nuttin' fancy - 87 F250 460 mini-resto
 

I picked this truck up because I needed something immediately and it was dirt cheap ($500), I needed a tow rig and it had extremely low miles for its age. The clock shows 62K. The carfax neither confirms nor denies because the previous owners never reported mileage, but it scores a 63 on the autocheck score.

As the 3rd owner I was told by the 2nd owner that the original owner swore its odo is original and not rolled. Further evidence is a receipt in the glovebox for the upper radiator hose that was replaced at 40K miles in 1998, and the hose still has the "carquest" sticker on it in perfect shape. The only other reciepts in the glovebox was an alignment done at 34K miles done in '95. Im inclined to believe the mileage is accurate.


This is the day I got it:

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First thing to go was the stupid camper shell. Its a bit more respectable this way.

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The paint was oxidized pretty badly all over, and its been acid etched pretty badly:

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There was alot of moss and other good old "Oregon Green" growiing all over it:

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Its an early 87, last of the carburated 460's. FI would get a little better mileage, but it wouldnt be as fun to clean up and modify a little.

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Here I went ahead and stripped most of the extraneous smog equip.:

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The interior in this truck is damn near flawless and as close to an original after 24 years as Ive ever seen. It even has the AM only radio. The only thing non-factory is a dealer installed add on cruise control on the signal stalk.

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The paint was savable for the most part, here is a test section done:
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and a full body shot after the first once over. I plan to work on it a bit more once the weather warms up this spring. Jody the shop dog was telling me not to take the picture until after I straightened the bumper,but I got to that later:

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It drove like a new truck and had near perfect compression, so after getting it home and fixing the waterfall of oil coming from the oil filter adapter I thought I had fixed the worst of its issues. I took it for its first big voyage into town and was lucky to have made it home. Well the problem turns out that due to it sitting for long period and then being cold started alot it had an oil pressure problem and a rear main seal leak. I decided I would go ahead and pull the motor and give it a decent refresh, fix a few leaks, replace the bearings, fix some broken exhaust studs, finish the de-smog, clean and paint and put it all back together.

So, she needed to come out...

Prepped to pick:

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Just cleared the core support, Its a little nerve racking having over 700lbs that high in the air all by yourself.

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but out she came nevertheless:

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Got the bottom end apart and there was very little surprises except for the nice nick in one of the rod journals that obviously happened at the factory during assembly. It caused the #1 rod bearing to become scored. This motor has never been opened until now, the bearings were Ford stamped.

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Main bearings are definately worn, but crank looks great and mic's out fine. Im just going to hand polish the journals and go .001 undersize bearings.

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I prepped the block for a fresh coat of paint using professional strength oven cleaner overnight, followed by a mineral spirit rinse and wire brushing.

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and a fresh couple of coats of Ford Gray later:

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My "boss" watching over me making sure I do a good job:
(shee seems to have that "shouldnt you be working?" look in her eyes)

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OK so I assembled all the parts and supplies I needed to start re-assembly, but first I wanted to polish the crank journals. They mic'd fine and other than the one nick in #1 rod they were good enough that I didnt feel it needed machine work, I just wanted that little bit extra piece of mind to know that they wouldnt take out the bearings so fast. People tend to be afraid of this kind of thing thinking they will damage the crank so easily.



So this is how I polish a crank by hand

1. Clean Journal (brake cleaner works good, nice to have compressed air around too)

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2. Add a couple drops of clean motor oil.

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3. Wrap with a strip of crocus cloth

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4. wrap some nylon webbing around the crocus cloth, You want it evenly snug. Then just alternately pull the two ends of the webbing, making the crocus cloth rotate around the journal polishing it 360°. I do vary which direction I hold the ends of the webbing to distribute the pressure around a little as well. The trick is tight enough to grab the cloth, but no so tight it binds.

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5. Check progress occasionally and add more oil.

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6. I stopped at this point. Some "key" on the surface is ok. When you are done it should have a nice shine though, Doing this will ensure no bearing material is left embedded in the surface of the journal.

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So, once I did all 13 journals and cleaned the crank once again I prepped the block for its return. I was only doing the bottom end on this so I left the heads on and pistons in the bores. This makes getting the crank back in a little tricky but I have a few tricks for getting it done without dinking anything.



