The housings are from VIP motoz on ebay- 1992 1996 Ford Bronco F150 F250 F350 "Factory Style" 6P Corner Bumper Head Light | eBay
Pretty affordable, quality is about as good as you can expect from chinese stuff. DOT approved, look good, and have a nice light pattern. 100x better than my old yellow stockers. I shot some black on em in placed to bring the tone down. They have black accented ones, as well as smoked. Tail lights also, but im not big on the clear lensed tail lights. I actually have the black ones that were in there, would probably get rid of em for shipping if anyone was interested. Did wipe out a corner lense though, so will need a new one, (the little side marker guy).

Short term its getting the 110cc and 64.5 BW, once i get the E40D done down the road, will likely get a 150/180, or who knows at that point, but bigger. 500/1000 has a nice ring to it, but i might get it together and decide that 300/600 is more than enough. Not so much built to push, but i plan on doing alot of towing and i want setup that is going to be tough, reliable, and go another couple hundered thousand miles.

Ive done a little reading in your thread, mostly over my head. Not sure what ill have them milled to. With a 1.94" compression height, i think theyre already .010" or .015" shorter than the stockers. Going to do some chatting with justin on it and decide from there. Cam wise, i have a stage 1 also that will be going in this engine. Also a girdle and studs for everything.

 

Thanks Hairy.

 

I figured things were going to go less than smooth when i very first put wrench to bolt i tore off half of my fingernail... Things were uneventful at first minus the bleeding. Got wiring pulled without breaking, intake off, manifolds, and oil cooler. Opened up the valve covers got the valve train pulled, organized, and stored. Dismay set in when i started breaking loose headbolts, needless to say i put my new HF breaker bar to the test. What i found was rust, and no shortage of it.


Got to the other side, and just as bad if not worse. Not one, or two, or even three or four, but FIVE broken headbolts... I broke them, except maybe one hard to tell.


Im assuming this engine has been opened before, there is an obscene amount of silver silicon squished out of practically everything... not a positive sign. Although in lighter news, the cylinders look excellent, nor scoring, nor ridge that i can feel, (couldnt get a picture to turn out), and the heads, pre-cups, and pistons dont seem to be cracked at first glance. Also no eroding.



However, the "burn area" has me wondering what was going on. Not going to lie, its been a while since ive had an engine apart this deep, and i dont recall being able to see the very noticeable gap between the piston and cylinder.

Thats as far as ive gotten at this point. Going to pull the balancer and front and rear covers, and get the crank ready to come out. Just needed to ask a pretty elementary question: Is there any reason i cant pull the pistons out through the bottom? I ask because i cant find my ridge reamer, nor do i have handy access to one. Also, has anyone else ran into the rusty / broken headbolt issue? Has me a little concerned about the integrity of the threads in the block.

 

i just broke seven of them in my spare block,now i might build block that is in truck

 

From my reading it seems like there should be a ridge on both top and bottom, but that may only be on bored blocks. I'm no expert for sure, never had one of these apart.

I'm sure you thought of this but Oriley Auto rents them, I'm sure others do to.

 

I've used a 1x1 and a dead blow hammer to drive pistons out through the top on two idi's now. Far as I can tell there aren't any adverse effects. Too bad about the head bolts.

 

I cant feel a ridge on the bottom (or top really) just carbon. Was told you dont go through the bottom a long time ago, but dont remember who said it and why. I dont see any reason why not, they should slip right out it looks like when i get the crank out.

I ran outta steam around when i posted on here. I work nights for ODOT and was plowing from 6pm to 6am lol. Headed back out there PDQ, want that block at the machine shop. If i cant get the pistons and rods out, so be it, im sure he can.

Also done some thinking on the "burn area". Ill bet thats from firing it up to pull it in the garage and not getting warm. Explains why it wipes off so easy anyway.

 

Forgot to include that I did so without a ridge reamer. I agree it shouldn't matter either way you take them out, other than oil squirters temporarily in the way and not dropping it on the cam.

 

Pistons gotta come out the top. Sure, the ~could come out the bottom but the rod yolks trap the crank. You can't get the crank out with the Pistons in it. Start working on it and you will see what I mean. On my parts IDIT three of the bores were ridiculously wallowed out. I broke a couple rings smacking them out the top but the pistons were trash anyway. Just get a piece of wood and knock them out. Besides, to go down you have to remove the oilers which would be a feat in itself with the rotating assembly still in it.

Bummer about the head bolts. I remember seeing a thread on here with a bunch of them with rusted shanks that were corroded so bad they were thinned out to about half their original diameter in places. I don't know where the moisture would come from except seeping under the head of the fastener or past the gasket (or crack in the head I suppose). I just hope you can get those broken tips extracted.

Sorry too that you are having to work on it with a hurt hand. That sucks. Been there done that more than once...

 

I dont savvy the crank not being able to come out with the pistons still in? Still, could be missing something i guess. Never thought about looking at what it would take to pull the oil squirters, figured it would be pretty simple and straight forward once i got the crank out.
Still havent had a chance to get back to it, got called in on my day off. The OT is nice, but i got **** to do. Going to be a rat race at this point to finish getting it stripped down and hauled to the machinist by 5:00. Which happens to be a convenient 140 miles away, who needs sleep anyway?

 

Just shot some stuff on them, have em soaking. Hoping that they will come out without too much of a fight via some left hand drill bits if i can find em. If not, its the machine shops problem.

 

Good news! I got the rest of the block stripped down without issue. The rod and main bearings look practically new and the cylinders have some really nice cross-hatching in them. Cam looks like it has more wear than it should, but thats Justins problem now haha. The bearings look good there too.

Ill get pics when the phone comes home. Anyone have any advice for getting the cam gear off?

 

3 jaw gear puller. fuel pump lobe must come off to,2 jaw gear puller works for that.

 

I used a steering wheel puller, threaded into the cam gear. Used a 3/8 cordless impact to remove the Allen bolt.

 

That's great news! Did you find a way to get the pistons out the bottom? I had two cam gears come right off... Just wiggled them a little. The third one is, well, still on there. I need to invest in a better puller... or make an industrial lamp base out of it if that still fails! Any luck with the left hand drill bit to get the broken bolts out?