Block is Unclean, Now What? It's Worse!

So, I'm assembling my engine and I have the crank, rods, pistons, cam and timing chain in it. It is fresh from the machine shop and was wrapped in plastic. I wiped down all the journal surfaces, lubed the cam journals and wiped down the cylinders until everything was returning clean rags.

I was applying a bit of oil to the lifter bores before I dropped them in. Number one exhaust had gunk on my glove when I pulled it back. Not good. I look closely and can see some sludge and try to wipe it out. It is mostly clean now and I was contemplating what to do next.

Then, I notice there's an oil feed hole like on the 455 so I run a cleaning rod from my 5.56 down it... and it snaps off! Cheap plastic junk!

Now, I have a plastic cleaning tip with a piece of cotton rag about 4" into the driver's side oil feed hole that isn't used on a 70-up engine.

Any brilliant ideas on how to get it out?

My ideas, in order of stupidity and probably lack of failure are:

1) Leave it be and pretend like nothing happened. That's a joke. No way I'd leave it in there.

2) Take a threaded rod and heat it up and shove it down the hole, hoping it will melt onto the plastic and pull it out.

3) Take a threaded rod and sharpen the end, heat it and see if I can get it to tap into the plastic and pull out.

4) Knock out the lifter galley front freeze plug and see if I can push it out from the inside OR break it apart and pull it out from the front. This has the bonus of allowing me to see how much gunk is in there and if I'm doomed to take it all back apart to clean it thoroughly.

5) Pull the cam bearing and push it on through and/or break it apart to get it out. Problem is I don't know how to pull a cam bearing and if I could ever reinstall it without screwing it up. Is this a one and done situation?

Anyone have any other novel ideas?

 

Call antman.

 

I like Larry's idea, if it's possible. Maybe fill the hole with penetrating oil first, then blow it out. Maybe it'll help with the air pressure force.

 

That would be the oil pump pressurized passage. Only problem might be the lifters aren't in. I didn't get that far. I may see if I can plug the first one on each side to see how that goes. I also thought about applying a shop vac to see if that would do anything. Possibly both air pressure and shop vac.

Excellent idea. Anyone got his number?

I do have some very thin, very springy metal wire. It is the kind of stuff you use to hold insulation in floor joists under houses. I'm temped to heat it, hammer it and make it like a fish hook to see where I get.

 

New thought: If I take the rear hex plug out, can I drive the front freeze plug out with minimal bad things happening? I really want access to clean that passage up as it doesn't seem to meet my standard of cleanliness.

The stuff I'm getting out looks like the sludge you find in the corner of a head where oil drains back. I figure getting that out gives me the greatest chance of not having anything bad happen on fire up.

 

^^^^ probably your best bet. But try the heated threaded rod w/pointed end first.
It's likely too far in to drill a hole in it and thread in a hot threaded rod?

 

If you have a sample of the broken cleaning rod maybe try map gassing it and see if burns?

Maybe you can just burn it out?

Truthfully, I have no clear picture in my head of what is where in this. Pulling freeze plugs is easy if that helps.

 

On a Buick driver side block, in the front where the front oil from the cam bearing goes up to oil pre-69 rockers. At the bottom of that hole, close to the cam bearing is the swab.

 

Thanks, I'm going to look at a picture.

 

You're supposed to plug those anyway....
I don't trust any of these machine shops on cleanliness. You can find crap where there isn't supposed to be any crap. I flush out brand new TA intakes before install.
See this nice clean intake with a reminder on it?
Get these h.f. cleanout brushes....

 

I cleaned it before I started assembling but I didn't hit the lifter bores as they looked pretty clean. With freeze plugs in it, there isn't a lot you can do without redoing stuff.

I did brush the main saddles, the crank and the oil pickup pressure side. I didn't even notice the deprecated rocker feed until I rolled it over after doing the bottom end.

 

Here's a thought: go buy a small diameter screen door spring that will go in the hole. Clamp one end in the bench vise and stretch it out. Cut it off and sharpen the end. Screw it in the hole until it captures the brush and pull it out.

Jim

 

It is a very small hole. I'd say it is barely 1/4" if that large. But, I have some springy steel I'm going to try something similar with.

 

Shop Vac & compressed air.

 

Not what you want to hear Greg, but take it all back apart & clean the all block passages. That's prob. not the only gunk hiding.

 

Did you hit all of the threaded holes with flat-bottom thread chasers? I didn't want to say what Dano said, but...

 

I cleaned everything I had access to. The main lifter passage was all I couldn't clean with the galley plugs installed. I spent several hours cleaning before I started assembling last week.

 

Vacuum cleaner - suck it out.