Westlotorn

OK, just to share a laugh. My factory L79 sat in a garage for 35 years.
I pulled the manifold yesterday to see how bad things are.
I can say it had me laughing. The air cleaner had mouse holes in it.
Now I know where they were headed. Enjoy.
I will try and get head off photos later if they don't make me cry.
When I bought this car knowing it had been sitting 28 years I poured Tranny fluid into the intake hoping thing below were not damaged and trying to stop any progression of rust damage. That is why many of the ports are wet.

66jack

Getting a head start on building that "Mighty Mouse Engine"...

Hope its not to bad in there...

midyear

lol...funny thing is...if it started, probably would have blown all that out and done very little if any damage. luckily, i dont see any non compressible objects in there.

Bluestripe67

I think your problem is mouse constipation. Dennis

LouieM

Mouse Motor, indeed!

MarkC

We need an engine build, things are a little boring here lately. What are your plans for this engine.

65GGvert

Rat rod!

Westlotorn

I like the Mighty Mouse idea. Plan is to build the L79 back to bone stock and park it.
A 406 with AFR heads is being machined now. May be a couple years before anything roars though. Mama has projects that are ahead of this one. You know what they say about Mama being happy. In the meantime I keep gathering parts and getting done what I can.

tuxnharley

Do it right - don't "Mickey Mouse" it......

tuxnharley

Question - if they went in through the air cleaner how in the heck did they get back and forth past the carb throttle plates ??

66jack

He had an 'apprentice mouse' hold it open...

Gary's '66

Damn Mark!

Sounds like you got a bit of a rodent problem up there in Folsom. Best start putting out the Decon in early fall. Always worked for me and I'm on acreage in the middle of field mouse heaven which, is where I send them each year.

Gary

Westlotorn

Gary, this car sat in Michigan for 28 years in a garage a friend owned. It ran into the garage and never left.
Good catch on the mice not being able to get past the throttle plates. There were holes in the air cleaner.
I ended up cutting the old exhaust pipes to remove them today and the drivers side exhaust must have had 2 lbs of Sunflower seeds acorns and dirt in it right below the exhaust manifold. I did not look in the carb at all, I just removed it with the manifold.
How they got in is a mystery to me.
Another surprise, the heads were sealed with Detroit Gaskets, remember the old Orange gaskets. Man are they a Pain to get to break loose. I have done many engines with Fel-Pro or even OEM head gaskets and never had to fight them very hard to break the gasket loose. These heads, both sides I broke with a 5 foot bar and a block of wood.
My 3 pound rubber hammer just bounced off and I swung pretty hard with zero result before going to the 5 foot bar.
I always heard using Detroit gaskets was like gluing them on. Now I know first hand.
The cylinders look OK except for the Mighty Mouse hole. That piston is stuck big time.
It is soaking in the 50/50 acetone/tranny fluid mix. Hope it works.
Have yet to determine the current bore size, I am hoping for standard.
Thanks for sharing the laugh.
Mark

tuxnharley

Wow - I've never seen a cylinder frozen by mouse p*ss before!

Maybe they got in by going up thru the exhaust? Was the frozen cylinder one where the valve(s) were open? Possibly the air cleaner holes were just "colateral damage"?

Gary's '66

Mark,

Glad to hear that didn't occur at your place, that was quite the mouse motel!

Man, you sure have your work cut out for you. Hope the rest of the tear down goes smoother than the head removal. Keep us laughing, I mean posted.

Gary

Westlotorn

The bore is measuring 4" so a .030 overbore may clean all the rust I hope.
Very little ring ridge for a engine with 80,000 miles and old cast rings.
The other positive, the oil in the block is still pretty clean. I find that odd.
The oil must have been pretty new when it got parked 35 years ago.

Westlotorn

Mouse mystery solved, I contacted the former owner and friend. He says when he bought the car it had a Holley 780 on it. He wanted it original so he pulled the 780 off while searching for the date correct Holley 650. He says the carb was off for more than a year. He had covered the intake with paper to keep the dust out, never thought about the mice. He says I can keep the sun flower seeds.
This makes sense now, as I looked at the Carb it seemed to be in much better shape than the rest of the engine no dust or grime build up. Now I know why.
The mouse piston will not break loose. Soaking and a 4 foot breaker bar have not budged it. I have one of those tools that bolts to the Harmonic balancer and gives you a 1" nut to connect to. The tool works great, I can get the breaker bar to flex no problem and the tool has held up. I think well over 250LBS torque does not budge it. I just hope it cleans up at .030 since it is the matching block to the car.
Oh, well engines for me are easy, repairing fiberglass makes my knees weak.

MidShark

I had 2 cylinders like that on the 283 I bought last year for my '57. I knew I was in trouble when I took the exhaust manifold off and a bunch of seeds,etc. fell out of the the exhaust ports. I got one of the pistons out, but had to break the worst one out. Had to bore it .085 over to clean it up. Had it sonic tested to be sure it would go that far. Mark- I hope your's cleans up alright.

Rich

Westlotorn

That looks far too familiar. My Engine budged tonight. Getting about 1/8 inch up and down now. Progress and more soaking.

427435

How about some pictures of the car!!!