Sad day in Dinoland

Hi Tom..

BUGGER!


I have a suggestion for you...


You could try some barrier cream, or gloves... your fingers are a mess!

 

Was it a sodium valve head dropping off... or did it drop a collett out from the retainer, due to having the valve tips ground down by some ape trying to find some valve clearance, thus reducing top spring retainer to bucket clearance... (just fixed one for latter reason, and seen many before...)

Or was it something else?

 

it is sad to hear. one of the dino's i have had the same problem when i was first looking at it. i bought it years later. even w/ 16k miles, things happen. low mileage doesn't always mean problem free

 

Has anyone figured out a way, short of pulling the heads, to determine if original valves have been replaced? I've a '72 Dino with 75k kilometers on the clock. Alas, no mx records, so checking valve clearance is at the top of my 'to-do' list. After hearing several horror stories & now seeing these graphic pictures, I'm inclined to closely inspect my engine's valve train while the covers are off. Here's my proposal: Provided the compression is good, remove a cam on the rear bank, then pressurize one cylinder, pull a shim, compress a spring, and slip one collett out to see if the valve stem has one or two grooves. Obviously, if an original valve is noted, game's over & the heads come off. However, if a two-groove valve is present, continue the process to verify that all twelve were replaced.
Whew! 'seems labor-intensive, but I'm trying to avoid the dreaded "while you're at it" syndrome! I do hope that someone out there has a more streamlined technique. If so, let me know & I'll gladly mimic it. If not, what do you think? OK, you can all stop laughing, now!
Thanks & Cheers,
Coop

 

Tom -

Oh crap. I know the car.... because I'm pretty sure I referred him to you. "Local-ish" car, right?

 

Reminds me of a number of 250's I have done over the years. You are lucky I have seen much worse damage to the chambers. Yours didn't let the water out.

 

Tom, it's not unusual.......

 

It's not that easy.

Having double collett ring is not a sure fire way to tell. In fact, I recently tried to buy some double ring colletts, and couldn't get any, so I simply made custom valves with re-profiled shape and bought new std colletts. I tuftride the valves so that they are a dark grey colour, which of course helps identification to anyone else, but you cannot be sure your own car has been done unless you have foolproof history.

 

Given the shape of the wrist pin and what appears to be a taper on the ends I would bet it broke through the liner. My 77 dropped 2 exhaust valve heads into the sump.

Dave

 

Hi Horse.. Whats new *****cat?

wohhhowoooohaaaa!

Tom... possibly coolant in oil just from lifting heads off.. can see in your pics that coolant is in the waterways at deck level, showing you maybe didn't drain the block taps? No big deal, just scope for confusion.

Good luck with repair mate. And thanks again for the 550 shock...

 

?? It's a 246....

 

Early AM brain fade. Thinking about my car while writing about another. Thanks for the catch.

Dave

 

I dunno about 246 pistons, but I never seen a piston broken off the rod and the rod all twisted up just from dropping a valve unless it was at really high rpm, and I only know of that happening to one 308 engine. To me, I would guess the piston broke up and took out the valve. If you look at the head, you see lots of small impact marks. Usually a valve head makes really big dents. No?

 

I know what its like for this to happen ......see post http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135178103&postcount=10 . I was very lucky, the valve head only did minor damage (piston, valve seat) then was spat out the exhaust port into the muffler.
Good luck with the repairs.

 

Here's another scary photo.

It's of one of my valves and the largest surviving piece of the piston. It happened at Watkins Glen in the late '80s.

Within 10 minutes, the same thing happened at the same place to a friend of mine in his 308GT4.

We were towed back on the same truck, coolant dripping from the exhaust pipes.

The engine was repaired and is better than new to this day.
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What is ballpark price to totally rebuild a 6cyl dino engine to sparkling "new"?

 

Anyone? I'd love to know the ballpark, just curious.
James in Denver

 

figure anywhere from $15-20k depending on the number of parts needed. that is assuming, you are paying a "decent" rate and you are replacing a good number of parts, such as this situation. if you are just rebuilding the engine to refresh it, it could be less.

by the way, why the engine is out, it is a good time to consider the gearboxes condition as well.

 

$10,000 - $12,000 gets new pistons, bearings, studs, chains, valves, etc. plus in and out. If you run down the parts!

Took 2 tries to get it done right so it cost me another $2,000 for take it all apart and put it back together right. Turns out that getting parts (at mechanic's rate per hour) is the best way to save money. Cuts billed time almost in half. The above numbers include parts but not the hundred or so hours I spent finding things.

I can recomend getting involved as much as the mechanic will let you. I could probably do it for half the price a third time by doing a lot of the grunt work myself. Live and learn. You get smarter older.

John

 

Thanks guys! Funny enough, right after I wrote that I read an article by Sheehan on Dino resto's too.

 

I did mine 3 yrs ago. Engine out, inspected and replaced as needed top to bottom. Replaced pistons, valves, seats, guides, and timing chains. Left no stone unturned, rebuilt the carbs and water pump while we were there, took a look at the gear box, but rebuilt that two years later.

I spent every bit of $20K on this, and I bought most of the parts. Dealer did the service at $90 per hour, as I recall. We did have to do some tig welding too, can't remember why now.

James and or Ryan, if you'd like to see PDF's of the bills, I can email them to you.

Dave M.

 

Dinos are chain driven?

LOL... I trust you Dave, no need to show the .pdfs! Would be fun to see the looooong list of stuff, if it's itemized. Unless it's like "Parts $400.00" "Labor 19,600.00"

 

Just stared at the bill again.

Labor was about $12K, parts and outside services were $8k+. It's all itemized if you want a peek.

Dave