I am about ready to pull all my hair out - Let me give you the reader digets short version:

1. Purchase '71 F-250 w/ 360 FE with 78K miles - ran great, no leaks, no oil usage - just underpowered still had stock 2-brl carb and cast iron manifold

2. Pull Iron Manifold, install late 60's T-Bird 4-Brl Cast Iron Manifold with Edelbrock 1406 Carb, ran much better but now had awful Oil leak blowing oil all over the engine and the engine bay. Figured the back of the newly installed intake is leaking or is warped and leaking. Going through 1 Quart of Oil every 200 miles

3. Rebuild Cylinder Heads and install new Aluminum Edelbrock 4-brl Intake, take extra measures to make sure the the rear sealing surface on the back of the intake manifold is clean and has sufficent RTV.

4. Still Having same oil leakage problem. Assume I have blown out rear main seal as it is difficult to pinpoint oil leak as so much oil is going everywhere. Change rear main seal (in chassis ). Still Have same oil leakage issues.

5. When driving with the PCV Out and breather hose out, the oil leaks go away (mostly). Ran a compression test - Have 115 - 130 lbs compression. All but one spark plug is really carbonized or oily. Cylinder 1 plug is as clean as a whistle.

At this point I either have bad oil rings and getting blow by or some how somewhere my PCV system is plugged. It is leaking out the back some where and blowing all over the engine bay. It is leaving a huge oil leak on the driveway when it is pulled in and parked right where a rear main seal leak would occur.

What is my problem, any thoughts?

 

I think Your pistons and or rings may be shot....allowing "blow by" from the compression stroke.

When I bought my truck, and 1967 F-250 4x4 with a 390, I had a similar situation...just a couple of small leaks...mainly stuff that just sorta seemed to make the engine dirty...found out my Intake manifold was cracked along the edges in back and decided to replace it with a new one.....went in great, but my oil leakage problem (which I thought I was solving on the upper part of the engine) got 10x worse.....Oil everywhere...all over the exhaust and smoking up a storm....

What had happened was originally, the "blow-by" was somewhat equally venting from all the seals on the engine...oilpan, Intake manifold, etc...but once I sealed up the top end with the new Manifold, the oil and pressure had no where to go but out the Oil pan seal area....by the time we pulled the engine for a new one, we could even see where coolant was being forced around the edged ov the freeze plugs on the sides of the engine....

It's definately and expensive problem....I ended up spending almost $5500 on my engine swap out.

 

I'll just hit on a few things like the type of RTV's if you didn't sand or ruff the
new manifold mating surface a little and didn't clean this area with a good cleaner like Acetone and you used the Blue RTV that Blue stuff stays sone what soft and tacky. And when used on a gasket it will not setup fast enough allowing the gasket to elongate and the more you try to tighten it up like the water neck for one.. So if you used it it maybe blowing out the rear manifold area.. If you have any oil in the flywheel cover or driping out did you check the rear Cam plug to see if that maybe a source of a leak or other gally plugs.. A wet oily spark plug leads to weak or broken oil ring.. FE blocks our like living with a woman, if you don't everything just right you be having alot of headaches with it..The rebuilt heads will add more blowby passing the rings when the valves don't leak when there freshen up, So you may have made worsen the blowby problem..I once saw where a guy must have added about a tube RTV the outside of the front and back of tyhe intake Maniold to stop it from leaking. It looked like hell but he stopped it from leaking..
Well don't know if any of this will help you but it's my 2cents
orich

 

I used RTV Black for the Manifold end seals - I didn't use any of the cork gaskets for that. I scuffed everything really good and used a lot of brake cleaner to make sure I had a good sealing surface.

We broke down and ordered a new long block tonight. It is from Hiperfomer
S & S Engine Remanufacturing Co. out of Washington State. After having unpleasant (ripped off) experiences from several local machine shops we decided to give these folks a shot. They offer a 7yr/70K mile warranty and we got the Long Block for $1300 + $50 cam upgrade + $200 core + $175 shipping. They do a complete remanufacturing on the engine and not just a rebuild like "Recon". So we will see if it is anygood.

This whole process torques me off in that I spent $900 on having these other cylinder heads rebuilt. Now we will need to try to recoupe some of the cost by selling these low mileage rebuilt heads on the classified. Gotta love these old trucks

 

Dood! Call them now and cancel your order!

I was warned countless times before I ordered and went with S & S anyway...what O got was a long block with main bearing journals that were barely tightened, and way too much end play on the crank. The price is great....but what the send you is not well rebuilt....this company has changed names almost every 3 years or so to keep running away from their bad reputation.

I finally went with Jasper...and was very satisfied.

If you do elect to keep that engine...check it over **Thoroughly** before installing it.

