I'll try to make this quick:

Swapping a 1988 Lincoln Town car engine and AOD tranny into my 1976 Ford F-100. Took the engine out of the truck from a previous swap, and it was a roller motor and not the original motor that came in the truck (my dad had it put in).

Took all the accessories off the front of the old motor and put everything on the front of the '88 TC motor. Installed new rod bearings, main bearings, timing set, rear main seal, and I replaced two pistons and rings in the 1 and 6 hole. Honed the cylinders lightly to knock any glaze. Used plenty of assembly fluid, etc. Made brackets for the new tranny linkage, everything is going beautiful.
Motor turns over by hand/ratchet very nicely.

Primed the oil pump, getting oil pressure on the guage inside, prime the carb, ready to go. Leave the coil wire off, and turn the engine over with the starter and it's going smooth. Plug in the coil wire for the big finale, and it fires right off. Within a second of starting, I get this terrible sound like a supercharger, but with more of a scrubbing sound.

I took the torque convertor out of the tranny and hooked it back up with just the starter to take the tranny out of the picture. I unhooked the drivebelts to take all of the accessories out of the picture. I took the harmonic balancer off, and also even took the fuel pump out so that nothing but the distributor, cam, pistons, lifters, rods, crank were turning. Got the sound AGAIN!! This is the second time the engine has been out and in because I though something terrible was wrong, but I could find nothing.

I need some ideas, because I have one experienced Ford guy that has never heard anything like it, and another guy said check for intake leak. This has a weird scrub to it that I just can't explain. The only thing that I can think of that I haven't checked is the fact that the distributor that I took out of the older roller motor that was in the truck has a shaft that is 1/2 inch shorter than the one that came out of the Lincoln motor, so there is 1/2 LESS inch engagement on the oil pump driveshaft using the distributor for the carbed setup and that worries me.

Sorry this is so long but the background is important...I will appreciate any help.....AHHHHHH!!!!

 

You might try a mechanics stethescope to pinpoint the origin of the sound or a piece of hose and screwdriver.

It may be a vacuum leak, have you hooked a vacuum gauge to the engine to see what kinda manifold vacuum your getting? Good luck

 

Check for metal filling in the oil. You mentioned a roller cam. You might have a miss match between the cam gear and distributor gear.

 

Jwtaylor: I really want to try the stethescope method like you suggest. I might have to run the engine long enough so that the demon will rear it's ugly head. I wish I could let the engine run more than two seconds. I just can't bear to do it!!! I've heard an intake vacuum leak before, and it's really loud, but this thing, you can feel some type of mechanical "scrub". My friends wife is upstairs from the basement and she can hear the noise. Like I said, an experienced Ford man came over and he had never heard anything like it. Whatever it is, it goes from the engine turning over a half a turn, the baby fires right off, and within a quarter of a second when the rpm hits the operational speed, it sounds like the engine goes to 6,000 rpm, but it's not the actual engine, it's the sound.


Beartracks: The first time we pulled the motor to check everything I was expecting to find oil in the oil pan. None. But you bring up an interesting point on the cam / distrubutor gear.

The engine that came out of the truck was a roller motor, which has the roller cam/gear. The distributor that was on that motor worked fine with the roller motor. The engine that is now making the noise is a roller motor out of an '88 Lincoln Town Car. I'm just wondering why the distributor off of the truck would work with one roller motor and not another? I can tell you that the end of the distributor shaft on the old motor is 1/2 inch shorter than the distributor shaft that came out of the Lincoln Town car motor, therefore there is only about 3/16's of an inch engagement on the oil pump shaft now, rather than around a half inch engagement.

I got a new oil pump....and I'm trying to figure out what distributor will work with a fuel injected Town car motor that has been swapped to a carb.

Keep your ideas coming please

 

Change the distributors and see what happens.

When you wrote

You meant metal shavings right?

There is not a lot in the engine that would cause a repetative sound unless something was broken, only things I can think of are distributor and timing chain, as far as things that could make a noise and not be completely broke, if that makes any sense. Good luck, let us know how it turns out

 

I would look at pistons 1 and 6 for bore, piston,
and ring issues. Since you only have the problem
on pressurize firing I would think about rings..
what was installed..how were they installed
[upside down] etc. To trouble shoot maybe rent
a borescope and take a look at cylinder wall.

 

I did mean metal shaving....I got in a hurry. I looked in the oil pan expecting to find metal shavings and found nothing.

The noise happened after we put the engine in the first time with the timing set that we put on the motor, and then I installed a new timing set on the motor and it is still making the same sound. So for now, I'm going to eliminate the timing set and focus on the distributor.

FORDPILOT: You bring up an interesting point. I did replace the piston and rings on 1 and 6. When you say "check to see how they were intalled (upside down)", are you saying that the rings can be installed upside down? I am thinking that I put the rings in the same way that the other ones came off of the other pistons, like the little "dot" in the ring facing down, or however it was going. Let's just say the rings were put in upside down, what would that do ?

