In March 2023, after dealing with a solenoid jammed in the start position on my 1967 Mercury Park Lane, I noticed I had an exhaust leak of the driver’s side. I thought I simply needed to get the exhaust manifold off to see about maybe welding the small crack. Well a good intention but…
I have never had an exhaust manifold develop a crack much less crack in half but there it is. I didn’t realize it was a complete crack until I took the cylinder head off. There was no way I could easily access the bottom bolts of the manifold while the top bolts were, as expected, rusted on. Of course to remove the head one has to remove the intake. Once the intake is off, and one head is off, then why not remove the other head since you are two thirds the way there and rebuild them. They do have 154,000 miles on them.
So I throw a lift plate onto the intake and using a long bar, the width of the car, my wife and I lift the intake off. Now the valley is exposed for the first time since 1967 and looks really clean. I then unbolt each head, lean over the fenders and lift them off by myself. That is both heads with exhaust manifolds attached.
So with the heads out the bottom bolts come right out. No mess, no fuss, since they have had oil on them for ages. The upper bolts were done a week later as during that week I constantly soaked them with my 50/50 mix of acetone and transmission fluid. The first head the top four came out. Man, am I lucky. Well that ended on the second head as three of the bolts snapped as you can see. I guess the shop will take care of them now. Only that wasn’t the really bad news in the end. The really bad news was when the shop called me after they were dropped off and all the valves were removed. The first head had a crack running from the intake over to the spark plug hole and down a bit in each opening. The head was toast. The head, with the snapped bolts, was fine.
So now the search for a replacement head started and it wasn’t easy. While FE heads can all bolt on they do have slightly different combustion chambers sizes you need to be aware of. My engine is 10.5:1 compression so I needed to match the other head. Thought I had found one in Minnesota and had it sent out. Only the shop notice a spark plug hole was severely compromised. Ugh! So talking to the shop owner he recalled they use a FE head as a mock up whatever once in awhile. Has it brought out and it is a match. So he trades me the one I got for the one he has.
Don’t they look gorgeous. They look almost as gorgeous as my wife. This part wasn’t inexpensive. I’ll leave that up to the crowd to figure out what I am talking about. Now both original heads were port matched by me and had high spots and ridges eliminated in the runners. To finish up I had new rockers shafts, new TRW rockers arms, and new OEM stands, and new OEM springs to finish off the job. I’ve been collecting parts over the years, when I see them, to have in stock.
The intake, as you can see, is quite coked up under that pan. So the shop, Joe’s Engine is only two miles from me, got it to clean up and make new which they did. Joe must have been in half the states. I then got it back and cleaned up the ports and the runners. You’d be surprised at the ridges and high spots when you run your finger deep into them. A little texture is good for atomization but not ridges or high spots. Once done it was time to paint. There is a trick I learned for painting.
The trick is to use a propane torch to heat the piece and sweat out the water in the metal. Water in the metal is a reason why our aftermarket paint may not stick around for long. So I tried it and saw water drops forming below the flame. So heck yeah I am a believer. From now on this is first on every part from intake to water pump to block. Then painted with what you see right there. Color coat is Rustoleum Royal Blue which is darn close to Dark Ford Blue.
Now since I had gone that far with my project can anyone guess what that means? Yes, that means project creep which I have never been immune to. Once started, I go all the way to treat the situation whether my car or a patient, and to be exact doing it.
So I travel 15 miles down to Danville where my office is for an engine lift using my trusty 91 Mazda 626 Hatchback. The local rental, 3 miles away, says their pump seals are awaiting replacement. We load the car and the rental guy tells me this is a really nice interior on this car. Obviously I am now going full rebuild. Side note and that is the Sable in the background with it next on my list.
Easy to see what is going on here. With the timing cover off I can pull the camshaft out and place aside. It won’t be used again. Flip engine over to remove the oil pan for access to the mains and the crankshaft. You can see #3, the thrust main cap, still in place, That one was difficult to get out since there was little room to wiggle it.
The crank journals all look like what you see there at #2. The caps though all show wear above with the exception of #1 which looks pretty good for the miles.
Pistons are next to remove. Protect my journals with rubber hose. Then tap each piston out. Didn’t even need to remove any ring from the top of the cylinders as the pistons came right out. Rod bearings look a bit better than the mains. Meanwhile the piston skirts look very clean.
With those two major parts out the crankshaft went down to the engine shop first. Turns out the crank was dead center in tolerance and just needed a polish. He now has the rods to resize, insert new bushings, fit for ARP bolts, weigh and balance them for me. In the meantime I had some work to do on the block.