 

YEP never assume any shop is the great one. It will come back to haunt you the fisrt time you don't double check there work.. There's always those INTERRUPTIONS just putting a engine back together for onething..And then it's the old you get what you pay for that come back to kick your butt!! Good luck wantaford
ORICH

 

It's strange that all of the oil consumption started when you change the intake manifold. I would have bet that it did not seal off correctly. You have to let the rtv setup for 15-20 (front and back) min before installing the intake. I presumed that you used the correct intake gasket required for use on a AL manifold.

 

Wow - sorry to hear you had such a bad time. Was it the same guys? These guys are out of Spokane Washington.

I thought I did my homework. They have a satisfactory record with the Better Business Bureau. The sales guy I have been working with claims that less then 1.7% of there engines have a failure rate.

My problem with all the machine shops I have used for the last 2 decades is I always come away feeling taken advantage of, ripped off. They all claim they are the supreme authority when it come to machine work and everbody else's work is crap. A lot of times I have not received that great a quality of work. So for me it is a roll of the dice with these guys.

Long ago when I worked for a major parts chain, we ordered engines through RECON. And those engines are junk. At least 40% of the stuff we got would have a claim on them in less than 6 months. When I didn't know better I ordered there Series III engine which was supposed to be an example of their best work. That engine only last about 40K miles before it went out. Very dissapointed.

When I get this engine I will look it over and double check everything. I will check all the ring clearances, the bearing clearances. I will run a cylinder leakage test, the thrust play, etc. Wish me luck!

 

It's the EXACT same company....it's a bit hard to research yourself...I did the same thing you did...searched the web, check for reviews of their products and service, etc....everything I found was glowing and wonderful about them....but when I began talking to shops.....EVERY ONE of them almost wanted to slap me in the face for even considering S & S....some even refused to work on my truck any longer if I chose to go with that company.

Apparently they change their business name every 2 or 3 years to get away from all their bad press....and have been providing a sub-standard product for years......I imagine some get lucky and it works....but every "hand-on, in-person" experience I heard was a minor horror story.

 

Did you check for a cloged PCV? just another thought. About S&S, I lived not to far from there shop, and that place looked more like a scrap yard than a machine shop. I got a motor from them once and they put the wrong connecting rods (too long) in the block. when I went to turn the motor over (by hand first) , I could'nt turn it over more than a half a turn and the piston hit the head. good thing I checked first. but they where happy exchange, after they asked if I knew what I was doing. I laughed and said that I'm - ASE certified. Well I hope you don't have the same peoblem that I ran into. CYA-(cover your ***). ROD ON

 

It will probably be worth buying a couple new head gaskets and rear main seal and pull it all apart and check everything. It fact if I need to I have a pair of cylinder heads on my exsiting engine that I know are good and rebuilt correctly that I can use if need be.

 

Gee with all that trouble why not just go with a loco know it all shop doing the machine work. I've seen some really bad crap even done on the ford service blocks. Rods 4-oz off pistons 7oz off in weight. You need a gram scale check rod & piston weights to. If your old one only had 77,000 miles on it then I would do it..rings and cam bearing should be all you'll need. My crank is still std. size with pushing 300,00. The motor had 120,00 when, I had it bored 030 over and the shop say it didn't really need boring.
Well for the most part of 170,00 miles this had a cab over camper on the truck. Did the heads 11 yrs ago with a RV cam new bearing with new oil pump since I had the pan off.
Now #4 is starting to smoke and #8 is weak in psi. Now waiting on my son to put the new stroker motor together once his shoulder heals from surgery and it cools down in LV Nv. Then I'll drive over and we'll switch out the motors..my 2cents
orich.

 

Well mend RV Cam rod & crank bearing, Roll timing chain

 

A local machine shop did all the grinding on my 390 block and crank. If something goes wrong, I dont want to deal with it over the phone or Internet. They do a lot of engine work for the local racers, so I felt pretty good about them. Even got them to throw in a mild Comp cam after the bill was paid. 5 yrs later, all is good, and they are still in business.

 

Price was a factor, S&S was a lot cheaper than everyone else. Secondly time was an issue as well, I had a certain window I could install it. I didn't have 3 weeks to wait around for my old block to be rebuilt. Time is not an issue with most local machinests around here. Once they have your parts you are at there mercy and there convienience!

We looked that motor over really well. All the clearances are within in spec, all the bolts were torqued to spec. Verified it actually had a 390 crank (I have been snookered on that one before), verified it had 390 rods but actually had 428 CJ rods (same length). All the bolt holes were cleaned and chased. Rotates without any binding. Proper thrust bearing feel. New freeze plugs, new stainless valves, new pistons, Elgin Cam and Elgin branded oil pump. Seems like a decent rebuild. Should be ready to fire it up in a day or so. Let you know how it goes.

Keeping old block as a spare, never been overhauled!