Last summer a buddy of mine gave me an extra 292 he had because I had done quite a bit of work on his teapot carb and helped him tune some things... no big deal. Didn't expect the gift but certainly appreciated it. He wanted the 292 out of the way so I gladly accepted. My friend had "hopes" that it would not take much to get the 292 fired up again and running. The engine was not stuck and there was "green water" in it he told me.



(THE 292 IN QUESTION IS THE ONE ON THE RIGHT...)

I brought it home, stowed it on engine stand, and put it under a shelf.... until today. I recently the sold the engine on the left so I thought, "Y not? Let's see what's inside this thing." The exterior had the usual sludge and oily base, and it looked like someone had tried to repaint the engine while it was in the car. The paint was peeling in places and you could tell where someone had just simply painted right over the crud that had accumulated over the years. The spark plugs did not look too bad, and even when I pulled the valve covers I was greeted by a little bit of the old "paraffin sludge" from quite a few years of build up but thought that things were salvageable as they were. The top end was oiling pretty good at any rate.

Then I pulled the Valley Pan...



I have disassembled quite a few Y blocks over the past several years, somewhere in the neighborhood of 13-15 or so, but never have I encountered one this bad on sludge. It was caked up all over the place. Wasn't just the lifter valley either. The underside of the valley pan has more than 1/4" on the surface!!!! If you look closely in the above photo, that volcano looking structure is the buildup of goo that surrounded one of the bolts that hold the valley pan down, lol! Here's another view...



More to come from the Y Block Sludgefest 2013...

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com