,tear it down,see what the damage is.May get lucky and get out cheap.Went through cleveland wars a few years back,had to buy another cj block. Had about 3,500 all in.Never fired it,forced to sell all my engines when I moved.Still regret it.

 

Thanks for the encouragement LSChero, those pictures raise my spirits! Really like the headers.

 

Yeah, $3500 is much better than $6K. But you might also only need a couple repairs just to make it driveable, then save your pennies, nickels and dimes for the workup down the road.