Burner71

Long story short. I came into possession of a 97 F150 with a locked up engine. After some time I was able to locate a motor with only 72k miles on it.
I made a deal for the motor and while i waited for it to ship, I went ahead and pulled the locked up motor out.
When the salvage motor arrived, I was shocked at the condition it was in. It looked really bad, but it turned very nicely. It had accumulated so much rusted that almost every nut and bolt began snapping off as i turned them.
I was pretty frustrated and just went ahead and rebuilt the locked up motor and set this one aside to figure out what to do with at a later date.

Well I got bored recently and decided to undertake the job of restoring the salvage.
I thought I would post my progress here if anyone is interested.

Burner71

'Some more pics of the motor's condition

Burner71

So i decided to go ahead and try to get this thing apart. First thing I did was pull a valve cover and right away that smell hit me. The smell of an engine thats never had an oil change its entire life.
This was going to need a full tear down for sure.

For anyone who has never rebuilt a motor, I highly recommend the 4.2 or the 3.8. They are pretty simple and can be done pretty quickly if you are in a hurry.

The rust on this thing was killing me. But I found that bumping the bolts with an impact wrench back and forth gave good results.

Burner71

Another pic with the heads off.
It was a sludgy mess, but overall pretty good shape. The cam and lifters were near perfect and the bearings were hardly showing wear.

Burner71

So after pulling it all apart I sent it off to Blaines Motor Supply in Dallas for them to check the block, clean it up, install new galley plugs and cam bearings and make ready.
Looks good when its nice and clean.

Burner71

Before I started putting it together I went ahead and shot some paint on the block and cleaned up the oil pan. Gave it a quick shot of paint as well.

Burner71

next step was getting the main bearings in and checking the clearances on the crankshaft.

Burner71

Luckily the crankshaft was in great shape and Blaines just did a real nice polish to get it ready.

Burner71

For some reason I only got a few pics of the piston install.
I had all the rods reconditioned at Blaines and the pistons were in great shape. I cleaned them all up and put new rings on. Install was quick and easy. All 6 were installed in about half and hour.

Burner71

Cleaned up the brace a little bit and got that back on along with the oil pickup. Also a good time to get the rear seal installed.