The local auto stores will take stuff back correct? Take your best guess and get one of them ordered. When it comes in, compare it to yours. If it doesn't look right, tell them to send it back and get your money back. Take your old one to the store when you come in to pick it up. Just make sure they will take it back before you order it, but most will unless it's electrical. Even then, if you find out it is wrong before you even leave the store, I would think they would take most anything back.

P.S. Most high mileage engines any brand will put a groove in the seal surface of the balancer. They make repair sleeves that you slip over the surface to repair the grooved area and make it like new. They work well.

 

I think I would do a little more checking if it is in fact the balancer or chain.
Can be done as I pointed out in my post above.
Dave ----

 

Yes.

The Dist is driven by the cam if the chain jumped the timing will be out. But TDC on the crank is TDC regardless what position the cam/dist is in. Even if you get it close to you are going to know if the balancer has slipped in this case as the OP is stating he moved the Dist up 50° and could not see the lines. You can get to within a couple degrees of TDC by feel.
So even if your close to TDC in this case you would still not see the lines. Find TDC by feel on #1 if the pointer lines up or is close to 0° on the balancer it would indicate the chain has jumped.
This is how you confirm if a balancer has slipped regardless.

 

Ok, seriously in my whole 65 years of wrenching I have only ever seen a couple timing chains jump and keep running. One tooth, maybe, 2 teeth and it probably won't start at all. Easy to do the test to see if it has a lot of play in it. I think that was already outlined. Have you done it yet?

 

I can't count the number of Ford engines with the Nylon toothed cam gear that tossed the chain. In my experience it is more a rule than the exception. Once you get above 100K miles on them you are living on borrowed time in my experience, especially ones from the 60's and 70's In the 80's they seemed to be using better materials and would go another 20K or 40K before tossing the chain. In fact I'm not sure I have ever had a high mile OHV Ford V8 with the nylon toothed cam gear that did not toss the chain at some point. But on the same hand I have never had a balancer on a Ford slip either GM products yes but never on a Ford. And it was a 50/50 split if they would keep running or not. On occasion you would get the exact same symptoms the OP is experiencing. And initially you'd be thinking the balancer slipped or the torque converter went for a dump or the pressure plate tossed or broke springs. But more often than not it was the T chain.

 

Well I think we can rule out the chain because A) the engine is a reman short block from the mid 90`s cause when we got the truck the original motor was sludged to hell and the valve covers filled with oil and it couldn't drain back quick enough so oil pressure would drop after a bit of running. B) I had the timing cover off a couple years ago and I thought of replacing it but the chain didn't have any more slack in it than the new chain would get after a few hundred miles. This engine probably has 30,000 miles on it I would guestimate. Roughly 3,000 miles every 12 to 15 months.

I ordered from Rock Auto a '84 and up balancer, an ATP brand. I looked locally and no one had a '84 - '95 302 balancer in any brand.

I'm going to pull the balancer off and sit it atop the new one with the key ways lined up and see how far off the balancer is. I'm pretty sure now the more I think about it, that it has to be the balancer. The balancer as far as I know is original Ford. It might not be but I wouldn't be surprised if it was considering the engine shop that did this engine reused just about every part from the old motor from dist down to the carb, intake, and even the timing cover.

 

My '78 Mercury had the original nylon timing set when I replaced at finally at 178,000 miles. Never jumped timing and ran great. Only reason I replaced it was cause of the excessive slop it had and a couple teeth had the plastic chipped off. If I didn't have to pull the timing cover to extract a broken water pump bolt in the block I would have left it in.

Now heres the thing if the timing chain jump, would not the idle speed change? I mean after all when you adjust timing rpm changes up and down and you have to reset the idle speed on the carb. My truck is still idling at the same RPM it was idling at before it started doing this. The truck also fires off instantly when you start it. To me it just doesn't seem like a timing set that jumped.

Here is the thing, ive never had a balancer slipped before. Never seen one and never had one. I also never seen nor had a timing set jump. Even at work ive seen broken cam followers on dual over head cam engines and the timing didn't jump just made horrible noise.

So I guess it comes down to a first for everything. The truck starts and runs on its own so it cant be timing related as timing hasn't changed. The timing light from 0 to 50 degrees advance on the adjustment **** does not bring up the marks on the balancer now so in all likely hood it had to have slipped.

 

None of the local stores could get me one in a reasonable amount of time.

I got a ATP one coming from Rock Auto its listed under a '84 F150 302. But its still none the less a 50 oz imbalance. I'm going to compare it how ever to the old one before I install it.

Sleeve wise I just recently did a repair sleeve on a 69 el camino, couldn't find a new 396 balancer locally so just got the repair sleeve.

