Buick 198 advice

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44bz
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Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

I’m wondering where I should focus my time and money on this motor. It’s a Buick 198 in a cj2a I picked up recently. The motor was in unknown, non running condition. Lots of rust on it however the oil looked good, clean under the valve covers, and very clean under the intake manifold.

It has three bent pushrods. I haven’t tried turning it over by hand yet. I’m not really wanting to dump a bunch of money into this motor but it would be nice to get it running.

Would you just replace the bent pushrods and call it good or go further than that?
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Last edited by 44bz on Wed Apr 25, 2018 10:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Stuka
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Re: Buick 225 advice

Post by Stuka »

Need to pull the heads. Push rods don’t bend themselves. My guess is you will find a very sad piston.
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Re: Buick 225 advice

Post by derf »

Yeah, it wouldn't cost anything to pull the heads and/or the oil pan to see what's going on there. If there is significant damage, you know you can scrap it without spending any money on it. If it appears to be in good shape, you can pull the bearing caps to see what's going on there. Still free and it will tell you how much more work you may need to do.
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Re: Buick 225 advice

Post by 44bz »

Thanks guys. Next step, pull the heads. “Very sad piston” made me laugh. I’ll keep you posted.


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Re: Buick 225 advice

Post by tgreese »

The 225s are still very popular with the early CJ guys. The engine compartment in these Jeeps is short, and they fit really well. Distributor at the front helps to clear the firewall with no sheet metal mods needed. Being odd-fire, they have a cool idle cadence ... potato-potato-potato-potato-potato- ...

Lots of expert advice specific to the 225 on earlycj5.com if you need it. https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3aea ... gine+build

They are great motors. Fix it and run it!
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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

I updated the title because I believe this motor is the earlier 198 v6. It does have a 2bbl intake tho and gm carb, Rochester I think?

So I pulled the heads but I don’t know a usable piston from not. I don’t see any obvious damage. There was lots of carbon buildup. The cylinder walls don’t have any obvious scoring but there’s some corrosion. The lifters have little if any wear on them.

Left side:
Image
Image

Right side:
Image
Image

There’s no obvious wear on the distributor gear but I haven’t pulled the timing cover yet. Also haven’t gotten the oil pan off.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

Image
I have no history on this motor but the jeep hasn’t been registered since 1974.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by derf »

Does it turn over easily?
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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

derf wrote:Does it turn over easily?
That’s the thing, I haven’t gotten it to spin with a breaker bar on the crank pulley. I didn’t put anything in the cylinders to lube it up. The thing has so much rust on the outside I’ve been worried about breaking bolts. When I pull on the crank bolt it just turns but the rotating assembly doesn’t.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by derf »

It's best to pull the oil pan and see what the bottom end looks like.
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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by tgreese »

Why do you think it's a 198? The 198 is a good engine, but an oddball compared to the 225. A 198 does not use the BOP bell, instead it uses a round pattern bell that's the same as the 215 cid aluminum Buick V8 (and Rovers with this V8). The 198 is also an odd-fire engine. All the 198s came from passenger cars and were 1V engines from the factory, as were the earliest Buick 225s.

The last Buick 225s and all Jeep 225s came with a Rochester 2G small pattern 2V carburetor. When Buick bought back the design and tooling for these engines, they put it into production with a 0.050" larger bore to match the then-current Buick 350. This boosted the displacement to 231 cid. There were other changes to the heads and such, but the 231 is bolt-in compatible for the 225. It remained odd-fire through 1978 (?) when it became an even-fire engine with a new crank design.

This list of casting numbers will help, assuming it's a Buick V6 https://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~reese/ ... lSpecs.pdf

I kinda doubt it's a 198, considering it's a 2V. A 198 will be expensive to rebuild, if needed. Look at Kanter for parts.
Last edited by tgreese on Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Buick 198 advice

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So I thought/hoped it was a 225 when I saw it because it physically looks like one. I was able to find a number at the rear of the block that corresponded to Buick 198 and that’s as far as I got with trying to identify the motor. Then I was surprised to find a 2bbl intake on it because what little I’ve read indicated it was a 1bbl motor. The intake could’ve been swapped on at some point and I’ve read that some parts interchange between the 198 and 225, but I haven’t found any specifics on what parts interchange. I read cams are the same but the consensus seems to be little else does. Rockauto lists the same part numbers for almost everything between the 198 and 225 but who knows if that’s accurate.

Thanks for the link tgreese.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by Stuka »

If you have it bolted to a 4wd transmission, my guess is that its a 225. I am willing to bet somebody pulled a 225/3sp from a 60's CJ and put it into your flatty.

The pitons look fine, no obvious marks. Which makes the bent pushrods sound like maybe somebody rebuilt it, put pushrods that are too long into it, and then bad things happened.
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Buick 198 advice

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Stuka wrote:If you have it bolted to a 4wd transmission, my guess is that its a 225. I am willing to bet somebody pulled a 225/3sp from a 60's CJ and put it into your flatty.

The pitons look fine, no obvious marks. Which makes the bent pushrods sound like maybe somebody rebuilt it, put pushrods that are too long into it, and then bad things happened.
It supposedly has a T90 which I haven’t confirmed yet and a Dana 18 which is easy to spot. I kinda wondered about the possibility of it having been rebuilt given fresh the oil looks on the lifters. Anyway, I’m glad to be working on a clean motor at least versus the last 327 I freshened up for the jtruck which was full of sludge...

The rain is back so once that stops I’ll drop the oil pan for a look there next. Thanks for all the info so far.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by Herk »

It's quite possible that you DO have a 198. Look at the bolt pattern on the bell housing, same as 215 V8. So, to answer the obvious question you didn't ask... Yes, you do have the correct transmission adapter and bellhousing to swap in a fuel injected Land Rover V8 (mid 2000's Discoveries are getting pretty common in junkyards these days and most of them were running when junked).

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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by rocklaurence »

Bent rods=possible timing chain jumped time? However, I dont see any valve impact marks on the pistons. Hmmm?
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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

Still haven’t dropped the oil pan yet, planning to do that this weekend. Good news is that 225 valve covers fit!
Image


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

Still haven’t dropped the oil pan yet, planning to do that this weekend. Good news is that 225 valve covers fit!
Image


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

I decided to just go ahead and pull the motor out. Still haven’t been able to get it to spin. I’m currently soaking the pistons in sea foam deep creep.

The block number is 1349430 which corresponds to the 198 v6. It also looks like I have the 198 bell so pretty sure that’s what I’m dealing with:
Image
The good news so far is that everything I’ve bought for a 225 is a match.


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Re: Buick 198 advice

Post by 44bz »

I managed to get the motor to turn by hand after lots of sea foam deep creep - went through two cans. I’m replacing gaskets, new lifters and pushrods, but trying not to spend too much money on it. I’m hoping to run it as is for now and see what happens.

Last night I bolted the passenger head back on. I followed the bolt pattern and torque specs in the tsm for the 8 head bolts. There are three additional bolts at the lower end of the head not included in the tsm so I attempted to torque them same as the other head bolts.

Unfortunately one of the ears cracked as I was torquing (see pic below). I’m wondering if this will be a problem? It didn’t crack all the way through. I smeared some jb weld over it because I didn’t know what else to do.



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