This is my first post on this site. I recently purchased a 1977 F150 and I was just giving the engine a little TLC before I drive it home. I am replacing: valve cover gaskets, hoses, theromostat, water pump, battery cables, fuel pump and few other things. Today I finished removing the timing cover and the timing set. The truck has ~113,000 miles on it and I thought it would be a good idea to replace the timing set and I was right. The cam gear was one of those nylon type gears and it was pretty chewed up. Here's my question: While pulling off the crank gear I noticed the crank itself move outward when I pulled on it. I think the crank is able to move ~1/4" front to back when I attempt to move it, is this normal end play for a 1977 302 V8? If not what would cause this type of movement (worn out thrust bearings)? Thanks for any help you can give.

Jim

 

New guy from long time guy.

1st ! Welcome to the site

This is actually an engine related question not a truck question.

If you scroll down thw main forum page a little further you will see the engine forums.

Don't worry about it right now as once the moderator see this he will move the thread to the V-90* engine forum where 302 questions are asked.

If you have a specific question that applies to your 77 model year truck come back and ask we'll help you out all we can.


May I suggest because you are new read the Read foirst threads located at thr top of this forum.

One of them (The FAQ thread) mentions putting the topic in the title to aid users in searching the topic and giving an idea about what the question will be about

Enjoy the Ride on FTE

 

Welcome to FTE cujo8! Yikes! 1/4"? Standard endplay on that particular engine is .004-.008. Service limit is .012. Yep, I would say thrust bearings. And yes, those nylon timing gears are terrible. Is this going to be a restoration or project? We're a curious bunch around here, so give us some details!

 

That nylon gear needs to be replaced on anything with more than 80K miles on it. With 113K it was long overdue. Replace the timing chain with an aftermarket multi-keyway timing chain set and set the cam timing straight up.

All of those nylon chunks are in the oil pump suction strainer so that needs to be cleaned out also. DO NOT use any gasket sealer on the intake tube gasket. Use a dry gasket only.

Check the bearings when you get in there.

 

I wanted this to be just a small project, since I have a couple of other projects that I am into up to my eyeballs with already. I was hoping to just do a few things to it for now and use the truck to haul firewood and other truck worthy tasks. How bad is this problem going to be? I did not want to get this deep into this at this time. Is it possible to drop the oil pan while the engine is in the truck and slide in new bearings. Are the bearings marked, so that I would be able to tell if they are over sized or not?

Jim

 

Torque1st, Forgive my ignorance, but what is an intake tube gasket? I know what a intake gasket is, but what is an intake tube?

Jim

 

i think he was refering to the oil pump pickup tube.

 

That makes sense. Thanks.

Jim