ok if you want to stone me now go ahead i am shure that these questions have been asked many times anyway i have a 79 f 100 with a 300 in it i am looking to rebuild it because it was knocking but i dont want to spend a bunch of money on it planning on reusing whatever i can all i want to do is make a good everyday truck that at most i will pull a 20 foot motor boat with right now i have it up on jackstands have droped the oil pan on it and unbolted the head i have a set of gaskets on order from ebay what else am i going to need to make this a strong running engine and truck what kind of rings do i need would i be wise to replace the bearings and for a little more power would i be wise to look into a 2 barrel carb ok folks i am throwing myself on your wisdom i realy have no idea what i am doing in rebuilding this engine but i have a chiltons manual and a father in law that said he used to build racing motors but he is verry bussy and i dont want to bug the crap out of him my screen name is greenhornbuilder for a reason i welcome all replys

 

First get a rebuild kit off ebay or somewhere so you don't have to go searching for all the stuff, find a good machine shop and get them to hot tank the block and do a head job. (I'd get it hot tanked but if you can always pressure wash the crap out of it) If the cylinders are scored get them bored a little. You might want to wait and by the rebuild kit last so you'll know what size pistons to get. If you put it all back together yourself it should be under $1000 bucks.

 

as far as the head goes, you may be able to get a reman head cheaper through advanced auto parts or autozone or your local parts house than paying a machine shop to re work your stock head. if your gonna buy the peices in a kit, make sure the kit is a quality kit. if you buy seperatly i'd go with sealed power (federal mogul) bearings, and hastings rings. make sure to buy a new oil pump pickup, yours will still look ok but get a new one for peice of mind, they are fairly cheap, like 35 bucks i think. the oil pump should come in a rebuild kit, if its in the rebuild kit most kits give a mellings oil pump as the replacement. if you buy serperatly don't go high volume if you are keeping the stock fiber timing gear, i've heard guys have problems with this combo. if you want to get a set of aftermarket timing gears so you don't have a fiber timing gear go to rockauto.com they sell a set of cloyes gears for around 80 bucks. word of advice when doing the two piece rear main seal, use right stuff gasket maker from permatex with the gaskets provided for the oil pan. the stuff costs like 14 bucks a tube but is worth it. when you take it apart make sure to make a map of where everything goes with the main caps, map which one is the trust bearing and where the stud goes to mount the oil pump pickup tube. thats all i can think of for now.

 

Yep... getting parts off eBay can be a huge money saver. It can take some patience and lots of searching but it does pay off. Before my rebuild I got a new Clevite piston set for $60, sealed power molly rings for $18, new intake valves for $35 [the very expensive stellite coated variety], Clevite 77 main and rod bearings for $40, a good $75 worth of gaskets and seals for maybe $30, new crane rocker arms for $40, rebuilt alternator for $20, plus lots of little odds and ends. Would have been quicker & easier to buy a ready made kit to get the bulk of the parts, but I wanted a very specific combo of pistons/ bearings/ rings/ etc that you just can't get in a kit. Cost wise the parts off ebay were generally 50% less than I could get elsewhere. Bulk of the other parts [oil pump, balancer, etc] I ordered from partsamerica.com. What they weren't already cheapest on they price matched to autozone or rockauto, plus they ship free and didn't charge sales tax.

Fiber gears didn't come along till about '84 so you can most likely keep your stock timing gears. Do get your machine work done before buying pistons/ rings/ bearings, you'll need to know if anything needs to be a non-stock size. 99% chance the block will need to be bored, but stay as conservative as possible with the oversize. Unless there's nasty scoring you shouldn't have to go more than .020" over. Do shop around for your machine work too, prices can vary widely. I asked around at local parts stores and garages till I found someone reliable and reasonable. Total bill was about $350 for having the block cleaned, bored and zero decked, crank polished, valve job and surfacing on the head, and pressing the old piston pins off then installing the new ones.

 

this is just a question maby a stupid one but why cant i just clean up the old head and reuse it

 

can i get by in rebuilding this engine by replacine the rings, bearings, gaskets

 

First of all. Congrats on your decision to do this yourself. Me and Chilton rebuilt my first engine together. I think I spent more time trying to figure out what stuff was than time spent turning the wrench. The first 2 engines that I did I didn't remove the engine. I only replaced the bearings and the rings and didn't do anything to the head. Now that I've pulled my 3rd engine and have plenty more common sense I've realized that it was a mistake not pulling the first 2. You really need to get that engine out, get some measurements on the piston cylinders and if needed get a slight bore. This takes a little longer but if you want a decent engine to last you and to be able to pull your trailer you need to do it right. Like they said above, get your block cleaned, bored and your head completely done, it will save you a headache in the future. Take pictures of EVERYTHING. Label everything. Clean everything. and most of all Enjoy it. Your tool collection will increase significantly. There are plenty of people here on this site that will help you with problems. Good luck

 

i want to thank all of you for responding to my questions and i just figured that i would jump on and update you on how the engine rebuild is going so far i have just pulled and cleaned the head removed all the pistons boy o boy that was fun took me two days only a couple of hours each but still anyway going to pull the crank and cam out next and as soon as i get my piston rings in i am going to rering them with my father in laws help i talked to the guy that runs the local machine shop he said that if it didnt smoke when i started it up the last time that all i need to do is clean it real well with a wire brush reseat the valves and i am good to go on the head well i got to go being a dad and a huspand calls if yall got any comments please keep sending them good or bad take care yall