Posting this as background info to my other thread about replacing my cracked exhaust manifolds with headers and how it all started...

It didnt start out as a project but is slowly turning into one... It happens...

One day about 3 years ago while we were building our house I decieded that I needed a pickup to run around in on the weekends, like trips to Home depot and picking up mulch and landscaping stuff for the yard and such. Anyways I started looking and found this 96 f150 that I have now. I will get some pic's up. It's a 1996 f150 302 A/T green and silver 4 x 4 with about 125000. The body is straight and clean and is in really good shape. I have been using mostly on the weekends for the past 3 years and have had no major issues with the truck, until this year that is....

Back a few months ago I started to notice that is was leaking oil did a little bit of looking around but not much. I thought it was coming from the back of the motor so I figured it was a leaky rear main seal. Had no plans to replace it figured I would just keep an eye on it. So sticker time comes around and I take it in to get a sticker and fail for emissions... One of them being the ugly P0411 error code. Now I know I never saw the CEL come on so i was like WTF?? Didn't take long for me to figure out that it's burnt out or someone pulled the bulb, as when you turn on the key the CEL is the only missing dummy light... So I take the truck up to a buddy who has a garage and ask him if he can check it out for me. He says sure just drop it off, a couple days later he calls me and says hey you know that you have a bad oil leak, I said I know it was leaking oil but didnt think it was that bad, he asks me to stop by to take a look. So I stop by one night after work and see the source of the oil leak... My oil pan has rotted out... At this point he says you got bigger issues that need attention more then just the P0411 code. One the oil pan two a cracked exhaust manifold... That was a bit of a bummer... He tells me he can't do the oil pan replacement as he doesnt have the time and its a big job. I tell him no problem I will come up with something.

I call a relative of mine who is a reitred mechanic who has his own garage and tell him about my issue. He says bring it down and he will give me a hand. So last week I brought it down to him and we decieded it would be best to pull the motor to replace the oil pan and while its out the cracked manifold.

So at this point I have my truck with the motor almost ready to come out - still have some stuff to do and will finish it up taking it out this weekend.

My plans at this point are to replace the headers with a pair of JBA shorty's a Magnaflow y pipe with high flow cats and while I'm at it I may as well replace the rest of the exhaust (not sure what i will get yet).
At the same time I have a radius arm bushing that needs to be replaced and the shocks could be replaced as well, so I will add them to the list. Thinking I may replace the rear main seal while I have the motor out and the radiator support has a few spots where it is rotted out so I may as well add that to the list... Anything else I should look at while I got the motor out?

I will get some pictures up and with my progress.

 

Check your freeze plugs and front main seal....also check the harmonic balancer and make sure it's not splitting apart.

 

Ive done all of that on my 94...pretty common stuff, if not annoying, rusting oil pans is unacceptable in my mind but they all seem to do it...in fact my replacement pan has begun to rust after five years. I just sanded it and repainted again a few weeks ago. It is a drag when it comes at once like that tho...

 

While you have that 302 out if you didn't get too great of mileage with it(at least 13MPG-15MPG) I'd say you could probably stick a 351 in it without hardly any extra effort and they have a lot more grunt for if you wanted to tow here and there and haul some more without much motor strain.

I think the firing order might be different depending on if you have a 302 HO or not(If so, same firing order as the 351), but aside from that I think it all bolts back up just about the same including on the tranny and probably on the exhaust too.

Biggest thing is I haven't seen many people get above 15mpg with a 351, but then again I haven't seen a lot people get over 15mpg with a 302 either.

 

The tranny will bolt up but the exhaust won't as the 351W was a wider block.

 

Definitely not going to swap motors not at this time anyway. Not too concerned with gas mileage as this isn't my daily driver a tank of gas last me 3 weeks at least, lol.

I'm pretty annoyed about the oil pan but what can ya do... Looks like I may need to replace the radiator support as well - it's got more rot than I care for, anyone suggest a good place to buy one? It's really strange as from the cab forward it has a lot more rust underneath than the rest of the truck. The floors , rockers bed everything elses is in really good condition, not sure what the previous owner used it for...