Mine I had it off a couple years ago to do a timing cover gasket, was leaking coolant. I don't recall seeing a groove on the balancer at that time. This isn't the original motor to the truck, it was a short block that was procured by the local engine shop when we got the truck we took it in to have the engine rebuilt. So this engine has probably 50,000 miles on it at the most. Average about 3,000 miles every 12 to 15 months and the motor was done back in the mid 90s. Lots of parts from the old motor was used but I do not know if the balancer was one of those items. I wouldn't be surprised if it was because the timing cover is the original Ford stamped aluminum timing cover so I bet the short block had no balancer with it and that has to be the original one that came with the truck so god knows if its original '82 or if its a replacement done some time between '82 and the mid 90`s which I doubt.

 

Oh, I've seen plenty of those fail too but none of them kept running. Well, there was that one 429 that got a chunk of plastic in the oil pump and sheared off the gear on the distributor. Of course it didn't run any more either,lol.

 

Got off work early today started to pull the balancer out broke the bolt loose but it kept turning the engine found out the balancer didn't spin on the balancer itself but the snout is broken out and it spun on the crank. Thus the crank is ruined so now I am back to a crate motor.

With my move coming up in July I don't have the money even for the blueprint 302 crate engine priced at $1700. Cause I would be spending around $2200 anyways as I want to replace the flexplate while I have it out and some other nit picking stuff such as the passenger side exhaust manifold.

 

Well I got a big question for everyone on here.

Instead of going with the ATK DF46 302 crate engine which is '80 - '85. I was told I should go with like a ''94-'96 style 302 as they have better heads, roller cam, and the bottom end is a bit stronger than the 80`s model.

Well ATK has one for $2,000 which would require I knock the pin out of my dist to replace the dist gear with a roller cam compatible dist gear.

It would also require I remove that little tab off the cam gear and bolt on a fuel pump eccentric which Ive heard has been done before to use a mechanical fuel pump on a newer ford engine.

How ever my big problem is the '94-'96 crate engines are EFI engines and I am wondering if its going to run like **** running my factory 2V intake manifold and factory 351cfm 2V carb?

Ive had a engine builder tell me that the engine doesn't know if its EFI or Carb so they would still run just fine. But years ago I remember reading about efi cams are designed to operate with EFI for proper cylinder filling.

 

1. The engine wont care if it is EFI or a carb as long it is getting an adequate fuel curve over the RPM range.

2. Fuel pump eccentric. There are 2 styles of fuel pump eccentrics.
The old style and most all 2 piece eccentrics has a tab that fits in to the hole for the cam pin these use the short cam pin.
The other style has a hole in the eccentric and the cam pin goes in to the eccentric these use the long cam pin. I have only ever seen this style as a one piece eccentric.

3. The roller cam from the factory was a austempered ductile iron billet camshaft you will need to replace your cast Iron gear with a steel one this is a simple and low cost change.

4. If you are buying a long block crate reman the application you want is a 1996 Explorer this will have the roller cam and the better GT 40 heads and stronger bottom end.

 

 

No photos as the crank bolt wouldn't come out. I broke it loose but trying to turn it with the breaker bar it forces the engine to spin over.

But you know the shank on the balancer that slides over the crank snout with the key way? It looks like a good 1/4 of the circumference is broken outward and has torn the crank seal. That explains why there is oil all over the front of the motor. When I talked to the engine builder this past Thursday if he had a OEM 302 balancer so I could get a timing mark off it to transfer to my replacement balancer as it has no timing marks he told me be careful cause the old fords are not only known just for spinning the balancer weight but also breaking the crank snout apart by spinning on the crank which ruins the crank. He told me he don't know how many cranks he had to just out right replace on 302 fords cause the balancer spun.

I found a '97 - '01 explorer long block from ATK part # DFX6 which it states has GT stamped next to Sparkplug #1
ATK Engines DFX6: Remanufactured Crate Engine for 1997-2001 Ford Explorer & Mercury Mountaineer with 302ci/5.0L V8 | JEGS

Price isn't too bad.

But now the big question is though would my stock 351 CFM 2V carb supply enough fuel for GT40 style heads? I know when I got my inspection done a old friend from when I used to work there years ago said hes cleaning up shop and he has a old ford 2V carb one of the big ones that came off a 400 that is supposed to be around 500 CFM said that he would give it to me when he comes across it.

 

That engine will have the GT40P heads that require a unique exhaust manifold as the spark plug angle was changed. You want the engine from 1996-early 97 units.

This is the one you want
http://www.jegs.com/i/ATK-Engines/05...830+4294829387