We've had the car for a little over a year and its been great up until a few months ago. Decided to take her out one day and not 10 min into the drive we started to hear a faint knocking that eventually grew considerably louder. Having neither the facilities nor time or experience to take apart this motor so we decided to take it in the our good friends shop. The news was grim...upon dropping the oil pan they immediately saw metal shavings. When they started to tear everything down they found the main crank bearing had essentially gone to bits. The culpret they concluded was that the oil dipstick in the car was too long so when we pulled it out to check the oil it read that it was full..only because it was literally resting flat on the bottom of the pan. Additionally the previous owner of the car had put a larger oil pan on the car that took roughly 7 courts of oil. That last time an oil change was done only 5 were put in. So being 2 courts low on oil and the fact that the car just naturally burns a little oil here and there and it has a small oil leak...well you probably get the picture (please don't tell give me a whole rundown on "you should've done this or why didn't you do that...had you done this you could've prevented that.)
From here we decided that as opposed to just putting a bandaid over the wound we would do things right and get the whole motor essentially rebuilt so there were no more surprises "down the road". In the end it pretty much looks the same as it did before but thats not the case on the inside.
Overall: Block and oil pan sandblasted and painted Chevy Orange, heads completely rebuilt, new water pump, new powersteeing pump, new crank, new CORRECT length oil dipstick, new metal fuel line, sandblasted, painted and clear coated alternator housing, cleaned and clear coated exterior of intake manifold, Carb cleaned and rebuilt, new higher flow jets installed in carb, new racing clutch and flywheel, 2 new flowmaster mufflers, replaced rotting battery leads, trans and bell-housing painted, radiator lacquered black, various hoses and gaskets replaced, shifter stick heated and bent 2 inches back.
Heres a few exterior shots and some shots during the rebuilt, sorry for the crappy phone pics.
Btw, its a 68 Impala SS with a 454 bored .030 over, 4 speed Muncie, 4 wheel manual drum, 12 bolt posi rear.
Post rebuild its putting out roughly 500 hp and 550 ftlbs.
BEFORE:
DURING:
AFTER (minus valve cover breather and air cleaner):
More pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/scull20/Imp ... 6973637538
Let me know what ya think!
-Ryan
What a boat! 
well..................