I concur with the stripe being from debris on this bearing. There is a very slight groove (can't really catch a fingernail on it but can feel it, which is bad enough). One other rod bearing had a minor scratch as well and I did find small amount of debris in a couple places, mostly in the heads. I am kind of left with the conclusion that the machine shop did not punch the oil galleys out before putting the plugs back in. It's not impossible that I contaminated something during assembly, but I was very careful, so I am pretty confident it wasn't me. I will post pics of all of the bearings tonight. Mostly I was curious about the spots because it was something new to me. But I also have never torn down an engine this soon after building either, so it could be normal. I plan to change out the bearings at this point anyways- pretty cheap insurance and WAY easier to do now...

The wrist pins are floating, which is stock for a FE engine. The wrist pin bushings were on my suspect list as they were sourced from the only place I could find them at the time- eBay. Turns out, they are all still butter smooth and no play in them at all.

 

Pictures of bearings as promised, albeit a day late.

Mains: (note on #1 the bearing halves are worn on opposite sides- yeah definitely needs line bore)



Passenger side rods:



Driver side rods:



And on a side note, this is my first post ever from a mobile device. Yay me!

 

Well this sucks. Was stripping the last of the accessories off the block, pulling expansion plugs, doing a closer visual inspection, etc before I took it to the machine shop. Good thing I did. Found this little fella on the driver side- one of the water passages trying to completely blow out into the lifter valley. Honestly, pretty embarrassed I didn't spot this much earlier. Guess I am looking for block #3 now. Anyone in the Pacific NW have any good leads on a rebuild-able FE block?

 

That almost looks like something heavy fell on it.
I've got a 390 that came in one of my projects i wont use, but it's a little more pacific northwest than you are.
Sorry for your bad luck on engines.

 

Now that's kind of funny. Just looked at your profile and yeah, that's a bit of a drive. The funny part is, my wife recently got a wild hair about moving to Alaska and we were looking in your neighborhood. I think she changed her mind, but if not I might hit you up, lol.

 

I went to work at a Ford dealership right out of HS back in 1973 as a lot boy.
Needless to say I got to drive tones of new Ford trucks of all combinations and new Broncos.
I wanted a new F-250 4-wd this color but back then it was only a dream.

YEATS later my 16 yo daughter started dating a kid that had the color highboy.
That was somewhere around 2004-05.

 

Things have gotten much more serious in the last couple days- no more slow build. Time to get this show on the road...literally,



The engine is at the machine shop for a few weeks. The search for a new block was not going well so I got a wild hair to see if just maybe the block could be saved. I got a strong light to see how bad the crack was from the water jacket side, but to my surprise, I could not find any visible crack anywhere on the inside. Weird. Nothing to lose at this point, so I busted out the grinder and and tried to slowly see how deep the crack was. It's kind of hard to tell in the previous pictures, but the cracked area was slightly raised. I ground it just to flat and viola, crack be gone! I'm hopeful now that it is going to be fine, but I am having them magnaflux it first before any machine work gets done.


If it is indeed OK, it is going to get the mains align honed and the head mating surfaces square decked (due to previous issues with the intake not wanting to sit quite right). I am going to hot tank it again while it is there as I found the source of the debris that was showing up in the bearings. The previous machine shop had hot tanked it and reinstalled the oil galley and expansion plugs, so I was never able to check their work. BIG MISTAKE. Even after running the engine for a bit, there was still a LOT of debris in the oil galleys.

I also found a couple more things to add to the punch list while disassembling the front end. It is now clear to me that Paul had at least one minor accident in his past. The passenger fender always looked just a little bit off. That's because it was an aftermarket fender. And when they installed it, they sort of hammered the damage to the core support sort of back into shape. But notice, I did not say they did it well.




Also, the area under the battery tray has cracked really bad and started to deteriorate pretty badly. I noticed it years ago when I installed the new battery tray, but it was not nearly as bad then. So I will now be replacing the right fender and inner fender as well as the core support'

I also noticed that the seam sealer along the firewall seam is crumbling BADLY. You poke at it even slightly and big chunks come loose. I am starting to think it may be more at fault for my cab water leaks than the windshield seal, but no matter- I will fix both.



Lastly, I decided to pop the cover for the front cab mount just to see if I had yet another project to add to the list. They were actually in as good or better shape than I hoped. I did however find this little surprise in the driver side. Explains all of the maple seed remnants I found all over the transmission and a couple other places. The mouse eviction notice will be posted tomorrow. I just hope they were out for a stroll when I moved the truck into the shop, otherwise I may now have mice in my shop.

 

Got the engine back a couple weeks ago, but no real progress until tonight. Block turned out OK on mag check, but they waited until I bugged them after three weeks to tell me they needed the crank and bearings in order to complete the line hone. Oh no, not the old bearings- we need the new ones...the ones I was waiting to order until I knew the block was good. Once the bearings showed up, I dropped the crank off and waited some more. And then more after that, Three more weeks later I finally get everythi8ng back. Only to find out Summit's website was wrong and I had the wrong cam bearings. Ordered the correct ones and double checked that all of the oil galleys were cleaned properly this time and installed the oil galley plugs while I waited. Once the new cam bearings arrived, I promptly proceeded to install them and damage the last bearing by setting the tool just a bit too loose and gouging the edge when it tried to drive in a little crooked. Ordered another new set and finally got them installed tonight with no damage. Test fit the new cam and all is well so far. Test fit the crank and it seems much better, but could not find my manual after the garage/ shop shuffle. I will look more tomorrow. I would just look the bearing torque specs up in my Ford shop manual on the computer, by my Haynes manual also has the plastigage in it as a bookmark that I also need to check the bearings. I will look more tomorrow.

 

Coming along, way to keep trudging forward