I'm not quite awake this morning, but if the broken part was between the distributor and the coil, then it is the knock sensor. It looks like one to me.

I did a quick search and it seems they are hard to find new.

I would say your best bet is a salvage yard. Should be able to find one from a 4.9 there pretty easily.

I would guess that one from another engine of similar years would work, but that's just a guess. I believe they all function the same way, but some may be more or less sensitive than others.

If you could find one from another engine (maybe a 302?) that works you might be able to get one of those new.

But a lot of times I find you are better off with a good used factory part than a new part.


Yeah, the factory cam is the way I went also, from what I've read it seems pretty well matched to the engine. I drive in city traffic everyday with no problems, and I've carried/pulled some pretty good weight from time to time with no problems either.

What are you using for timing gears? I went with the steel/aluminum ones. I don't find them to be as noisy as some claim, and would probably use them again.

 

I'll be checking out the few gasser trucks at my In-Law's place this weekend for the knock sensor. The black ext. cab with a 460 might have one or there's a '90s 302 F250 in the yard that might have one as well. Otherwise it's to the auto wreckers.

I got the fiber gear for the cam and steel for the crank. I thought about switching to the steel/aluminum cam gear but my grandfather put 355000+ km on the stock fiber gear without issue so I'll try to do the same

It was slow this morning at work so I managed to make some very decent progress. After connecting the oil pump and pickup tube I put the timing cover and oil pan on. Did a quick shot with some paint on the block and timing cover and rock guard on the oil pan.
Then I flipped the engine over and placed it in the stand and did a bit more painting. I'll have to do some touch up paint afterwards due to over spray and a few scuffs from the flip.
I left off with placing the head on top and buffing the head bolts. Monday I'll finish up torquing the head bolts and work on lifters, push rods, rockers and continue on from there
I also have to pop out the front frost plug and put the block heater in.
Here's a couple shots where I left off today.

 

Checked out the donor trucks today and I believe I found the right sensor that's the knock sensor in each. Do the V8 blocks have theirs in the top portion of the block rather than the side like the I6?

 

I believe they are mounted higher on the v8 engines around these years. Newer fords have them under the intake, some even have 2 under the intake.

Its has been a long time since I had to mess with an older knock sensor, but I think they are different colors to denote frequency differences.






Yep, found a picture of one:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...efi-5-0-a.html

 

No luck on finding a knock sensor on any of the donor trucks this weekend. I'm going to hit the auto recyclers around town after the long weekend and see if they have one to sell. With that said I did manage to find a place that sells new ones for about $86 bucks. Tomco-inc Home Page is the place. Just in case anyone is looking to buy new or is searching later since these are pretty hard to find.

The bulk of the final assembly is done and just in time. Work is picking up and I need to get it out of the shop for incoming work. Good timing Here are some shots I snapped today.





I do have a few more things to clean up but they're much more manageable to tuck out of the way compared to a complete engine
Tomorrow is wrapping the whole thing, engine and pallet in plastic wrap for the journey out to the In-Laws. It's been rainy the past couple days. Friday I'll start up on cleaning up the upper and lower intakes.


Is there anything I should keep an eye out on with the injectors? I got new O-Rings for the reassembly.

Ordered up a bunch of stuff for the install which I'll try to be aiming for for a weekend after the long weekend.
-passenger side engine mount (old one was pretty worn)
-tensioner pulley (old one had a groove where the belt ran)
-cap & rotor
-spark plugs & wires
-thermostat
-water pump
-break in oil & filter
-fuel injector O-Rings

Anything else I might be over looking?


Also, got a line on a OBS front clip for $150. Will probably jump on that this weekend

 

That sure is a fine looking motor. Keep the pic coming. Reminds me of the 67 Camaro I used to have with a straight 6, dual exhausts and the M22 4spd. Keep us updated on how you decide to intake/exhaust, stock, headers, cat back.

Thanks for a really detailed build thread!

 

The little plastic caps that cover the injector pintles may be dry and cracked, or may crack when you remove the o-ring. Napa has a kit with the rings and the caps. I don't recall how much they were, but not too bad if I remember correctly.

I think you still have to pull and switch cabs?

If you aren't still planning on changing cabs, the evaporator is much easier to change with the engine out, and fixing the cowl seams also.

 

very nice find! in one of your pics (not sure if anyone else saw it) I noticed an AMC Gremlin (or a Pacer, hard to tell which, but im thinking Pacer), that would be another good find IMO...anyways love the start on your truck!

