I got really good at rebuilding the Stanadyne (Roosa Master) pumps that Ford and GM used. Owning a couple of 5.7L GM diesel cars will do that.

After reading the most recent posts [re: diesel pumps], I thank the Lord for my Carter YF and mechanical fuel pump!!! :)

Injection pumps aren't cheap, unless you start to compare them to the cost of newer diesel injectors. A set of 7.3 or 6.0 PSD injectors would make you wish for the $1200 IP bill. Duramax and Cummins common rail injectors are even higher.......

Of course, diesel engines can live for 500K-1M+ miles between rebuilds.

I was thinking the same thing, although in my case it is an AFB. :-X22

Everything is relative! ;)

Went ahead and drained my cooling system flushed the peak cleaning additive out and added another bottle to try and get more out. I can now actually see currents in the coolant as the top few cores were restricted.

I also checked the oil and need to add a quart as I didnt check it after I put 5 quarts in it when I did the change after I completed my timing cover gasket replacement. I dont think I have a leak anymore, now I think I have what our engine builder told me, he used to work for Watco that built this engine and he said they just rebuilt the heads and bought a reman short block and put the heads on and installed it. Well he told me they didnt replace the valve guides and just honed them out some and threw it together. I probably have leaking valve guides which might be causing my miss at idle. Strange thing is if I drive the truck hard and take her up to 3,000 or 4,500 rpm and then come to an idle she wont miss at idle. But if you putt around keeping RPM no higher than 1,500 rpm then when you stop you have a slight miss that happens once in a while.

I am seriously thinking about saving up my money and buying some aftermarket heads. Id want to make more power and I dont want to sink money into these restrictive smog heads trying to get more performance out of them when I can just pick up a pair of Edelbrock Performer aluminum heads that is 50 state legal and get better flow all for $1,500.

You'll want to ensure that you'll have something like 10:1 compression if you go to aluminum heads. That's because aluminum heads wick away some of the heat and you need the extra compression to make up for it. So, use a compression calculator to figure out what size combustion chamber you'll need to get the compression ratio you want - assuming you aren't changing the pistons.

As for what I did today, I got the driver's door painted, along with doing a few other things:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...a131c607b6.jpg

As of this moment the whole engine will be rebuilt and I think I will let someone else do the short block and then have them give me the specs and I assemble it.

The engine was idling like crap again today and I am to the point of being done with this engine. Watco built this junk and from day one it consumes oil without leaking it but it doesnt smoke nor foul out the plugs. It has a miss at idle that has as of recently started to get worse but its still random ruling out compression as being the cause as well as ignition. Only thing left is the carb needs to be rebuilt as we had trouble with a reman carb on a '80 F150 Ranger with a 400 that had no power and was loading up. Im starting to wonder if this third or fourth reman carb thats been put on this truck with the same issue is just a line of poorly reman carbs.

I havent done anything yet, but I have been looking at lighting options for my aux lights. Wanted to go with Daylighters for that vintage round stainless steel bucket. But power consumption will be a problem with four of those 100watt H3 bulbs on with two H4 bulbs on high beam at 60 Watts a piece, that puts me at 41 Amps of power consumption on the lights alone. Then throw in the running engine, the A/C, and the LED interior lights and radio. I think I would exceed my 1G alternator.

So I have been looking at LED aux lights and just dont know how good they would look mounted on a roll bar. The light bar itself might would look ok, but to me doesnt have that "period" look. I did find a guy for $70 roughly selling four 27w LED flood lights that are round, they wouldnt be period, but the four round lights would look more correct I think. These four lights if the specs the guy listed is for each assembly would only consume 6.8 amps, which would put me at a total of 16.175 amps with H4 headlight bulbs on high. A lot better than the 41 Amps I had with six halogen.

I am also starting to look at the 3G conversion and see how hard it would actually be.

Rusty, check out the Ford racing cylinder heads for the SBF engines. They're about $1200 to your door after you buy everything. Not sure if they're 50 state street legal, but they probably are.

Not bad, I really dont care if they are cast iron heads either. I just want something that flows better than stock and better than the stock castings can be pushed to for the cost.

They're aluminum. Looks to be almost the same heads they used in the late 90's Explorers with 302's.

The Exploder engines we pulled out at Pick and Pull had iron heads, but do have the GT40 valves in them. They would be a good choice if you can find a pair,

Topped up the oil, put windshield washer fluid in it, wiped down every interior surface I could reach with a variety of cleaning and protecting wipes, looked at the headlights, attempted to put the license plates on, and threw my manuals in there, along with a new fuel filter that will be going in when my other fuel system parts arrive.

Pulled all 8 plugs, found out that #1 had heavy ash deposits that reduced the gap to paper thin, cylinders #2, 3, 4, and 6 had slight ash deposits that didnt effect the gap, and cylinders #5, 7, and 8 were burning clean.

Looks like our engine builder at work who worked for watco who built this engine back in the 90s was correct in saying its my valve guides. I think thats where my oil is going but the thing that is baffling me is I changed the plugs out two or three years ago and when I pulled the plugs out to replace them they have been in the truck since the engine was built and they had no ash deposits on them. I cleaned them up and will see how long it takes for my random miss to come back at idle and check them again. Maybe I had something set incorrectly and it caused the ash fouling and it wont do it anymore.

Ah, always fun when you first get it. I got a friend up your way.