Anyone who has worked on a Ford FE knows about this. The oil holes in the bearing never line up with those in the saddles on #1, 2, and 4.
What one needs to do is chamfer the the oil feed hole towards the center with your handy die grinder. Here is what the end result looks like on #1 which is the same for 2 and 4.
More oil mods here. The back valley holes are sort of ragged and so they were enlarged a little, ragged edges removed, and chamfered. The front had an edge on the inside removed so oil could flow out easier along with being chamfered. Last the feed hole for the oil pump was enlarged to match the gasket and oil pump along with the inside being smoothed out to allow a more uniform path for oil to filter.
With that done the block was brought down to the shop for cleaning and boring. It will be 0.030 over since those are the pistons available. I have them already and have weighed them along with 16 pins to equalize to within 0.5 grams each. Turns out I only have three to adjust 0.5 grams each. I’ll do this by chamfering the inside edge of the pins. I will also use the down time to clean up and the parts removed from the engine like pulleys, brackets, and timing cover. The oil pump is replaced by a Melling NORS pump as is the water pump by a TRW NORS pump. The oil pan is relatively new so just needs to be wiped down. Part 2 will be the re-assembly of the engine, placement back into the car and break-in.
I expect it will be a month for me to get back the rods and block. I also have a second block down there from a week earlier. That one happens to be a Continental L flat head four from the Hornet. A tug is getting a rebuild and that project is headed by a couple of high school volunteers, guys and gals, who took it apart. Tom and I, on the Hornet, will overlook when they reassemble the engine. Pretty simple one to start with. If you want a story on them I could do it. Above are two of the at the parts cleaner. Over a year ago one was on the ship and was so taken with planes that he wanted to volunteer. When he was approved and went through the class some others heard about it. We now have 6 boys and 3 girls as volunteers. Their first job was to do all the prep work to prepare the T-28 Trojan for painting, clean up the cockpit, and measure for all the insignia and assorted markings. I spend all my time taking care of the Island Super Structure, and in the machine shop nine decks down, that I didn’t see them arrive till one day the T-28 was covered with them.
That’s always a tough call. Once the heads come off, you sometimes look around and say, “why not the rest?” Even with those bearings, the engine probably would have been fine for years given the way most of us drive our old stuff, but we all know how much we’ll personally tolerate in terms of wear. I’ve gotten pretty good at drawing a line because I don’t trust new parts anymore (and because I try to save money!), but you’ve been stockpiling the good stuff. 🙂
Good for another 60 years! I always get nervous when breaking in a cam though. That is a LONG 20-30 minutes, and when you turn down that idle screw, you’re just listening for a miss.
This surprised me as I wasn’t aware of it going up. Just saw it before taking off for our first Cougar Club brunch of the year. Of course it is raining so no Cougar. Currently the block is at the shop being worked on along with the rods for ARP bolts, and balancing. In the meantime I have been putting in a lot of thought on the camshaft which is the only part I don’t have yet. The break in does make me antsy.
This is the story of so many of my car problems – each job turns out to be one link in a chain of multiple other connected jobs. My heart tells me to do exactly what you are doing here. My head tells me to just drive the damned thing. 🙂
It is interesting that the cracked head never made itself known to you in the way the car ran before you decided to deal with the exhaust manifold. I guess ignorance actually can be bliss sometimes.
Super interesting, but a good tutorial on why I never rebuilt the engine on my VW.
The guy I farmed it out to emailed me some photos of the mismatched heads and all bearings well into the copper. My only regret is he didn’t machine the 40hp case for shell bearings, I suspect excess cam clearance is the reason I can’t get decent valve lash.
Looking forward to part 2 of this series
The old “Might as Wells” again .
Those wiped to copper bearing shells weren’t going to last much longer, glad you caught it in time .
With no cylinder ridge and no mention of taper and lack of wear on the piston skirts I don’t grasp why you’re boring it .
I love all the little details you’re sharing, younger or newbies will learn a lot here .
Did you replace all the valve guides ? bronze or cast iron ? .
Also so nice to see the young ‘uns taking to the restoration works on the ship .
I’d greatly love an article about that L Head engine’s works .
-Nate
Machinist will mike the block and do what is best. Not likely much since I checked the deck and don’t believe it needs any work there nor work to align the mains.
The guides were bronze.
I will follow the work on the flat head four when I deliver the finished block to the ship. Since there are newbies they will need to watch Tom and me on how to assemble. Maybe assemble one complete piston, from checking rings, mounting, inserting rod bearings, then dropping into the main and torquing. They can do the other three under our eyes and go from there. I will photograph the entire process. It goes into this below.