 

Thanks guys.
Charles, I haven't figured out 100% what I want to do with the exhaust yet but I do know I will be using the stock manifolds as they're basically shorty headers. I wanted to do a dual exhaust set up but I'm unsure what to do for a muffler.


If anyone has any good suggestions, I'm all ears. There's a lot of options and all I'm looking for is a good free flowing and half decent sounding set up. I realize the I6 will never have the same sound as a V8 but there's got to be something that makes the I6 sound good and perform great.


bdelmar, I got the injector rebuild kits today so I'll be rebuilding them. They came with 2 O-rings, plastic washer and the top hat tip in each box.
I ran into a issue when I was removing the injectors though.

Not sure how it broke as it just seemed to fall off but obviously it took a hit between me taking it off and getting to cleaning it
So I've been looking into ways to fix this besides aluminum welding.

I still plan on swapping cabs and the box but unfortunately the weather has pretty much put a halt to my progress. Going to have to wait for spring to do the cab swap as it's getting too cold to paint the frame. No heated shop to use.


Jaime, I'm guessing you're referring to the yellowish/brown car in the background of one of my earlier pictures. That's actually my father-in-law's Pinto with a 302

Another question I have is ID'ing this sensor in the intake manifold. I'm guessing it's the air temperature sensor. Is that right? Also, does it look a little worn out? Maybe a replacement is in order.


I may go look at that '93 front clip if my brother gets his 6.9 to 7.3 swap done. Gave him a hand tonight removing the front clip and most of the accessories off the 6.9. The actual swap will be tomorrow. Need to borrow him and his truck if the clip turns out to be a good buy

 

I think I would hunt up another lower intake. When I pulled mine the rear ear had broken off but fortunately I had a spare one. These are awfully long intakes and they have a tendency to crack/warp.

I used the rather primitive method of finding a flat surface on the shop floor and using it like a giant grindstone to flatten mine a bit, but you can mill yours.

Yes, that is the iat (intake air temp) sensor. They can be tested with a multimeter, but they seldom go bad. I sat down and very patiently cleaned mine with some electronics cleaner. Yours is actually quite a bit cleaner than mine was.

I'm sure you noticed all the build up in the intake, and the intake ports from the egr, the same crud that's on your iat. Having the injectors spray fuel over the exhaust gases isn't a great design. My intake ports had a heavy, almost glass like build up in them.

So, I removed the egr. Well, I made a plate and blocked it off and removed the tube from the exhaust and plugged it. I left the solenoids and egr itself plugged in so I didn't get codes.

However, I am now noticing a couple of issues that may be egr related and I may have to make it functional again.

At a steady cruise, say 1800 rpm in fourth gear I get a small surge feeling, and I've had to back off the timing (back to stock 10 deg) to keep the engine from pinging under acceleration when at operating temp and it still does it a bit.

Before I pulled the engine, I fixed the egr so it functioned properly and drove the truck a bit, then blocked it off and unhooked the vacuum and drove it and I could detect no difference then. However I didn't have a tstat in the truck then and it ran cooler so perhaps that's why no difference was apparent.

One of these days I will hunt up a new tube and hopefully I can find the vacuum lines and canister and see if replacing it makes a difference.

 

So on the 67 Camaro I6 the PO had the roll cage and centerline alumin rims as he had planned to stuff the Big Block 454 in there....For whatever reason he had a 6 into 2 header. I went to the muffler shop and they bent me a custom dual for around $250 (circa 1988) which included an H pipe, two thrush straight throughs, and two 14" resonators tucked under the axle hump and dual pipes at the rear bumpers...I believe all 3" diam. Gave me a mellow but deep tone at idle and very little restriction at high RPM....I gues everyone else thought I had a V8 cause every 5.0 mustang that pulled up beside me wanted to race and I even had a guy in an 89IROC Z get very pissed as his psngr couldn't take her pretty eyes of the 67 and her mellow idle :-)

 

I'll have to snap a picture of what my boss and I did to block off the AIR manifold tube holes in the head next time I'm out at the In-Laws. It's completely reversible so I may still find a replacement tube and not have to butcher the EGR system. With progress halted on my truck due to winter rolling in very soon I'll be keeping an eye on kijiji for people parting out trucks with parts I'll be needing, including a lower intake manifold, AIR manifold, the newer OBS front clip and some interior pieces. I'm wanting to go to buckets with a center console.
In the meantime I've got everything tucked away for the winter




Charles, that's an awesome story. I'll definitely be looking at the various options for exhaust on this truck.

 

The AIR system isn't part of the EGR system.

