My tired old 352's heads are developing a horrible rattle.. some ******* rallied the truck with the exaust cut right past the manifolds, and now the top end rattles really bad. The sad part is the motor has less than 50k on it. Does anybody have any semi-easy fixes to the rattle, or would it be best to just swap in my 390 that has been waiting for it's day?

 

It all depends on what the rattle is.

If it's rockers, just swap them out.

If it's valve guides, it's time to redo the heads.

 

Swap it out or fix it -while it still runs- is my way of doing things.
YMMV?

"if it ain't broke don't fix it" Same as...
"wait 'til it's ruined to mess with it"

"new noises are bad, look into the cause, it may be easy to fix early on! :)"
-Alvin (lives to tinker tho)

With only 50k you might get away with a cheap(er) rebuild if you don't let it
go "too" dangged long? :)

-------------------------------------

Drove my 360FE to a friends and we pulled it and hauled it to the rebuilder's
bouncing around on tires in the bed of his pickup. LOL :)

It's in there now at almost 90k on the rebuild and still runs better, has more
power and gets better gas mileage than it ever did from new and I can go 6k
between Mobil1 15w-50 oil changes still. I didn't wait for it to "break". LOL :)

148k the first time.
252/252 Comp "Economy" Cam
Edelbrock chain and sprockets
valve seat inserts

If I knew then what I learned here, we would have only bored it .010" over
and used 352 pistons. :/
"FE blocks are rock hard compared to 350 CSB's" -engine borer
It was only worn .008" over!

Anyway, that's my boring boring story this morning. ;)

I've never over hauled a V8 or inline 6. I want to, but of course it's mostly
about taking the pieces to the machine shop tho. :/ Doesn't fit so good with
everything else I do myself. :/

Motorcycle and air cooled VW engine guy here.

Alvin in AZ '75 F150 360FE T18 special ordered it late Nov '74