I own Mopar!

[Bill Pritchard]

Looks great, Al! Always liked those 68-70 B bodies. I had a 70 Hemi Challenger from 1980 - 1996....my first complete restoration. Fun cars. Hopefully you will never have to take the engine apart, but if you do, make sure you have four left bank pistons and four right bank pistons....you don't want to find out the hard way like I did

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Bill Pritchard

Looks great, Al! Always liked those 68-70 B bodies. I had a 70 Hemi Challenger from 1980 - 1996....my first complete restoration. Fun cars. Hopefully you will never have to take the engine apart, but if you do, make sure you have four left bank pistons and four right bank pistons....you don't want to find out the hard way like I did

This is what happens when you put them in backwards (or swap them left for right bank).

Congrats on the purchase. Those B-bodies ride so nicely with a decent set of radials. Enjoy the cruising. (and parking with that manual steering) ;-)

[Alss]

Originally Posted by njsteve

This is what happens when you put them in backwards (or swap them left for right bank).

Congrats on the purchase. Those B-bodies ride so nicely with a decent set of radials. Enjoy the cruising. (and parking with that manual steering) ;-)

no plans on taking this one apart!..manual steering..not a problem

[Bill Pritchard]

Originally Posted by njsteve

This is what happens when you put them in backwards (or swap them left for right bank).

That's EXACTLY what happened on my Challenger. It came with all 8 pistons the same from the factory.....IIRC, there is an offset on the piston pin of a few thousandths of an inch, the only difference between left & right bank pistons. Apparently when that engine was originally built either they were out of one type of piston or else someone just screwed up and put in all the same ones. Well, there is an arrow stamped on the piston head that is supposed to point forward. When I rebuilt the engine, being a newbie to 426 Hemi intricacies, I made sure to have all the arrows pointing to the front like the manual said. When I first fired it up I just thought the lifters were taking a long time to pump up (it was a 70 so it had hydraulic lifters). Ran for about 2 or 3 minutes before I got exactly what is pictured above in one cylinder Luckily it did no other damage....no scoring of the cylinder wall or anything major, just a lot of bent valves and marred piston tops on one bank.

[olredalert]

Originally Posted by Bill Pritchard

That's EXACTLY what happened on my Challenger. It came with all 8 pistons the same from the factory.....IIRC, there is an offset on the piston pin of a few thousandths of an inch, the only difference between left & right bank pistons. Apparently when that engine was originally built either they were out of one type of piston or else someone just screwed up and put in all the same ones. Well, there is an arrow stamped on the piston head that is supposed to point forward. When I rebuilt the engine, being a newbie to 426 Hemi intricacies, I made sure to have all the arrows pointing to the front like the manual said. When I first fired it up I just thought the lifters were taking a long time to pump up (it was a 70 so it had hydraulic lifters). Ran for about 2 or 3 minutes before I got exactly what is pictured above in one cylinder Luckily it did no other damage....no scoring of the cylinder wall or anything major, just a lot of bent valves and marred piston tops on one bank.

----Ouch!......Bill S