How many miles has your FE engine, or someone's you know, gone before it needed to be rebuilt?

Needed is the operative word here. If it was rebuilt before it was actually necessary, then it doesn't count.

I thought this would be a fun question to ask in a poll.

 

That's a subjective question. I mean, some run these motor's spewing oil, motor knock's and such for years locally, driving no more than 50 mph. To me, that means re-build. For example, I would never take an oil burning motor, ( OK, one where it can pass for a mosquito fogger) or one with a wrist pin knocking on an out of state trip. I'd re-build it. But, a friend has had a knocking wrist pin for years, he drives it locally about 500 miles a year and it get's him home every time.

I've had about a dozen FE type engines, I'm very hard on them, I got\get about 80-150K. I'm very happy with that result. These are trucks, not little car's, I treat them as such. My Infinity and Murano have over 200K, I treat them like a fragile cheby.

With that being said, I know a few people who claim to get 300K plus miles out of these trucks\engines. As an EX ASE master mechanic, these numbers are the exception, rather than the rule. I've worked on most 1960-2000 common vehichles, including high performance\racing setups. When it comes to engines, body steel, acrylic enamel paint, etc, I say THANK GOD they dont build them like they used to. In the seventies you were lucky to get 100K out of the average vehichle, if the mileage didnt kill it, the rust did within a few short years, in the midwest\northern areas that used salt on the roads anyway. I know of a 77 cheby 4wd bought new that was in the junkyard by 1981 due to the body rusted completley out, the drive train was shot, it had about 120K on it. That was my parents truck. My 76 truck, my Dad's, from Ohio, is on it's 3'rd cab, 4'th bed and second frame. They are in excellent shape now, and I plan on keeping it that way...for a while anyway

There would be a revolt in the US if a $30K plus truck or car only lasted 5 years now. I got 296K miles out of a 86 Escort GT. WOW, sorry for the hijack of your thread and rant...I'm going to bed now.

 

My '73 F100 had exactly 300,000.0 miles on it when I pulled the engine. When I got to the shop to pull it, it was showing 99,999.9 miles (third time around) so I drove it around the building to bring it to 00000.0.
The engine was changed because of low compression in six out of eight cylinders and it was using a quart of oil every 600 miles so time for a rebuilt.
This was a 360.
The replacement engine had 135,000 miles on it when I retired the truck, now undergoing a full frame-off restoration. That engine was still running fine, also a 360.

 

The 360 that I had in my highboy went to something like 180K miles and was still running great when I pulled it and used the heads for the 390 build.

It had been rebuilt by my brother, and he went over it with a fine-toothed comb checking clearances and making double-sure that everything was perfect. It paid off.

Gutless, but dang that thing ran forever.

The original 360 in the highboy he pulled because it was burning oil at around 120-130K miles. Turned out the valve seals had turned to pieces and clogged the head drains, so the oil-burning wasn't anything but oil-flooded heads in the first place.

The 360's are notorious for lasting forever. 330's too.

 

Don't drive like my brother...

 

The first engine, which prompted my vote, is a 390 dated 1968 from a torino that was rebuilt in the mid '70s and hopped up with a cam/intake/holley 650. Someone pinched off the front dipstick and swapped the pan for use in a circa-'68 f250 4x4 highboy where it beaten til the mid '90s. It was then swapped to a 1978 f350 and more miles were added. I acquired the truck a couple years ago and seeing it was tired, swapped it out for the 6.9 right off the bat.
After consulting the past owners I have been able to estimate milage @ approx 175,000.
That being said it ran good til the end. I just pulled it apart to find a heavy ridge, loose valve guides and burnt vales in the early stages. Didnt go into the bottom end.

Now the first engine definitely needed help, and although this second engine did not need an o/h per se I did not have any history on it to trust it by.

The second, a 390 from my '76 f250 highboy with odometer @ 54,000. I was told the milage was correct, and it was. Always assumed it was a 360 til I tore it down. Near perfect condition, had been o/h very early in its life with a .010 crank, valve guides and exhaust seats. There was a bit of copper showing on the mains, so technically it needed attention. It was a plow truck its whole life with lots of cold starts.
Thus, I elected to use this engine as a rebuilder, on the stock bore size.

