This engine is for sale near me. It is advertised as 1960 223 from an f100.

From my limited knowledge….I believe it is 59 or older and from a car, not truck.

My question is what do yall think it is out of, and how much unobtanium would match up to our trucks?

 

Thermostat housing is different but absolutely usable unless you use a thermo-housing-mounted fan, which the trucks did not, at least all three of mine did not.

The oil FEED tube for the rocker arms is totally unobtanium and regularly are found totally plugged with years of hard sediment. I believe the drain tubes can be found NOS from specialty parts houses.

Rocker arm assemblies are often worn, but they'll work just fine and if that engines is salvageable, nice to have it around. The original on my first engine was replaced by a machine shop obviously at my cost and I casually told them "sure go ahead"; when I saw the invoice after the engine was finished I believe it cost me $3-400 after mark-up and assembly and whatever.
The original on my engine#2 was in perfectly usable condition. I sure wish I had a good used unit laying around the for the first engine.
The rocker arm assy has these springs(see pic below), and you can slightly push over the rockers to see if there is considerable scoring on the shaft. Little scoring, go ahead and reuse; lotta scoring = trash

Harmonic balancers for 223's are not reproduced to the best of my knowledge. and the removal looks fresh, maybe they reused/sold it, maybe it's lying around somewhere nearby, worth asking.


Everyone around here will have their own opinions and estimates, but in my opinion I like to pay $100 for worn core parts-engines. I'll give $30-40 if it's seized and not worth it.
I would absolutely ask to open the valve cover and remove the feed tube and observe for being plugged before buying any 223 motor. If it's plugged, you can keep the motor. It's not worth me trying to find a remedy.
I was lucky enough to find two engines that somehow had good oil feed tubes; bad news was I bought them under the assumption they were runnable--much later on I found they were absolutely not, but the bones were good as a core, fair enough.

Secondly, again, IMHO core motors priced $250+ aren't worth it unless you really need it. I'd be tearing off bearing caps and scoping bores at that point; I ain't layin' down my cash for some plugged up seized piece of junk that's been bored .080"

 

The fan location is actually why I thought it was from a car. My truck is a 55 f350 and the fan is mounted on the thermo housing.



The two bolts on the valve cover led me to believe the engine is 59 or older.

 

I believe the harmonic balancer is there. I think it is in the pic under the oil filter.

 

FWIW Bigwin says he sells the thermostat housings for $200 alone. If you get it cheap enough and want to just pull off the impossible to find parts and deal with selling them and scrapping the rest it may be worth it...

 

not that style. The style that has the provisions for the fan mount is the expensive and hard to find one

 

So I’m picking up the engine today for $100. He says the engine turns free and is head is good to the best of his knowledge. I figure if it’s a good rebuildable motor, great. If not, he says the intake and exhaust manifolds are good and crack free. So I figure that alone is worth the $100 to have spares.

I want to put the engine on a stand. Can someone tell me what size bolts will be needed so I can pick them up ahead of time and don’t have to crawl under my truck to pull a bolt.