You can remove the AIR system with no ill effects. All it does is inject air into the exhaust to help with burning the exhaust that didn't get burned in the cylinders before they get to the cat. In theory anyway. Supposed to help keep the cat alive longer. So if you don't have a catalytic converter, the air pump doesn't do anything. The oxygen sensor will compensate for any minor variance there might be that would affect fueling. My truck hasn't had the AIR/Cat since I've owned it and it ran strong with decent mileage. I would say you are fine without that, unless you have to pass an inspection that is.

The EGR on the other hand puts exhaust back into the intake. It has a separate tube that runs from the rear exhaust manifold to the egr valve on the upper intake just behind the throttle body. Its purpose is to cool the combustion temp and produce less oxides of nitrogen. The way this system is set up on these engines, it also restricts the intake ports after awhile which upsets efficiency, so on balance I'm not sure how much difference it really makes. If I had a 5 gas analyzer module for my scanner I would check it out.

In any case, the computer controls the egr valve using the vacuum solenoids mounted on the valve cover, and monitors the position of the valve with the electric sensor mounted on the egr valve itself.

The egr is normally closed at idle, when the engine is cold, and at full throttle. The computer opens it during warm cruise and light to moderate throttle, and regulates the amount it is open based on these factors. It only supplies a small amount, say 10% or so of the total intake volume, when fully open.

Too much egr volume, or at the wrong time causes all kinds of issues, stalling, poor acceleration, rough idle, low engine vacuum, etc....

Not enough egr volume causes a light surge at cruise and spark knock under acceleration.

This is all tied together through the computer of course, which also adjusts fueling and timing along with the egr commands (and the other sensors/actuators).

So, when the computer, via the egr sensor, determines the egr is no longer moving it should adjust the fuel and timing to compensate. Actually in our systems I believe it defaults to one of the preset 'maps' it has to handle these type of issues.

Dandy, so it should be ok (from a mechanical standpoint anyway) to disable the egr. The engine should still run fine, and it does for the most part.

In fact when I got my truck, the egr valve was bad and not functioning and it ran fine and got decent mileage. For my own curiosity I switched out a good one I had handy and got the system to work before I went through the engine. It appeared to make no difference at all.

So after seeing all the junk built up in the intake and intake ports I decided to go ahead and remove the egr. This was fine, until I put a thermostat in - something the truck didn't have before.

When I put the tstat in I noticed a slight surge at cruise, and a little spark knock under acceleration - which are the signs of too little egr.

I backed the timing off to the factory 10 degrees from around 13 or so where it ran best before the tstat, but it didn't eliminate the surge or knock and the engine doesn't run as strong - because of the timing I would say.

I imagine I could remove the tstat (195) again, but I don't want to do that, or perhaps try a tstat that opens earlier - I believe there is a 165 degree easily available, and I may try that first, but I believe in the end I will replace the egr tube and hook up the solenoids again.

From what I have read there seems to be a fair amount of discussion regarding these engines and the egr system. Some say the engine is fine with it functioning normally, some say blocking it off makes their engine run better, others say a restriction is the way to go.

Its hard to come to a clear conclusion because usually full information isn't given. Generally they don't say if they have a tstat, what temp the tstat is, or the condition of the other parts of the system, like the egr valve itself, or the idle air motor, or throttle body gaskets, or what have you. Also to be considered are individual engine variances.

In my case, I believe I have everything functioning like it should and with stock parts, with the exception of the EGR and AIR systems. My idle air motor is a little sticky sometimes, but only on a cold start so I don't think its an issue. I do have the 3g alternator upgrade, and a 7 blade fan instead of the 5 blade, but otherwise a stock setup in good condition.

 

Awesome info as usual bdelmar! thanks!
I don't have a cat or inspections to worry about so I won't worry about the AIR system.
I'll be leaving the egr stuff just to avoid any headaches.
I have the means and now the time to clean everything really good so I'll be doing that before I get it back running in the spring.

 

Dropped my lower intake off at a specialty welding place not far from my work place yesterday at lunch and before the end of the lunch hour they tacked the broken piece back on and for no cost
Spent this morning and lunch filing it to shape and doing some final clean up before steaming it and giving it a coat of aluminum colored paint.
Here's some before and after shots of the intake tubes and how much cleaner they got.



The broken piece tacked back on



After filing and die grinder I ended up with



The slightly darker grey spot is a low spot but it's maybe only a thou or 2 and the gasket should seal it, or I hope.

The final product


Tomorrow and Friday will be working on cleaning up the upper intake.