Big Red 69

[shizal]

look'n good...

[TNIceWolf]

Didn't get a lot done the past few days but did get the distributor in and the initial timing set. I am going to have to sort out a few small issues as I go. Mainly adaptions for the aftermarket parts and such. Fittings....barbs...nipples...plug caps..etc..etc. Can't seem to find the distributor hold down clamp for some reason. Pretty sure I cleaned and painted it but darned if I can find it now. Oh well. It will show itself eventually!!! Am hoping it can all be together by Easter and I can drive it to work the next week to evaluate the changes. Wonder if the fuel mileage will improve or get worse?

[TNIceWolf]

Yippee!!!!!!!!!!1
I finally got all the issues solved tonight after work and I now have a nicely chuckling FE on my hands that still needs some work but can pull double duty if need be! I am so happy!!!!!!

[FreakysFords]

Congrats!!!

[JWW]

That truck is coming along great! Good to see a fellow Greenevillian on here.

[TNIceWolf]

Thank you FreakysFords and JWW.

JWW you will have to send me a pic of yer ride so I will know who to wave at...

OK I guess its time for the test drive report.

As I said I got the old girl purring after dark last Thursday night. She ran smooth after a very small timing bump..... darn carb worked great just out of the box. So I let her run through a heat cycle a couple of times. Then I closed the hood and came in to post that progress. The next night.... Friday of that week....I came home all excited about doing a test drive.
The first thing I needed to do was unload the bed and cab of a years worth of junk that gets thrown in handy spaces. So I got all that done with Miss Yvonnes help. To get it done I had to start it and back out into the street...do a three point turn....and back into the driveway. I was grinning my fool head off at the big improvement that I saw in the engine. Then I made sure I had all the proper paperwork updated and such and headed off for a roughly twenty miles test drive.

First I went from here to the gas station around the corner and put in enough fuel for the test drive and a couple of days worth of driving time.Then I settled back and put her through a well planned series of roads to determine how under low speed.....highway speed...... and just plain old hilly country roads performance it dealt with well.
And I have to say that I was seriously impressed with the much maligned performance of a 360 in almost stock form hitting on all cylinders. It just works well in my truck.

Unfortunately about five miles or so from home I began hearing the sure noises of a rod knocking.I didnt ever get over 50 mph on the drive for more than about an eighth of a mile at a time and drove it sensible. So I nursed it home with the light knock. Then checked it out with the stethescope. YEP....sho nuff...not one but three actually in various stages. So now I guess I get to go in and fix the bearings. I am very unsure of their shape at the moment but I am guessing they are fairly bad. Maybe I will get lucky and just the new bearings and oil pump will help it some. Darned thing is turning into a staged build on me...That's good........I hope... Ah...who knows...

[FreakysFords]

You'll get it! Might as well have a nice bottom end to match that top end!

Might even be worth looking into a 390 rotating assembly for a tad more fuel mileage.

Frank

[TNIceWolf]

Thanks for the positive reinforcement Freakys Fords. You are absolutely right. I will get it eventually. The 390 rotating mass has been much debated by the project crew since we first pulled the replacement heads from the donor vehicle some while back. I am still leaning toward keeping that part a 360, but the way this project is going the 390 could become a more cost effective replacement very easily.

Now here is the mystery Don and I uncovered yesterday afternoon. I had to work overtime and came home feeling like death warmed over for the most part and didn't really feel like doing much of anything. Then Don and Jamey showed up and shortly after Jamey had to leave for a while to run an errand.
Don had not been around when I got the old girl running nor was he around for the test drive but he had been told about the results and had even heard the engine running with the knock a couple of days after the test drive. He seemed somewhat skeptical but willing to help sort the issue out. Even went out and spent his own money on a bottle of Lucas engine treatment . I wasnt too keen on using it so he somehow talked me into firing the thing up just so he could get a first hand feel for the situation. I wasn't so keen on that idea either. Running an engine with a knock is just a plain bad idea to me. On the other hand Don has been a decades long buddy and fellow car nut. He has also been my main source of help so far on this project so I figured....why not?

Thats when the mystery began. I opened the door while Don opened the hood and reached in and turned the key.It fired right up then died. So I stuck my right foot in and held the gas pedal down and pulled the choke fully out and released the gas pedal. Turned the key again and she fired right up again and ran. I worked the choke down to half pull and finally to full in in just a matter of seconds and it was idling on its own. so I walked over to the engine compartment to see Don with a sort of funny look on his face. About that time it dawned on my dulled senses that there was no knock! Darned thing was running smooth as silk. Don listens to it run a few seconds.....scratches his head and says....grab me a half inch wrench and a screwdriver. I grabbed the tools and we loosened the distributor and gave it a couple of more light bumps of advance and he fiddled slightly with the idle and mix screws and got the throttle to burp a little better and we even got to hear the secondaries working correctly a couple of times. We spent a total of about twenty minuites listening to the engine run and fiddling with it and yakking back and forth when one of us reached in and burped the throttle and as soon as it returned to idle.....we began to hear the knock develop. We listened to it deepen for a few seconds then I reached in and shut her down.

At this point I am getting a more than a little annoyed and Don is working his brain to a frenzy trying to get a handle on what is really going on here. And like usual we are both a little intense when we bounce theories off each other in such situations. So we decided to just have a couple of cold ones and just sit down and talk instead of snap at each other.

So here is where I stand at the moment.

