I am now in the process of stripping down my 360 (out of my '76 F100 4WD) and it's been a bit of a mess.

This engine is FILTHY. I've only had the rig since January so I've never known it to be in any better state than the one I got it in.

Oil and grime was caked on the block like cake frosting. Seriously.

Here are a few shots of the innards after I popped the intake manifold:





This crud is everywhere.

Moving on, I took the heads off, hoping for better underneath:



Just a few passes with a scraper yielded a nice chuck of crap:



Sweet, right?

I had been steadily growing more worried as I go deeper into the bowels of this thing. Rolling it on the stand I went after the sump pan. The bolts had to be located by feel as there was so much gooey crud the bolt heads were hidden in it. Gottem off, pryed off the pan, maneuvered it around the sump, flipped the pan over and gasped. It was filled with something evil- plastic chunks, metal shards, and clumps of hard rubber. The sump screen was clogged with the stuff, I took this pic as I just started cleaning it out:



Great! I collected the majority of it, blasted it with brake cleaner, and got a decent look:



It is a yellowish plastic. Most of the pieces are square'ish (not round), the metal shavings are pretty thin gage. The rubber is hard hard. There is a lot of it, a heaping teaspoon of plastic:



Any guesses as to what this was?

Any suggestions as to what the heck to look into next?

 

Valve stem seals and parts of the timing gears?

 

X2 on the timing gear and valve stem seals. I'm all too familiar with this stuff.

 

You guys took the words right out of my mouth. Now would be the time to replace the timing set.

To clear up some terminology, the part you refer to as the "sump", which was plugged with plastic, is called the oil pickup. The sump is the deep part of the oil pan, hence the terms front sump and rear sump pan. Being a 4x4 yours is a rear sump.

The engine looks typlcal of high mileage and a less than stellar oil change program. Honestly I wouldn't personally put it back without a full rebuild. Has it ever been rebuilt? You're so far into it why stop short? You'll have a fresh engine that's ready for lot's more miles and you can set it up to your liking. That's assuming that you actually want some power out of it. Turn it into a 390 and have some fun.

FYI, if you're not sure if it's been rebuilt before clean the top of a piston real well and look for a number stamped on it. If you find something like .030 it indicates the cylinders have been overbored that much.

 

Good words. Not only am I not sure if it's been rebuilt (I've only had it for 5 months and the kid I got it from didn't know squat about it) I'm also a rookie at this. I've never broken a motor of any sort down before.

I definitely plan on doing as much as I feel comfortable with. So far so good I think. The cam and crank look good.

Short of pulling the timing, crank, and pistons I'm not sure what's left?

 

Since I'm new at this: where should I look to see for damage of valve stem seals? How about the timing gear damage?

Oh yeah, as I think about it I realized that I do still need to pull the main pulley and timing gear cover.

 

Have PATIENCE!!, Things like that can REALLY be a nuisanse. i feel for ya. Hope it all works out

 

No kidding! Normally I am anything but patient, however, I caught a bit of a break here. I am a school teacher and this is going to be my summer project. It'll be slow as I'm getting married in 3 weeks and then heading to Italy for a few weeks. But, I hope to have this stripped and ready for rebuild when I leave.

 

Getting Married AND a school teacher, you should have the patience of a snail. HA HA HA HA
Good Luck and Congratulations, and I wish you a safe trip

 

My patience, it's often more of a slow defeat. Did I forget to mention I also have a 4 year old son about to start kindergarten, a son going into 2nd grade, a daughter graduating high school, and another daughter finishing her freshman year of college?

I used to be pretty intense and a bit crazy but those days are long gone now it seems. Probably for the best.

 

Boy do we have some things in common. A 16 turning HS Senior. A 9 year old starting CHEERLEADING, A 2yr old with a 13 year old mentality, and a (those are all girls) and Finally my son who is 3 months, and of course right now he just goes with the flow. HA HA HA.
But you are deeper in the game than I am.
Yep they sure do know how to put hte reigns on a fellow. ALL worth it in the end

 

The valve stem seals are around the valve stems, inside of the valve springs. The seals get old, turn hard and break up. To replace them you need to remove the valve spring retainers. While this isn't a hard job, it requires some specialized tools. Unless you have these you would probably be better off taking the heads to a machine shop and have them do a valve job, this is grinding the valves and seats to make sure they seal properly. The stem seals get replaced as part of the job.
To check the timing gears you will need to pull the harmonic balancer (front pulley) and remove the timing chain cover. The cam gear (the bigger gear on top) has teeth that are made from nylon and over time will degrade and finally strip. Either this has already happened and the timing set has been replaced but they didn't drop the pan and clean out the debris or it's about to happen. Now would be the ideal time to do it, use a gearset that has an all metal cam gear, not the nylon gear.