So a few months ago I bought an incredibly rust-free '74 Ranger XLT wearing 90% of its original paint with all kinds of history and documentation from previous owners, right down to the owner card, build sheet, and even the plastic bag the owner's manual came in. Drove it home and started tinkering. One of the first things I did was put a real oil pressure gauge in it to see what it was actually pumping. The old 360 sounded ok, but was obviously tired and a little on the loose side. Turns out it was more tired than I suspected, and the 15psi of oil pressure at a dead cold idle turned into 0psi before it was even warmed up. Gave me a good excuse to freshen it up.

Out came the lump:





Aside from a littany of oil leaks that I pressure washed clean, it appeared to have been rebuilt at some point, and already came with a Performer 390/1406 combo and headers.





There was a good 40 years of crud under the hood.

After getting it on the stand and pulling the oil pan, of course I found half of a wrist pin retainer in the bottom of the pan, 3 rods that were loose enough to rattle a bit, and bearings worn well into the copper with the crank pretty grooved up.

Speaking of grooves...




That's not good.

So the block was junk, the crank was junk, and on top of all of that, not one rod cap stamping matched the rod they were bolted to. I'm guessing whoever put it together the last time was having a REALLY good ol' time out in the garage and got into the beer a little too early.

A buddy of mine had a block and crank to donate to the cause. Had everything machined and bought pistons/rings/bearings/oil pump/gaskets, and installed a Lunati VooDoo 250/256 cam/lifters and valve springs.













Several coats of paint later, we let gravity take over and in she went.










Primed the oil pump, dropped in the distributor, cranked it over a couple times and it lit right off. Hitting on all 8, leaking out of about 3 ports on the header gaskets (of course), but after a 20 minute run-in at 2500rpm to break in the cam it settled back down to a nice 650rpm with 30psi of oil pressure, no fluid leaks, even temps +/- a couple degrees on each header tube. Ran like a champ, even drove it to work today (got some looks pulling in the parking lot at the office...it's clearly the oldest thing here...lol).

I'm stoked.

 

Great pics,great write up,interesting build.Enjoy that baby!
As I look around your garage, I see you use the same blue can lubricant I use for many,many chores. Gary

 

Indeed. I call that "payment" for the couple buddies I had hanging around to help out this weekend! Was a weekend-long thrash. Assembled the engine and pressure-washed the engine bay Saturday, installed it and got it running on Sunday.

 

Sounds great! One of the things I love to do is rebuild engines, lots of work but lots of satifaction too

 

Sweet. Nicely written article n pics.