So, I think its time I start my full engine rebuild thread – with the full truck rebuild thread soon to follow as today’s the last day its street legal!

I’m still degreasing and wiping the engine almost every night, and I’ve got the separate thread going for the T4 mount fab, but I’m tantalizingly close to permanently mounting new components, so I’ll lay out the work to be done here and then update as I go.

Here’s my disassembly thread for reference: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ly-thread.html

Engine rebuild/refresh plan (I say refresh as I didn’t touch the heads or bottom end as compression check and overall inspection checked out):

- Rosewood State 2 Injectors (160/80’s)
- T500 HPOP
- 366 Turbo with DIY T4 Mount, bellowed up-pipes and 4” DP (see this thread: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...66-thread.html)
- DIY 3” plenums
- Intercooler (though this will be more on the complete truck rebuild side of things)
- Melling LPOP
- ARP Studs
- 0.083 wall Black Widow Diesel pushrods
- Comp Cams 910 springs
- School Bus waterpump (coolant filter)
- Oil Cooler rebuild
- New to me used manifolds (mine were shot) installed with gaskets
- Pyro probe
- New oil pan with DIY welded in dipstick adapter and Moroso pan gasket
- New engine mounts
- Paint everything: block and heads = grey, oil pan, vc’s and oil cooler = black; exhaust manifolds and exhaust turbo housing = black; compressor housing = grey.


I think that’s all I have for now. I’m probably missing something.

I started ordering stuff a few weeks ago and I’ve got quite an expensive pile of parts going in the barn now. Most work has been on the T4 mount, but I did do some water pump work.

Christmas in July in the barn


Stock Thermostat Housing (blasted and welded - figured i'd practice my tig welding ahead of the uppipe fab)


School Bus Waterpump with superfluous boss ground down, temp sender swapped over (green circles) and heater return fitting installed (blue circle, but on back side of pump).


Ok, start the comments coming. What have I screwed up so far?  are there any holes in my plans? Whats the over-under on cases of beer before this engine is connected to a tranny and sitting on a frame again?

 

NICEEEEE! Thanks for including the references to your other threads, makes things easier.

The only thing I have to comment about is why bother welding the dipstick adaptor in when you are putting in a new one with a new oil pan?

They seal just fine the way they are. It is when they get over tightened that they have a problem.
I don't remember who posted it but there was a great picture comparison of a new dipstick gasket and a over tightened one.

 

yeah, i thought that different threads and links might keep things a bit more organized. i guess we'll see :-)

as for the dipstick adaptor - i think the answer is: "because i'm ****/lazy" my thinking with this whole project is that i want to do things once now and hopefully never have to worry again! the two trucks i have had both weeped from the oil adapter. not a bad leak, but a drip every now and then. assuming that these were factory tightened, i'd rather just weld it in and have one less leak to worry about forever!

...and it was Bill (ReBilled) who posted the comparison. there was some debate about that, though, if i recall. the thinking was that overtightening actually somehow mushroomed the metal, but i thought that in the end it was "decided" that there are just 2 different castings. maybe different years from ford, or OEM vs. aftermarket. whatever the case, i always prefer DIY, so here goes nothing!

i hope to do all this work to the truck, then have minimal maintenence for the next 10 years! a pipe dream, i know, but a noble goal in the least :-)

also, i like welding. oh, and the new oil pan came in yesterday. i cheaped out and went dorman, but was pleasantly surprised with the quality. whatever chinese metric guage steel they use seems thicker than stock, so should be fine for welding to. lets just hope it fits the block! :-) it also actually feels like a decent powder coat on there. its probably not - and i'll sand it and paint it with good stuff anyway, but overall its better than expected.

 

Good deal JP! Definatly going to be keepin a eye on your progress.

 

Good deal! If you think itll be fine welding it then go for it! There's always that $300 option that fixes the dipstick gasket thing.

 

How you gonna weld a steel pan and pot metal adapter together?

 

i'm gonna fab my own adapter out of steel. the design is all up here (pointing to head), right now

a lathe, a mill and a welder and you can make anything happen!

...assuming you have thousands of dollars worth of tooling to go with it, of course.

 

Sounds like the same color scheme I used on my 302, except for the oil pan.

 

i like it! how long did it take you to clean that sucker - i have been cleaning for weeks and still finding new pockets of crud daily. then, i'm sure the final wipedown will take hours on paint day.

i'm a plain and simple kind of guy, so wanting to differ from factory just slightly, this seemed logical. plus i like the idea of seeing where on the block the oil drip is coming from...

 

I pushed the EASY button and dropped it off at a shop so it could take a bath in their hot tank. So all I had to clean was the heads and oil pan.

 

aaah. yeah, i thought i'd save time/effort/money by leaving the heads on and leaving the bottom end in place after the compression checked out OK, but i'm starting to wonder if pulling it all apart and doing it your way wasn't the better way to go.

oh well, too late now...

 

I had a distributor gear grenade inside the block and the oil pump deposited shavings in the main bearings, so I had to tear everything down and get all the oil passages flushed.

 

ouch!

on a separate note, i was doing more cleaning last night and happened to peak inside the oil cooler coolant passage and through the front cover with a bright worklight. i must say its amazing to me how clean that bare cast iron is on the outside of the cylinder jackets.

with all the fear of cavitation in these engines i'd have expected to see some scale or rust or something built up on the sleeves, but nothing.

i'm kind of thinking of busting out my harbor freight fiber-optic inspection camera to get a look at as much as possible inside. not that it'd really change much in my direction, but when else can you get such easy access to everything in there?

 

I'd be interested in your dipstick adapter. I've been thinking about welding one in my pan for ages!

 

Oops. Double post.

Here another question, how does the International water filter work? Is it a spin on filter to the pump or do you run hoses to a filter base someplace else? I know there is a big long thread on this topic but i can't use the search function on my phone.