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I think I got a little over zealous with my bead blaster. I blasted my 300 HP cast iron manifold, both sides and I didn't have anything taped off. Any ideas on how to get the blasting media throughly cleaned out of the intake.
At Classic Motors in the late 70's, there was a guy that glass blasted EVERYTHING when working on old Corvettes, even tho he was told to refrain from all glass beading activity. He completely rebuilt the engine in a customers 63 conv and when he started it for the first time, it ran great for about 10 seconds. In the next ten seconds, it faultered and finally died. When he cranked the engine over, it sounded like there was no compression at all, like all of the spark plugs had been removed. I advised a compression test which showed about 30 lbs per cyl.
When the engine was removed and the pistons inspected, there was glass bead material packed so tightly in the ring grooves that all of the rings were stuck in as far as they would go and wouldn't spring back to their normal expanded position. They had to be pried out of the grooves. When the rod caps were removed to remove the piston/rod assy, the pistons moved in the cylinders like there were no rings at all.
The engine had to be rebored another .030 and another fresh set of pistons/rings installed.
The problem, as I'm sure everyone already knows, was the fact that he glass beaded the cast iron intake manifold but never thought to wash it afterwards. There must have been a quart of bead material in the runners. We all laughed about that for weeks!
I glass bead my manifolds all the time. I just flush the manifold out real well with warm soapy water. I always pull the baffle off the bottom of the manifold before blasting and relace it after cleaning it up. NEVER use the original drive rivets to replace the baffle! I always use new self-taping screws to attach it back on. The drive rivets were intended to be used only once, and I would never trust them for a second application.
Michael, thanks so much for the war story. I am glad that I thought about long before I put the engine back together. I had nightmares last night just thinking I had messed up very bad.
Thanks for all the replies, I'll sleep better tonite.
--------Remember it well! Ratso almost lost his job over that one. This year at BG is the first year I havent seen that customer. She still has the car and is still active in the Corvette arena. Thank God she forgave us for that one...............Bill S
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