Hey folks. Just bought a 95 4X4 XLT with a 302. Body in great shape but the engine overheated with the prior owner due to no coolant (freeze plug rusted out).

I'm pulling the motor for a full rebuild and was wondering if anyone else has rebuilt a high mileage EFI 302?

What are some of your tips?

Thanks

New to me 95 4X4 XLT

 

 

 

My 5.0 was a carboned-up mess as well, with only 80,000mi because of a worn out flat tappet cam.
I ended up using a rebuild kit from Summit with flat top 4 relief pistons, bearings, gaskets, freeze plugs, etc.
With the engine block at the machine shop they hot tanked it, then did .030" overbore, and decked the head gasket surfaces.
I also had the E7 heads surfaced and a valvejob done which included new valve seals, and opted to do a little DIY porting to help free up some power.

Personally I think for what you're working with, doing this similar path will get you a pretty nice running engine and even with doing assembly/cleanup/painting yourself, it is still expensive!

Your truck is already a roller cam engine, so that will help conserve some costs if you are cleaning up and re-using those parts.

My biggest tip is to BAG AND TAG (VERY WELL) all of your hardware, especially right now while it is fresh in your head from disassembly.
Take pictures of what hose went where, and label them. Use your phone and take a video this thing while together.
It might be MONTHS before you're putting it back together and suddenly you realize you have 2 electrical plugs that look the same.
And even if you don't need to see how something was hooked up; it is fun to look back at later!

First step is to find yourself an engine machinist to talk about your project and understand the costs involved. Get a feel for their workload and expertise in SBF's.
Once you find a winner; get all your parts you want cleaned up taken over there for hot tanking/cleaning/inspection.
That intake manifold is not fun to DIY clean, so start stripping it down to just the castings and make them do it too.

Get your machine shop looking at the crank to determine if a simple polishing or grinding the journals undersized is required.
And get their opinion about where the rear main seal rides; your stuff has a TON of miles on it and their opinion matters to get it to seal/not leak when rebuilt.

Your rods will get re-used and re-conditioned so the big end is round/true by the machine shop prior to pressing piston pins on new pistons.

The block; most likely deck the head gasket surfaces, overbore cylinders accordingly, possibly line hone required?

The engine rebuild parts get ordered AFTER the engine machinist gets a chance to look at what you have and determine a plan to get things back in spec.

There are a lot of great youtube videos about the process of putting together a SBF rotating assembly which should be AOK for a basic rebuild.
And certainly check back here, your F150 rebuild support group!!