360 FE rebuild questions
 

I found out last night that my truck decided to puke oil all over the front of the engine. Considering that I just fixed the timing chain and the cover has a new gasket I looked and discovered that the oil is coming from my intake manifold.
I lost about a half a quart on this puke but have noticed that it is continuously leaking if the engine is running.

Need some advise. The engine is the stock engine and currently has 102,000 miles on it. I can't afford to buy a new motor. I am willing to do the work I just need to know how.

I have very low compression at the same time so I figured Ill be pulling the heads anyways and get them done. while Im there could put in all new gaskets but I am not sure what else I should do while I am there.

any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

If you're going to pull the heads anyway, pulling the intake manifold off shouldn't be all that much more work...pull it off and replace the gasket. :)

Is there anything else that I should do while im there

Well, that kinda depends on what you find when you pull it off. ;)

Uh, in order to pull the heads, you have to pull the intake. Are you taking the motor out of the truck? Not sure how much you're going to accomplish without getting the bottom end apart, unless you have obviously burnt valves.

FWIW, I have a lot of parts off an old 360 FE engine that I'm probably never going to use for anything. My brother and I took apart the engine to have something to do one summer. We took the engine block to get cleaned and never went to pick it up. It's been about 20 years since we did that.

Hey seriously interested. How can I contact you

On here. What are you interested in? Like I said, I don't have the block. I might be able to get it, but I don't know. All the parts are also 100 miles away from me right now, have been sitting in a barn for the last 15 years or so, and are in unknown condition.

low compression would more likely be rings are worn.... 102000 miles on a 360 is alot of miles considering the tiem era the motor was placed in trucks. i could be wrong but seems to me youd be better off yanking hte whole motor and re ringing it, with all news rings and replace all teh bearings etc, master rebuild kits should be in the 300 buck range.

I had four burnt valves as well as one bad seat.
The sleeves in the head were shot
The rockers are shot
The only thing good was the heads. and the rocker arm and rocker springs.
I am to the point where I am pulling off my radiator core support and it would be so easy to pluck the engine right now.
I cant decide if I need to or not.
The rings have a lot of gunk on the top side of them but when I asked the guy who is doing the heads he said thats normal.
the cylinder walls feel fine no grooves and no scratches
I pulled the lifters and had four of them that were worn real bad.
The only fear that I have after all this is that there will be more compression and the rings are going to explode anyways.

I don't have a cherry picker nor do I have and engine stand thats why I haven't done it yet

What do ya'll think
I just don't know

First, there is no "correct" answer.

What's the goal?

If you're after "brand new" performance, pull that thing out of there while you're this far in...

If you're after "better than it was" performance, I think that fixing the four burnt valves will give you MUCH better performance.

It's YOUR call to make. How much time and/or dollars do you want to invest?

I need it to last for a few years and then I wont care if **** houses.
cuz I'll be putting something bigger and better in it.
But it needs to last for a few years thats it

Getting hardened seats installed? By sleeves in heads I'm guessing you meant valve guides, that's pretty normal. You say rockers are shot, but then say the heads, rocker arms, and rocker springs are good.

If you have flat lifters, I'd bet you have flattened cam lobes. If they're not flattening yet, the soon will be. The part of the lifter that rides on the cam should be convex. |==) would be a good lifter. |==| would be a worn out one.

I would put new cam and lifters good heads if yours can't be fixed (checks for cracks they where bad for that) I did a 5.7 with 200000 miles no ring grove and it's not using oil