One thing I noticed during this was that the time that passed before the knock began almost exactly duplicated the running time on the test drive. It virtually repeated the problem just sitting there running. So there is a problem but what?

Don wants to try the treatment anyway. And he raises some good points. Don actually has a good background in mechanics . His points are this.

Why tear into it just for a short run to Bucks garage ?
Why not just try the Lucas and see what happens? Besides...what could it hurt?

OK.....Here is what I am thinking.....

I would very much like to avoid doing the teardown at the moment for just the same reason as Don.
But my military training in mechanics and my OCD are yelling that going ahead and doing it is the essential thing to do to save any more damage to the engine. I would rather know for sure just what the problem is than just guess.

So thats where I sit at the moment. I may break down and just try the "snake oil " and take a chance on it possibly swelling the new valve stem seals in the heads. I will have to buy a new gasket set for the full rebuild anyway and I actually have the tools and skill to replace the seals at that time...no real big deal to me.

If I do try the Lucas I might go ahead and make a before during and after video of the attempt. It might be pretty interesting to see what happens.

Anyone with opinions or comments?

[FreakysFords]

Dumb question here, as I should just read up and see (being lazy), but do you have an aftermarket oil pressure gauge on this beast?

I'd be MOST interested in seeing the results of reading oil pressure from cold start to first sign of the condition (no extra running).

I wouldn't rely on the stock gauge for this. If you don't already have an aftermarket on it, you could just grab an auto parts blister pack unit, unscrew the stock sender from the oil filter housing and screw in the aftermarket and lay it on the inner fender (zip tie or whatever). I actually have a 2.5" sunpro unit just for such tests.

At any rate, in this case, snake oil is snake oil. It might lessen the noise, but it's not going to fix the problem, only mask it.

Find out what your oil pressure is doing and go from there.. .. .. .. ..

This is assuming that your oil passages are working well and you're not pooling oil in the valve covers. You could check this too, easy enough. I've seen more than my share of head work, where such work allowed loose grime to collect in the block's passages. This wouldn't be a huge issue to correct.

Either way, find out what your oil is doing first, THEN you can get a good idea.

Frank

[TNIceWolf]

Freakys Fords

Your line of thinking follows my own in my discussion with my buddy. I know this engine. And it has a history of suspected but unverified by the warning lamp of low or sometimes no oil pressure.
I did purchase an inexpensive trio set of gauges for the rebuild. I actually want this thing to run a secondary independant gauge system when I get the F-600 panel installed. And like you I am seriously considering a temporary plug and play here. My point the whole time with my buddy was this.......you saw the same crud buildup I did in the top end......yes...we cleaned the valley area with a shop vac and scraper and got it down clean..............but not the oil pan..........and thats where there is a bigger mess to clean after 40 years of service.

[cbfomoco]

What brand filter are you running? If it is a fram put something else on it as well. Fram is pretty bad about keeping a motor from having not having any oil preasure. After working in a parts store for 7 years I cringe when people buy fram. I also see more come back as a defect too.

[TNIceWolf]

cbfomoco

I use a Motorcraft FL-1A filter on the old girl. The previous owner wasnt quite so picky. I have run across the problem of a filter not doing it's job on a friends old truck. It wasn't pretty. From then on I was always brand specific for the most part.

[basketcase0302]

TnIceWolf,

I'm with Frank on this one, would be nice to see the oil pressure. The symptons you describe was exactly what my FE 360 was doing the last year before I pulled it out of the truck.
And the oil pressure whan it started knocking was about 5-7 PSI at idle!
Clogged oil pump pickup in the pan maybe?

[TNIceWolf]

Basketcase

I still dont have the temporary gauge set up yet but I do have some new possibly useful info.
I got a little persnickity this week and decided to drive the old beast to work and back for the week. Some of the results are as follows.

I definately have some blow by issues.
What was once a knock it now seems is a pecking ( deeply ) lifter? That particular noise is constant from start to warm.
The gas mileage has oddly improved quite a bit.
It is definately showing a low or no oil pressure light at idle.
I am for sure replacing that lower radiator hose. Should have from the start.

I am pretty much in agreement on the clogged pickup or faulty oil pump.

I managed to snag a three day weekend this week . Spent the day yesterday doing the bulk of the lawn and garden chores around here and am planning on addressing some water line leaks today. So maybe tomorrow I can get out early and get the oil pan dropped and do some poking around in the lower end and see what I find. Good news is that I have parts on hand.

[TNIceWolf]

Ok.........here is the news as of late.

Yesterday was Miss Yvonnes birthday.........and as much as I love a bump I wasnt really ready to wear one upside my head for not spending the day with her.
She did allow me however a few minuites of wrench time and diagnosis. So I changed the oil and filter yet again using what I had on hand. Meaning a blend of 3 quarts 15/40 and 2 quarts of 20/50 and a new filter. The old oil came out smelling and thinned out looking from gasoline. ( am pretty sure it is flushed out now)
That didnt cure the knock or low oil light.
I drove it to work again today......but began to notice that it had a slight lag in it when the knock or noise was apparent.
So I sat down when I came home then had to run out to the store........but before I did I made a slight.........less than 1/2 turn on the idle screw for the carb........guess what .....no more lag or noise.
So I ran it over the same test road again.....no noise and improved performance.............but
I am still getting a low oil warning light at idle.
Then I came home and Miss Yvonne and I went for about an additional 30 to 40 mile ride. And it went smooth! Now have no knock.....but think mebbe a faulty sensor . Not sure but we will see by friday..