am I losing my mind?

[crea990]

I just finished assembling everything onto a new 350 long block to go in my '80 k10. It seems to have dipstick holes on both sides of the block. The one on the driver's side is a little higher than the one on the passenger's side. Neither hole is threaded and one is a little smaller than the other. I REALLY need to get my truck going (it's a work truck). Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Pontiac1976]

Well the dipstick are never threaded it a press in . Do you have the pan on the motor ( & or is it the stock factory one that came with the motor).?
Is the motor out or in the truck , by looking at the block by the pan you will see extrude a little where the dipstick goes. You should have open hole going in to the oil pan from the block above, that will be the side the dipstick goes.
The other way is run the block casting # on the driver side rear of the block on the en-dent just in back of the head.
if it's a 3970010 casting it on the left I believe 80 or 81 was the switch to the right some might casting # you have.
www.mortec.com/ you can run you casting # to find out.

[crea990]

Hey, thanks for the reply. The motor is out of the engine. The hole on the driver's side is almost definitely the dipstick hole. It appears low enough to go into the pan. I'm just wondering about the other hole on the passenger's side. It came with a little plastic plug in it and was just affraid that the plug was not stout enough to stay in when the engine is running. I guess I'll find out in a few days.

[crea990]

Well, I finally got ahold of a parts guy that said some of the new "older" castings had dip stick holes on both sides of the block and one was actually smaller. He had to order me the right one and said to just use a plastic plug on the other since there isn't any pressure behind it anyway.

[Pontiac1976]

I heard of a few but I always thought that the other side was sealed off unless some opened it or the wanted it open on the other side too.