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Hi! I figured it was just about time to stop lurking and actually register. I live in SK, Canada, work as a machine operator and sometimes truck driver for a railroad, and for better or worse decided to pick up automotive as a hobby.
A while ago I bought a 1990 f150 XLT lariat with supposedly 187k Kms (~116k mi.) for 1100 CAD. It's a 302 4x4 with AOD, and not a whole lot of rust; rear wheel wells, rear cab corners, rear box corners. I'm pretty sure it was a farm/field truck; skinny dry rotted bias ply tires and the box was set up for a goose neck trailer (livestock?).
What brings me here is the engine is completely boned. Google led me to qdeezie's 5.0 thread and I've been putting together an idea of what parts i'd like to use for a rebuild. A friend from work abandoned a fox body mustang project and has offered the engine he was planning to build for it. I think he said it was 302 out of a Thunderbird but it's untested and unkown
Well yesterday I did something stupid, instead of spending money on parts, i bought another truck!
Whitey is a 1993 5.8L 4x4 with an e4od trans, 313k kms (~194k mi.). Rust all up and down the sides, something going on with the front diff or the wheel hubs (grinds badly if you goose the pedal), muffler completely rusted out and hanging by bailing wire. CEL comes on intermittently.
To its credit, engine has no blow by, oil and coolant are clean, the 5.8 pulls nicely, the trans shifts smoothly, OD still works great (~2100 rpms at 75 mph). Only paid $1000 CAD.
Well that's me and what I'm working with. Totally open to suggestions at this point though i have to save up some parts money again. End use for the final truck is hopefully towing a small camper and some light 4 wheeling.
So this week, I decided Whitey needed a stereo. The factory head unit would only send static to the speakers, and no display on the lcd to know what freq the radio was set to or what time it was. Messing with the antenna only changed the shape of the static and made it louder.
Ended up going with a Pioneer that was on sale, and loving it so far. Going to have to get some heat shrink and connectors and reinstall it better than the twist and tape. Could also use some rear speakers that can handle bass a little better.
Also today was the first actual hot day we've had in a while, took Whitey out to get some lunch and discovered the A/C wouldn't work. After 2 trips to the parts store to get a recharge kit and the adapter for the test port i discovered the stupid cable to the compressor was unhooked. Oh well, blows ice cold now...
Spent most of my days off playing with a cheapie 110v welder. I think next paycheck the plan is to get a bunch of steel pipe and fix the exhaust/muffler. Crawled under the thing today to check out what was actually going on and it appears all the hangers are gone, likely lost to rust. So the entire tail pipe appears to be held on by the manifolds (which are cracked) and that bailing wire.
I see a lot people talking up mustang shortie headers but wonder if it would be worth buying a build your own header kit. Since its 4x4 it seems like I'd have an easier time with pipe routing if I do it myself. I also wonder if theres much performance to be gained from having a longer tube/collector length. The cost seems pretty comparable from what I've seen (except shipping lol).
So that's where we're at, still not sure which truck I'm keeping and which one is parts but Whitey runs and drives so its getting the love for now.
Hey, I think i know where you live, if that's Manitoba st, i live in MJ and have a 1993 XLT with 5.8, no 4x4 though, as for your intermittant cel i would assume the cracked manifold is drawing in air throwing off the O2 sensor, i have the Ford code reader here with the book if you ever need to use one.
As for the headers i've never seen a do it yourself kit, nice to save some money but it's probably more involved than i think, wish i had a damn garage. It was hot, hot again today too... I'd keep the 93 but i'm partial...lol
And i just bought a Pioneer a few months back, good choice, Canadian tire had some pioneer speakers i swapped in too at the time, but i added an amp and 8 inch sub too.
Haha, that's awesome. Yeah, that's the asphalt plant in the background. A proper garage would be nice, especially if it stays warm like this.
I was kind of thinking the same thing about the cel. Would explain the poor mileage and rich smelling exhaust. I'd swap over the manifolds from brickface but they're cracked too lol.
Right now I'm favoring the '93 but the '90 will qualify for antique plates sooner. Won't have to make a decision until i start in on some of the more permanent fixes like paint and undercoating.