Block prepped with new bearings:

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I find at this point to ensure a good rebuild that its useful to sacrifice a virgin and spread the blood of the innocent all over the new bearings:

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(I couldnt find any virgins in Burnt Woods so I used Clevite brand prelube instead)


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I then got the crank in and started bolting everything down when I discovered that two of the bearings sent to me were mislabeled. I ordered .001 under and got two that were .010 under.

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The water pump was a mess but I mamanged to salvage it with quite a bit of wire brushing and got the front of the motor buttoned up.
This is where I stand on the project as of today. Im hoping to be back up and running before the weekend.

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Super work ! And I always like old school solutions. Sorry about the virgin thing, you would have gotten another 50k miles out of the bottom end ! :D

P.S. An old guy told me gender doesn't make any difference, only innocence.

Nice find for $500. Great pics of your engine pull and refresh.

Oh good lord. The replacement bearings came today. Of the 4 halves only 3 were .001! Yes, one of the boxes had one .001 half and one .010 half. I call Summit and...Their computers are down? "Call back in a couple hours, we might be able to do something about your order"

This is really beginning to piss me off.

Just a rant.. but this is the stuff that happens when to drop costs on labor english doesn't have to be anywhere in the group of languages spoken by the packers.. or it could be they just graduated from HS and can't read or comprehend decimals !

Well, not to sound racist at all but the "Made in Mexico" on the Federal Mogul bearing boxes might be a clue. I might have ordered something different in the first place but Summit had these in stock with "shipping today". hindsight...blah blah blah. I know.

The good thing is that Summit is going to take care of me again. They are overnighting ANOTHER replacement, and if I get lucky at least half of whats in the box will be correct :facedesk:
I did ask them to have the warehouse person take a look in the box and verify, but what do you think the chances are that my request will trickle down that far?

The sad thing is this kind of thing happens to me ALL the time. If there is a stack of computer monitors to the roof, and I pick one out of the stack, I have this knack for picking the defective one. Its my lot in life. My ex-wife used to call me the "bad luck shopper". I can cause a checkout line failure or trigger a checker shift change just by stepping in line. I know alot of people feel that way, but I can prove it and frequently do.

I still have things I can work on in the meantime, but the list is getting smaller and cant keep shoving "Install oil pan" to the bottom of the list forever.

Man you've got one solid truck there!!! Around here your before picture could be a show truck!:o:-X10

You really brought that paint back to life.

Good job so far. Keep up the good work!:-X22

Thanks, yeah Oregon has its share of harch elements that can be hard on vehicles, but unless they come from the coast they are usually rust free and interiors dont see alot of sun rot ;) The worst thing is the mold and moss. The stuff that grows on your paint will etch it and while you can get it shiney again, it has all these little surface imperfections.

I restore and detail for a living so I can usually spot a diamond in the rough pretty quick. I really do enjoy bringing them back from years of neglect or just non-use.

AAAAaaand...round 4!
Summit shipped this morning, but sent it ground! Due to arrive a week from yesterday. Today is one week from the day I fist ordered the bearings with 2 day shipping. Unacceptable.

I called and they assured me they were overnighting today, and Im supposd to get it tomorrow. Anyone wanna take odds on that?

nice job,keep them pictures coming!!

Anyone who would have taken money on me not getting my parts today, and them being the right bearings in the box (This would include me) would have lost that bet. Recieved 10 minutes ago: one box of correct size bearings.

I will take more pictures with todays progress. I hope to have the motor back in the bay today.

Cool! Glad to hear the correct bearings showed up!

well, I didnt quite manage to get the motor back in the truck today. I instead spent some time finishing up all the details that I had left to the last.


I got the last two bearing sets in and the rod caps torqued, then installed the oil pump and screen:

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This included finishing out the exhaust manifolds with pipe plugs in the air injection ports:

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Im keeping the EGR for now but it wont be hooked up. I also have a port available for another oil pressure gauge so I can keep a good eye on that for the future:

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Motor is at TDC #1 and Ive highlighted the timing marks for 10 and 20. should making timing it easy to read.

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and here she is in all her glory! ready to go back in at this point.

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I dont know about you guys but I always get a little unnerved byt having that much weight out one the end of my engine stand. When Im working on and as an aid for rotating it, I use my hoist to hold up the nose of the motor:

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Tomorrow I have a buddy coming out to lend a hand and together should be able to wrangle this heavy ******* back where it belongs!

Wish me luck!