Where to start... I know, the beginning!
I picked up a 1979 F-150 with a big block 460 a few months ago for $1000, including TTL. It had been sitting in the back of a used car sales lot for just over a year, and they were having trouble moving it so i was able to get a good deal on it.
The vehicle ran, but suffered from engine issues, which to the best of their knowledge was a burnt valve.


[Imgur](imgur: the simple image sharer)
I gave her a much needed bath once she got home and took her out for a ride

I did some research and found that I could purchase a rebuilt motor for around $1600, or I could do the dirty work myself, and have more fun doing so while learning a thing or two. It would also be about half the cost. So I picked up the kit, here's most of the important stuff

A few days later a friend and I pulled the motor out, and believe me, thats no easy task for a big block... The engine stand was struggling to support all that weight!

The next day, and a few Asprin later, we started stripping everything down.


Once the heads came off, it was obvious that there were a few bad valves to blame

The pistons were in terrible shape, victims of poor engine warm up procedures

Found a few chunks of metal (piston parts) in the crankcase

Once everything was stripped down, we sent the block out to a local machine shop where I had it dipped / cleaned up and the cylinders were honed and cross hatched.


Pressing the new crankshaft bearings

Once we started re-assembling the motor, i got so sucked in I stopped taking pictures (apologies) but this is close to the end product. We got everything back in place and after multiple coats of high heat ceramic engine paint it started to look great. I went with the original ford blue, but I added some nice black to give it that custom look.



Back on the hoist

I cleaned up the engine compartment, got it ready for the fresh motor

and after a day of fighting to get it back in place...


...the project was complete! Well, almost. Please check out my other post HERE and let me know if you can help with a little post re-build troubleshooting. Thanks guys, let me know what you think!

 

Did you have your valve guides knurled when you had your heads done? also did you check your piston ring end gap ?If so what was it hopefully not over .020.Did you check rod and main bearing clearances? or did you install a reground crank? I see you had one broken piston skirt hopefully no crack in the cylinder it came out of.Also looked like you may have had a bad valve or two .I have rebuilt a lot of engines of my own and when I worked at a Ford Dealer for 20 yrs I rebuilt a lot of engines so I always check everything when putting a engine together just in case something is not up to specs.Better to be too careful than have something happen after you get the engine in and fired up.By the way nice pictures looks like you did a good job plus you got a real truck should run good the F150 2wd trucks run good right from the factory plus they pretty rare .WE sold a lot of F250 2wd with 460 but very few F150 2wd 460s.

 

I bought re-manufactured heads, I didn't do that part myself

 

your truck looks great.

 

Thanks man, I appreciate that!