So, we have already determined that my excessive blow by issue is due to worn rings. The engine has 130,000 original, easy miles by the only owner. Never once over heated. Compression has been drifting southward for some time. See below. Test charts Here , are now compared to eighteen years ago when I first noticed the blow by.

I just checked the actual oil pressure. High idle @ cold 55°F start w/ 10w40 Pennzoil oil pressure is 55 psi. Fully warm at idle is 43 psi and 50 psi at about 1800 rpm. Seems to me that this is damn good oil pressure. My question is, what might I expect to see inside this engine as far as wear to main and rod bearings? Cam?

After spending way too much time checking into a dozen possibilities for engine upgrades, I decided that I'll build it back just the way the Ford engineers thought best at that time. Wondering if I'm going to get by with just a ream/hone job and new rings. I'm committed to doing what it takes so it's not like I'm pinching pennies (dollars).

 

I personally hate re ring jobs with a passion. If you are going to rebuild it then do all the matching work also. One thing I will mention is before you get too deep look into a reman engine. They are competitive and will save you money if you want stock specs. A reman 302 is cheap and can be had for around 1600.00. Machine shop rates are going up and I just paid 100 a hole for bore and hone.

 

Now your scarin' me. I'm afraid to ask what a ream and hone would cost. I assumed it might be less than the cost of the tools.

 

I would tear it down and then take it to a machine shop you trust and let them measure the bores. The guy in the book (the same one that says use moly rings ) says you can have a bore with .006 wear, re-ring it, and expect 50,000 miles from it before blow by starts getting high again. Anything less than .006 means it will last that much longer, with a rebore lasting the longest.

I never liked reman engines and blocks because I never knew what I was getting, while with your engine you already know the history and what you are working with. But there is a big problem that has been slowly happening over the past 10 years. Machine shops are going out of business. You may have a problem finding a shop in your area. And if you do find a good shop, you will probably find they are backed up with work and there will be a waiting period. I believe the mail order big shops are partially what is causing this. I guess it's the ebb and flow of business.

 

I would like to keep "my" original engine. I know where it's been. I'm thinking there is reason to hope the bottom end is all good given the oil pressure. We do have a few reputable machine shops locally. For a rebuilt, I would look into a Jasper. They are re-manufactured very close to where I live. I can see saving some $ on freight. I would hate to give up my original engine as a core.

Guess I'm going to go to the machine shop and ask some questions.

 

Franklin I am going to try the moly ring trick on a stock 360 I am doing. I am open to new things, it's just hard to not go through all the motions when doing engine work. Was taught in trade school and the field that you do it per the manufacturers guide and nothing less. Plus it always nice to work on fully clean and machined parts.I will report back when I finish it.

 

Having been shaken by gashog's comment about machine shop costs, today I went to the local machine shop that I knew had been around forever. I had a great conversation with the new owner, Bryan. Bryan just taken over from his retiring boss on Jan 1. Bryan said he has been working in that shop for twenty-one years. Judging from his appearance, I'd guess he started at sixteen.

Bryan's opinion, based on what I told him, was that I can expect find that I most likely would need to bore it. Along with that would be a hot tank bath, oil gallery and passage cleaning, new cam bearings, freeze and oil plugs. He said expect the crank to need nothing but perhaps a polishing. Also, he said to expect the valves and guides to be fine. Turn around time is two weeks. The figures he quoted added up to $415 which included the cam bearings and plugs and also inspecting the crank. If the crank would need work, he would sub that out.

He gave me a tour of his shop and showed off some of his work giving me a visual idea of what to expect from him. A young man with a good attitude stepping up and taking over a business like that in this day and age is impressive. I was impressed. Looking around the shop it appears that there is no shortage of work to do either. Looking forward to handing over my engine.

 

That's a good price for that work. I do advocate crank polishing but only if it leaves your clearance on the upper end of the spec. If not it's best to cut it .010 and polish then use oversized bearings as oil pressure is critical. Again typical I get reamed for machine work here because no one does it and anyone that does thinks they are a pro speed shop building Bugatti engines and charge accordingly.

 

Definitely hone the bores. But what he was saying, the Moly rings are more forgiving if you do not get the finish exactly right, the moly rings seem to seat easier than the other styles.

The last engine I built I found out something I was doing wrong with the other about 10 engines I had done. I complained to him that all my rebuilt engines tend to use a little oil and smoke the first few hundred miles, then they would clear up and be fine. He asked me when I was putting them together was I getting a swishing noise from the pistons moving up and down as I was turning the short block and installing the pistons. I said yes. He said that is your problem, you are not cleaning the bores good enough before putting the engine together. He told me to clean the bore out with solvent and a rag, and then do it again and again. He said a good thing to use is transmission fluid. He said keep cleaning and cleaning till a white paper towel comes out white.

The last engine I did I followed his advice and sure enough, no hissing swishing noise when the pistons went up and down and it did not burn a drop of oil from day one. Learned a lesson on that one.

 

I have never installed a new piston ring that was not moly. I've not done that many though. Four or five on my old Honda CR125R which needed a new ring every 20 hours, my old Snapper rider that had an aluminum cylinder (and aluminum connecting rod) and my Toro 2 cycle lawn mower. Never honed any of them.

This is going to be my first bottom end on a auto/truck engine.

 

Another good trick is to wash all the machined surfaces. Some guys use plain dawn and some like the SEM soap it really lifts the micro particles. You do need to quickly apply rust inhibitor but it works. Another good trick is acetone with newspaper and follow up with a paint tack cloth.

 

They always said something about cleaning the bores out good in the manuals, but I guess I didn't realize how clean and how important it was.

 

Recently had 318 dodge bored 30 over, and cam bearings installed (they provided), if I recall it was $250. I'd cleaned the heck out of block before taking it down there, because all they do nowadays is spray it with a pressure washer (basically), there is (at my local shop) no baking or dunking, just spraying it off. I don't really like that, but it is what it is. I intend to chase all passages and stuff anyway, but I don't believe they get blocks as clean as they used to before being relieved of their strong dunk tanks by EPA regulations. Now, it's just a pressure washer and dryer.

 

After what I saw in the shop I visited, I have no qualms about paying him the $75 cleaning charge. Not sure what he'll do to my block but he does have a tank where the engine block can be submerged fully and looks to be fairly new. It has a davit with a hand crab for raising and lowering the block. He has a well used piece of equipment that is like a cabinet with a bunch of spray jets. Maybe the object being cleaned rotates like on a lazy susan. Not sure about that. He had a board near the cabinet with dozens of brushes of various sizes for cleaning oil and coolant passages. Some looked to have like sandpaper for sanding them out. All the engine blocks standing around looked very clean. The block he had chucked up that he had just bored was pristine. Sand blasted to look perfect (for an additional charge).

Maybe I luckily stumbled onto a full service shop.

I wish I had taken pictures.