 

My current fe is a 66 352 with 42,000 on it but has never been opened up since new verified by the original owner. It has the most power of the 9 fe's I have owned and is the most reliable getting drove daily and surprisingly does not have the usual valvetrain noise associated with the fe series.

 

That is less than 1000 miles per year for 45 years. Unless this truck has been parked in a museum, I can't buy your claim. Sorry!




John

 

I'm not about to taint the poll results with my disasters. But I'll tell the story....quickly.

I first built up my current FE using parts from various engines. Worked fine, but after about 2500 miles, the block cracked and antifreeze took out the bearings. I guess adding performance parts allowed me more power, but put more stress on an old block and it couldn't handle it.

So I got another block and built it up again. That lasted about another 2000 miles before I broke a piston due to detonation. Turned out the outer ring on my 1960s balancer slipped and allowed me to set the timing wrong. So I built it again.

It seems to be working fine, but I have a little hiccup still. I think I have an intake gasket leaking a bit of oil into #4 cylinder. Somtimes get a misfire from there when letting up on the throttle a tiny bit, plus there are some other signs.

So it will be coming back apart this winter.....partially apart.

*****

Now I have to suggest something else about this type of poll. Back in the 1970's a Datsun engine would often start losing compression as low as 60,000 miles, and Toyota's a bit more than that. It was basically a ring problem.

Advances in metallurgy for ring to cyl wall compatibility has now led to these Japanese engines getting well over 250,000 miles.

So.....for an FE rebuilt in recent years with modern ring technology, it may last many more miles than one built in the 1960s.

Just speculation, but with some basis of fact I think.

*****

And about that truck with less than 1000 miles per year.....my FE was first rebuilt in 1996, and I've don't have 6000 miles on it yet. Partly due to engine failures and the time to get teh engine re-done. Partly due to a lot of testing/tuning where mileage didn't rack up, but long trips were avoided until things were tweaked the way I wanted them to work. And partly as it was a hobby vehicle, and not used as a daily driver.

 

My dad bought our '70 F250 Hiboy with the 360. The engine self destructed in two years and Ford replaced it at about 25k. The second 360 lasted until 2007 and had around 130k and needed to be rebuilt when I decided to restore it. I had it made into a 390 and that one lasted 1800miles before the cam went foul. The engine shop honored the warranty and fixed all up again and this 390 is going well with about 4500 miles on it. I only put about 500 miles or less a year on it. At 11 mpg (on a good day), it is too pricey to be my daily driver. On the other hand, I can't use my daily driver to rip stumps out of the ground, haul 1.5 cubic yards of dirt, and then transport a bunch of concrete bags to a friends house.

360 removed for first rebuild in 2007


Rebuilt 390 that lasted only 1800 miles and left me stranded in Elko, NV. Thanks to Tigerdan for towing it back for me to California.


Here it is after the second rebuild and after adding a four barrel intake, carb, and dual exhausts. I really like how it turned out.

 

I've owned at least a couple dozen FEs, in their day. Today I own one, a low mileage 360 in an F250 that has spent most of its life in storage. Most of the FEs I've owned were in T Birds and they were showing age at around 100K miles or less. Valve noise was the culprit along with the oil rings being stopped up. I found many of them I actually tore into had pretty good cylinder wear also. Oils of the day and neglect. There is a lot of iron in the FE and it takes more than a trip around the block to warm one up so that probably had a lot to do with short life. But, then again, life of a vehicle was considered by many to be 100K miles back then.

 

210 Miles is all that mine needs to last. Of course those will be hard 1/4 miles.

 

It is really hard to make a definitive statement regarding the life span of the FE engines as they were very popular in an era of speedometer set backs. The dealers didn't want any cars or trucks on the lot that had over 35-40,000 miles on the clock and there was a whole industry built around resetting the speedometers. Unless you are able to poll owners that bought the vehicle new you will have a meaningless poll. I'm sure there are very few original owners out there by now.