 

JWTAYLOR: Is there a particular distributor that you can recommend? I'm not sure where to start on swapping a distributor, or are you just saying that I should swap the gear on the distributor ?

THANKS!!!

 

Its my understanding that a 302 distributor is a 302 distributor. If you could find another one, swap the correct gear on it and see what happens. Without knowing what the sound your referring too is, its really hard to say. What does the distributor gear look like?

 

What was wrong with the pistons you replaced?
If yhey were scuffed you may have some
bore alighnment problems as well as
bore size problems.

The distributor investigation makes sense
as my experience they can get really weird..
although I would expect more of a growling
sound than scuffing sound.

Do a compression check and just see what
you are getting on 1 and 6. Also, put a wood
dowel into 1 and 6 so it touches the top of
the piston and rotate engine by hand and
see if you can "feel" any scuffing.

If it looks like piston,bore size, ring problems
I am not sure what to do short of a tear
down. Maybe someone else on the board
has some ideas?

 

JWTAYLOR: Well, I'm pretty sure there are differences in the distributors on 302's. I know that carbureated vehicles might have a vacuum advanced distributor, so when you get on the accelerator the increased vacuum advances the timing to burn the extra fuel, and on a fuel injected car that advance is controlled by the computer/ECM. And I'm not sure what the difference is (other than part number), but the part number at the Ford dealership on a 1976 F-100 is different of that from a 1978. Now, how big of a difference, I don't know. And I would also think that there is a difference between distributors (gear) on a rollercam engine vs. an older style engine, say pre-1985-86.


fordpilot: The pistons were replaced because of a few slightly damaged spots on top of the pistons. Mainly just one of them. The bore did have some vertical lines in it that you could feel with your finger. I went back with a standard piston and new rings on the two pistons, and I used a ball hone and ran it up and down in the bore a few times (keeping it lubed heavily while doing that).

What's weird is that you can pull the coil wire off, and turn the motor over and over with the starter, and it's smooth as silk and sounds just like a regular motor, but once it fires off it sounds like something is turning some high rpm. I feel like the engine is turning that high but I know it isn't, but something inside the engine is making that sound. Remember, I eliminated the tranny, and took all accessory drives off, and even took the harmonic balancer off and cranked it.

Any other suggestions are still REALLY welcome. I'm about ready to just get a shortblock, but man I would feel stupid if it ended up being the distributor.

 

I was vague in my reply, I was thinking when you said, " a distributor that would work." I thought you meant fitment wise, they all (302) interchange physically, your right though, they made a few variations, points type, duraspark and tfi, and yeah a roller cam motor does require you use the correct distributor gear, a flat tappet gear will not work. I just suggested you get a distributor identical to yours, since your using a carb and it requires you use a carb distributor, you need to install the correct distributor gear that will work with your roller cam. If you have to purchase one, run it, if it takes care of it, good, if not, switch the gear back and return it.

Which distributor are you using now?

Did you mention what the distributor gear looked like?

 

Jwtaylor:

Well, the motor that was in the truck a week ago was a roller motor, and the distributor / gear worked fine with that motor, and it continues to the the same distributor that I'm using with the newer roller motor, so I'm having a hard time saying it's the distributor. The teeth on the distributor look fine, and I'm not sure how long it would take running it for any damage to appear, but it's probably run a total of 15 seconds because I've cranked it about 10 times and I shut it off within a second once the sound starts. I'm still worried about how the driveshaft of the oilpump barely engages into the end of the carbureated distributor shaft. Only about 3/16 ths of an inch. BUT, it was working fine on the other engine. The EFI distributor out of the Lincoln goes down another half inch on the oil pump shaft....

 

Sounds like it is running some high RPM. Well I
feel your pain as my 390 FE played with my
mind kind of that way last fall. I also was
ready for the short block. I solved my
problem with a new dura dizzy and
ignition module. I do not know what
caused the problem and I have thought
on it alot. Don't laugh but the only
thing I could come up with was that
maybe water in gas plus defective dizzy or
module was causing a turbine effect
where every time piston came up there
weak combustion effect which caused
kind of a motor overspeed mode. I did not
have any chaffing noises..just a high
rpm sound that I thought was the dizzy
spinning or timing chain tweaked.
Probably safest route would be to try correct
dizzy..oh yeah check your engine ground
this can cause some module/firing weirdness.
Oh Yeah [light-bulb] double check your firing
order. One night while howling at the moon
it dawned on me that could have been my
problem.

 

Oh Yeah, I checked the haynes troubleshooting
section and nothing fit. However while
looking at that stuff it dawned on me that
a defective starter bendix will cause
problems like you describe. The starter
selenoid is activated and engages but
stays engaged and is driven overspeed
by motor. It makes one heck of a racket
and tears up ring gears. Once the engine
starts the starter gear is spun mega rpm
and usually tears its bearings apart.
I get them confused but I think the
out force is centrifical and the in force is
bendix spring. So if your bendix spring is
shot you can get a hung starter. Hope
all my rambling helps somehow.