The latest on the truck?

Well, it is still drivable, although I wouldn't recommend it. It runs and moves and can keep up with traffic; all that good stuff. However, I don't know if I mentioned it, but I was forced to buy a new car following the failure of this engine rebuild. So a lot of my time has been spent getting my new car looking nice so I can feel like I have a cool car post-High School (harhar, its a Honda Civic).

The good news: the truck runs pretty quiet now. I purchased new rocker arms and split ***** for the valve train and that took away all of the looseness and ticking that generated from the lack of oil upon start up and the first day of running.

All that said, the truck appeared to be running on four cylinders for the most part. The idle is rough and a couple of the spark plugs were soaked in fuel (I believe 3 and 4 cylinders). After fixing the valve train, I bought new plugs to install. The same problem. Just today actually, I bought a compression tester and ran a dry test. The numbers were as follows:

Cyl 1 -- 150
Cyl 2 -- 160
Cyl 3 -- 160
Cyl 4 -- 148
Cyl 5 -- 150
Cyl 6 -- 150

I'm going to do another dry compression test after I get it charged up with a battery charger. The only two numbers I am for sure on are three and four. Before three and four, I probably didn't catch the compression on exactly five and after four the battery was dying and the engine did not want to crank. So I will run another test and report back.

On a side note, is the charge gauge supposed to read battery charge or alternator output?

Prior to the compression test, just for ****s and giggles, I retarded the ignition timing a little bit and the truck actually ran significantly better. I know my timing is at least a little bit out.

 

was it ever determined why it had no oil after rebuilt? 148-160 is fine. ford tolerance is like 25% high to low, anyways you slice it 148-160 is within 10%

why it would not fire 2 cyliners....do simple tests like a timing light on each plug wire to rule out bad wires, bad cap, bad plugs.

 

Nothing was ever proven. It should have never, ever ran without oil. There is no excuse for that. My machinist and I seemed to think the most logical thing that could have happened was the high volume pump was designed just a little differently which placed the pick up screen too close to the bottom of the oil pan or too high. We never checked it before installation, so another failure of us novice's.

I think I may have solved many of my woes. I was about to do a wet compression test today when I noticed about half of the plugs were black. I believe the plugs are getting fouled out by too much fuel causing a misfire or two or three. I think my problem lies with fuel distribution, particularly the Edelbrock 500 I'm ATTEMPTING to run. Could it just be too big for someone so inexperienced to properly tune? I wish I had a smaller carb to try out for a day and see if that changes anything.

We ran it around yesterday pretty hard. Only ever managed to top her out around 90 on the free way, but she had a lot of pick up upon acceleration. Just ran out of gear. The friend I had with me swore the truck was moving pretty quick, but I just didn't feel it. Maybe I'm warped from feeling so dejected about this or something, but I still felt slow. On the way back, we kept looking around for some old school hot rod. Something was making a really lopey sound. Turns out, we blew out one of the couplers on the rear exhaust manifold to the y-pipe. Oh well. It couldn't sound worse than a 2.5 single outlet with a universal cat and a cherrybomb glasspack then nothing.

All the solutions I have now would cost me money. The funny thing about this build was costs kept rising and there was nothing I could do. The engine was apart and needed put back together so I had to open my pocketbook. Now I'm so far dug with it, selling it wouldn't gain me back the half of it. I just need to wait until I get some more money.

I'd like to swap a holley 390 in and see what difference that would make. Then I still have a slight tick to solve, and there is something rattling around in the bellhousing. The power steering was never reinstalling (is it a press on pulley? if so, the pulley is f'ed. if not, i am f'ed because i can't find a bolt).

 

well ps for that truck was my invention so do what I did - head to a yard and find a 82-85 I6 truck with PS. pay attention to the mounting bracket I used. IIRC the pump I got was a ford, not a saginaw (saginaw pump looks like a gm pump from a 70's v8 A/b/c body)