I consider the 300 the "good" motor and the 302 the "bad" motor in that size range for these trucks, but I rolled one of my trucks with the 300 in it, and my other 300 kind of died on me at 160-170k. It was probably fixable, but I didn't know what I was doing. Looking back, it was probably something in the valve train. On the other hand, I've got a 302 in the '87 that leaks oil, has 202,000 miles on it(mostly hard miles), has the same filter in it that it did when we bought it, and barely cranks over once before it fires. The plug wires are dated 1988, and the cap and rotor are OE, and it has the pitted contacts to show for it. The plugs... I'm afraid to even try and pull one to look. It got retired from road duty when I got the '95 because of some frame rot behind the rear springs, so now it has 31x10.50's on it and does leisurely tasks like hauling suspension-crushing loads of firewood out of the woods, moving hay around on the farm, and plowing snow. Sometimes I think that truck should just keel over... cracked manifold, broken leaves, rotted hanger on the side I haven't replaced yet, plated frame over the axle, no rear brakes... then sometimes I think it'll never die... the front fuel tank started to work out of nowhere, after not functioning for us for the first several years we had it, the tranny almost died when the screen got plugged up ten or fifteen thousand miles ago, but now it runs like a champ, and the limited slip still works the way it should, and God only knows what kind of goop is in the differential after all these miles. It looks like the PO neglected maintenance on it for most of its duration there, especially with regard to the engine... you could have easily talked me into believing the air filter was the original factory unit when I opened up the air box to take a look... And my '95 has the 302, but that truck won't start without cranking it for ten to thirty seconds when the temperature is above 45 or so, or if the truck has been driven in the last several hours. If it is dead cold, it fires right up. Easiest the thing ever started was in January here, when I was getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning to go into town and move snow.

 

Awesome, man. Take some pictures of that truck for us will you?

I knew a man who had a 302 that had something like 300,000 miles on it. Still running.

 

i like my 300 cause like everyone else says they beat on it . my friend has a 94 f150 302 and he just got it rebuilt cause he was running on 6 cyl and another one on its way. now his truck for being bores .30 over doesnt seem to have the power it should now he is lookng at getting headers from a nite in a junkyard. i raced him in my 88' e150 with the 351 factory rebuilt in 1998 with only 19k on it when his truck was only running on 6 cyl he still be be but then again he was lighter and i was heaavy as hell. one day i want to drop the 351 into my truck cause it is a good motor yet.

 

It's the truck in my avatar, with the crossed speed limit signs.

This isn't going to be as off-topic as it looks, because I'll post pics of both the '87 302-auto and the '88 300-M5OD... we'll call it a practical analysis. We had the '87 before we got the '88, the '87 is still around, and the '88 has been traded and parted out. The '88 was the first truck that was legally mine, though there was an '87 I6 that was "mine" after my mother got this black truck... that I6 is the one I rolled in a sort of perfect storm of operator behavior, mechanical failure, bad timing, and poorly maintained road surface... but I still have it, and won't trade it or let it go to waste, I've been taking parts out of it, and am keeping the drive train intact.



But anyway, here's a couple from when I forgot to switch the summer water back to antifreeze for the winter when it had a radiator leak. I froze the water pump on the first dead cold night,tore the serpentine belt trying to crank it over, and broke the belt tensioner's stud off trying to change the belt. It was an adventure.





Here it is after I halfway ripped the bumper off pulling a few thousand pounds more hay than I probably should have been up a Jeep-trail of a driveway...


A couple of the end result of a yellow 4-door Neon deciding to pass me on the right while I was making a right hand turn...



Here it is when I liberated it from the truck cap(made for a late '90's Dodge) my mother had on it for farmers markets...


This one's just cool, I had it parked there while ice was melting around it...


Here it is with the 31's on it for the first time...


Here's one after I put the plow on it...



Assorted pictures of the truck at work, I've never taken any of it out in the woods with the 31's on it, and I don't have any pictures of the truck fully loaded with wood. Usually when I'm working hardest, I don't take time to take pictures, and I'm all by myself most of the time, so there's no one else to snap them, as you can tell by a lack of any bodies in the truck pictures...






To stay remotely on topic, here's my similar vintage 300-6 at work, it was very wet willow, and all uphill...