Father son restoration of 55 f100,
I want to get an 351 w engine and rebuild it, anyone know of good online sources of information on the hows and whats, I know there are many sites out there that are very technical, but im looking for something that my 12 yr old can read and understand.
Thanks

garth and cody jensen

 

I went through two months of research and deciding if I should rebuild my own 351W or have someone do it for me. The bottom line? Well, it can be done, but the time and energy expended in a do it yourself rebuild (in my opinion) is not worth the $700-$900 someone can do it for you with a warranty.

My suggestion? Pull the engine out yourself, this is pretty time consuming but easy enough even for a 12 year old, by the new parts you might need (i.e. cam, intake, headers, water pump, etc.) and take a short block to a reputable shop and have them bore it, clean it and assemble it.

Here is what I did to my 351W:

Rebuilt Heads
Bored .40 over
Dipped with new pistons rings, seals, etc.
3 angle valve job
They installed an Edelbrock Cam for me
They Installed a true roller timing chain
They installed the heads and gave me a new oil pump
1 year unlimited mile warranty

All this cost me (with tax) $965. Of course I spent extra money on the intake manifold and the headers ut the valve job and all that was included in the $965. The thing I found out when I went to rebuild my own engine was most of the cast parts were going to have to be machined anyway. So I gradually pulled off all my parts sold what i could on ebay and bought new replacement parts for the reinstall.

It's not running yet, but it is very close. Over all, with all the upgraded parts and rebuild costs I spent about $1300. Well worth it and the engine is complete.

Hope this helps in your decision...and Happy Fathers Day!

 

There is a web site called howstuffworks.com.While it won't give specific tips on building engines,it gives some good explanations of how engines and other mechanical things work.If you're little guy is pretty sharp he should learn some stuff there.

Billy

 

great site, thanks we spent several hours there, was a great fathers day afternoon. Spent all morning removing the cab.
Have a great one!
Garth and Cody Jensen