Yeah, My heart says " 408 stroker with mass air" but my wallet says "whoa big boy"

 

haha, dare I say most of us on here run into similar problems!

 

Got it apart today, going to the machine shop next week. Here are some of the internal conditions. I am not sure how much is normal wear and how much is excessive but I believe that the main and rod bearing wear is excessive so I am glad I took it apart.

Mains
Rod, others are similar
Cyl Wall
Sludgeball This is just what I raked out of the valley with my hands!

l Piston wear, doesn't look too bad to me, hopefully I won't have to do a rebore and buy new ones. The rings actually looked pretty good too.

 

I think you maybe caught that one just in time. Wouldn't have wanted to leave those bearing much longer. Maybe turn the crank and re-size the rods ? (Holy sludge fest !!)

 

Yeah, the oil pickup was perfectly clean. I don't know why the bearings looked so bad.

 

I want to buy new mounting bolts for things like the timing cover, exhaust manifolds and intake. When you buy these aftermarket bolt sets from places like summit are they exactly like the stock bolts and studs so that everything bolts up the same? Where is the best place to buy from?

 

I think Fel-pro gaskets sell some bolt kits. I would trust them to get it right.

 

Yea those bearings are done. And that's a bit of sludge, rebuilding it in time!

 

To be honest, it doesn't look like oil changes and/or PCV maintenance was part of the truck's history. If it "was", I'd be questioning either the integrity of the owners or the shops that did the work. I have heard of shops that don't change the oil or do the work they were paid to do.

Reason I say this is there is no way that the engine should be that sludged (shouldn't even have deposits to be honest) if the engine had the oil changed regularly. Small block Fords are very easy on oil and only sludge when neglected.

 

Yeah, an engine change took place 14,000 miles ago and it's pretty obvious that the shop shafted the previous owner in several ways. They charged them $950 for a used van engine with "less than 100k on it" When the could have bought a new one for $1,150 and then they charged them another $1,000 to put it in. They didn't put a dipstick back in it and everyone assumed that it was because there was no place to put on in the van block but I found the opening for the tube in the block without a plug or anything in it. The old engine that was well taken care of lasted 220,000 miles. The good thing is that besides the engine all of the external parts are fairly new so I can reuse a lot of them.