I have tried the torch method, but find a couple of hours @ 400 degrees in an oven works really well getting the water out of iron.
I’m just curious, why did you source a used head to replace the cracked one, instead of just ordering a set of new heads from Edelbrock or whoever? Was it a cost issue, or were you trying to keep the engine a numbers-matching original piece? Many aftermarket heads offer superior flow and are made of lighter aluminum instead of cast iron, a significant weight savings. Also, I hope that you upgraded the valve guides and seats for compatibility with lead-free dead dinosaur juice, LOL!
Also, do you plan to replace the broken cast iron manifolds with factory pieces, or replace them with tubular headers, for improved flow and lighter weight? Finish the whole thing off with a custom dual exhaust, the cherry on top of this tasty sundae, and enjoy!
BTW, if your wallet can stand the strain, I’d seriously consider ditching the stock intake in favor of a port EFI setup, for improved drivability and reduced exhaust emissions, if such a kit is available for this engine. Again, the new aluminum intake will be lighter than stock, and the improved gas mileage in an era of $4.00/gallon gasoline never hurts! If not port injection, then Throttle-Body Injection (TBI) is cheaper and can use the stock intake manifold, a big wallet saver. I’m no tree-hugger, but anything we can do to make our hobby more planet-friendly is a plus and will limit attacks on the hobby by the Greeniacs, LOL!
I am an originalist. Therefore, those modifications would never cross my mind since they are unacceptable. The car, which is rare enough as it is will stay original through my life span.
A hydraulic roller cam would be the cure. The other thought would be to contact one of the many FE engine gurus for cam recommendations. Oregon Cams is one. https://oregoncamshaft.com/
The Facebook group – Ford FE Engine enthusiasts – this would be a good source of info for recommendations on a flat tappet cam.
The rumor mill claims a lot of lifters are made in China with inferior metal and not ground with the correct radius on the face of the lifter. True or not? There has been a fair amount of failed lifters posted. Also need to use a quality lube on the cam and lifters when assembling the engine. A quality oil, maybe even a break in oil with lots of zinc to protect the cam and lifters. Pre-lube the engine before starting. Then run it for the longest 15-20 minutes of your life.
I’m leaning towards the roller cam when my 428 gets rebuilt.
Good work on cleaning up the oil passages and the ports. Those cast iron intakes are a real load, I put an aluminum intake on mine many moons ago. Still have the cast iron one in case someone wants to restore the engine back to factory specs. Or if I ever by a boat I have the ideal boat anchor for it.
I already have a cam picked out for the engine. The stock cam is 192@.050 and .442″ lift. The cam picked out is 204/210@.050 and .489″/.500″ lift with peak rpm at 4000. I have three full sets of NOS Ford lifters for any FE engine so only the genuine parts. As for a roller you will find that many from the majors are out of stock and that tells me they will always be out of stock. Also too much lift than I prefer on my valve train.
Wow! This brought back memories of the rebuild of the Nailhead in my ’66 Riviera. But my engine was terribly ignored, and I scraped out a small coffee can full of gritty sludge from inside the block. I don’t think that it had an oil change in the twenty years before I bought it. Your engine looks like it received regular oil changes over it’s life. These projects will get more complicated the closer you look, you’ll find other things that are broken or cracked, or could use to be rebuilt.
Your tear down began because of an exhaust leak, but it can start because an engine miss causes rough running, or it smokes on acceleration, makes a lot of noise, it has a head gasket leak, or if oil pressure drops really low once it warms up.
I had a low oil pressure problem with the FE in my ’66 F250. I replaced the oil pump which helped quite a bit, but I think that it was worn camshaft bearings. The top end might have been freshened up in the past, maybe even a ring and bearing job, but without redoing the cam bearings, and it lost a lot of oil pressure when hot. I added an after market oil pressure gauge and monitored the situation but I still used the truck for local duties.
A lot depends on how you plan to use the car. If it’s only for running to C&Cs or shows, as long as it runs okay it can last a long time without rebuilding. If you want your car to be up to a long road trip you would want to do the rebuild. It’s getting hard to find a good machine shop since so few modern engines get much rebuilding.
What I really what to do with this car is to take it on a long drive from Concord via 50 and 89 to Topaz Lake NV, then get on 395 south to travel the back of the Sierras. Pass by Bodie, Mono Lake, Manzanar and a few other spots before getting on 178 to come in behind Bakersfield so to travel back up 5 to home. Do it over spring break so my son can join me for a 5-7 day trip. The perfect car, big and roomy, with a solid quiet freeway ride. Great for a new engine even if the gas mileage stinks.