Haha, that's awesome. Yeah, that's the asphalt plant in the background. A proper garage would be nice, especially if it stays warm like this.
I was kind of thinking the same thing about the cel. Would explain the poor mileage and rich smelling exhaust. I'd swap over the manifolds from brickface but they're cracked too lol.
Right now I'm favoring the '93 but the '90 will qualify for antique plates sooner. Won't have to make a decision until i start in on some of the more permanent fixes like paint and undercoating.
I had real poor mileage and strong gas smell, but it was from worn fuel injectors, does it start good after sitting over night vs having to crank it some after driving recently ? If so the injectors probably leak and are flooding your cylinder(s) I had 200 000 KM's on mine when i did them and they were in rough shape.
I was just looking into antique plates recently because i thought it was 25 years, it's 30 with SGI as you know, sucks because i could save around 540'ish bucks a year, if i've got it right.
Well buddy from work came through on the free 302.
Started tearing it down to try and figure out what I was looking at and got as far as the left cylinder head before it was too dark and i was too hungry. Cylinder head casting reads E6SE, which i understand to be not very good heads from a 1986 302. Probably out of a t-bird or cougar?
One good thing is that it's already set up with a roller cam, assuming i can make use of the roller lifters and associated hardware.
Tomorrow I'll get it down to the bare block and see what condition the rest of it is in.
Man these things are heavy, I was considering putting on my steel-toes for a bit there. Only got as far as pulling the heads, rollers, flywheel, and water pump (?) off. Guess I need to get a balancer puller among other tools.
I guess this is it's new home until i can get a proper engine stand. Should be good enough to start cleaning it up for now.
Welp, good news and bad news. The good news, after searching the forums a little bit, i got the impression that the easiest way to level out the stupid rake on the truck was to stab in some new springs.
And as luck would have it I managed to get the last pair of Moog cc824's that amazon canada was selling at 50 bucks! All told 58 bucks shipped and taxed to my door.
Man that stabalizer bar was a bitch, always in the way in the worst way. Next time i deal with any of this I'm taking the whole thing off.
One side done, I actually wasn't able to take pictures of that side, phone was dead. Took me like 6 hours messing around with jacks, blocks, and jackstands. Dropped the truck off the jackstand once (don't stick your... body? head? anywhere you wouldnt stick your dick).
Ran out of light and had to quit before i could get it all buttoned up. Bonus, once i knew what i was doing the other side only took half an hour, and was no sweat.
Finally got it all buttoned up and onto some pavement. Pretty happy with the results! Rides 100% better than it did, soaks up bumps like they're barely there, all the creaks and rattles from the 25 year old bushings and plastic interior are down by over half.
Once the springs settle a bit it should be almost (?) completely level. I like the supercab, but with the rake from factory, the angle of the back of the cab makes it look cone shaped. Feel free to disagree with me, but it's even worse on the gen after this and at least twice as ugly. It's only recently that models from the big three are starting to embrace there big square workhorse roots.
Now for the bad news... I thought the springs were such a great deal i bought them without thinking about it (wrestled with a little buyers remorse after reading about 844's and 822's), only to find out after more reading that i'd very likely need some camber adjustment bushings. Best price I've been able to find from companies that ship to Canada is like 35 bucks CAD, plus taxes and shipping. So i'm looking at like 100 bucks to get bushings for my 58 dollar springs...
Also, while I was under the front end...
I guess the PO downplayed how badly the front end got messed up (said the guy who owned it before him came out from shopping to find a tacoma parked on top of it), you can see the small piece that runs between the grill and the bumper is a little rustled and PO did put a straight bumper on it, but geez. Looks like someone got pissed up and tried to run over a fire hydrant or something. No problems getting it plated or anything, so oh well...
[Edit: I have since learned that this is supposed to be some kind factory crumple zone? Seems like a goofy way of doing it...]
Well that's all I've gotten up to for this weekend. In the near future I think i'm going to try fixing the exhaust, set whitey up with some 31x10.5 duratracs and track down what's throwing the intermittent CEL.
Last edited by SaltEater; 01-10-2018 at 11:10 PM.
Reason: errors, pics
04-23-2017, 03:41 PM
Hullo