Great rebuild but having recently fitted a rebuilt engine to my toy car now the brakes and suspension need done to cope with it running properly, so thats where I’m at currently,
Funny thing about buying car parts over here a lot of it is imported I had an order for inner control arm bushings from the UK arriving ahead of some Citroen sway bar links from Aussie, last to arrive was a screenwasher pump that only came from our southern island everything ordered same day,
Fun fact for the Aussie car lovers anything for your Holden other than service items are overnite from OZ Ford NZ stocks nothing locally, GMH has been like this for many many years, my Citroen parts are stocked but the parts from OZ are half genuine price, made in China and they fit many diverse Euro brands, I read the box..
That’s mission creep all right. At least your bearings are just plain worn out and not damaged by contaminants. I look forward to part 2. I would also be concerned about a cam and lifters since the Mopar community has had a lot of trouble with new flat tappet cams.
IIRC there are three different head port sizes, low, mid, and high with the low risers for cars, mid risers for trucks, and high risers for racing applications. You can stuff your fist in the high rise ports.
The other thing about FE blocks was the aluminum oil pump they used, which would drop oil pressure a bit when warm. TRW made an iron one and any time we did an oil pan replacement on a truck, we installed a new pump. The oil pans rusted pretty quickly in the salt/rust belt.
I had a 1972 Ford pickup with the 360 and did the same port work. I also had access to a distributor machine and recurved the advance.
A final note: In different model years, Ford moved the hole for the dowel pin on the cam sprocket around for emissions reasons- always degree the cam for correct timing.
Those right side manifolds love to crack.
1. Really glad to see this as an actual article, rather than in the Comments section of another article. Thanks, CC.
2. When you get the block back from the machine shop, install the cam and lifters FIRST. Mark the tops of the lifters and the lifter bore with a Sharpie or other marking pen. Spin the cam, watch to see that the lifters each rotate–the Sharpie mark on the lifter moves away from the matching Sharpie mark on the lifter bore. Some lifters may spin faster than others, but they ALL must spin. When you’re done, you could remove the lifters from the lifter bores, KEEPING THEM IN ORDER so they go back into the same lifter bore you’ve already verified them in. (They’ll fall out when you flip the engine over on the engine stand to install the crank and pistons/rods.)
3. When the engine is getting assembled “for real”, you could draw a line vertically on the pushrods, so you can see the lines once the engine is fully assembled and running. Grab some Treasure Yard valve covers, and ventilate them. (See photo of similarly-modified Pontiac valve covers.) When the engine is running to break in the cam, watch each pushrod to assure it’s spinning.
4. If you use thick, Moly-based paste assembly lube on the cam lobes and lifter bottoms (but NOT the sides of the lifter) the normal oil filter MUST be changed after 20 minutes of run-time. Moly-based paste can clog a full-flow oil filter in 20 minutes.
5. When I assemble an engine, I always break-in that engine using a bypass oil filter in addition to the usual stock full-flow filter. I get my bypass filters used or NOS from sellers on eBay. $100, maybe less should get one but of course prices vary. I’m buying SKY-manufactured Frantz toilet-paper filters. A roll of cheap azzwipe is the filter element. Filters fabulously–particles as fine as cigarette smoke–and the elements last a good long time. They’re also available new from several suppliers including Amsoil. The bypass filter will stay on the engine during it’s break-in period if not permanently. An eBay search for “Frantz filter -ferro -magnetic” generally turns-up more complete filters (rather than adapters, decals, and filter elements) than I’m seeing right now.
6. NORMALLY, I’d suggest assuring the lifter preload is correct before installing the intake manifold…but that’s not possible on Ford FE/FT engines, since the pushrods go through the intake manifold rather than the cylinder head.
7. YES, please detail the engine build-up done by your “volunteers”.
Some great ideas there on the cam and lifters. As I said my lifters are NOS Ford so there will be no problem with them. As for the cam I am also mulling over Cam Research who make custom cams for one’s particular application. They also break in cams whether built by them or someone else.
If I go that way it relieves me of the break in and any possible problems. If so then the bypass filter won’t be needed but I’ll check into that anyway. The way I understand what you are saying is that this goes in place of a standard filter for the break in run.
I’ll make sure I show the volunteer rebuild just for you. That put three rebuilds I am involved in now. The FE, the new Vulcan, and the flat head.
Forgot to mention: When verifying the lifters spin during “trial assembly”, use ATF as the only lube on cam lobe and lifter bottoms and sides. Not thick paste grease.
When marking the pushrods to verify that they spin during engine running, use a paint pen or other semi-permanent marker.