Trozei's '69 F100 Build Thread

[trozei]

*** I'm kind of copy + pasting some of this from another website, so if you find I get mixed up in present/past tense in terms of grammar, that's probably why.

Welp, the time has come. The truck is a 1969 F100 with a 300 paired to a C4, of which I've already built up to handle some power. It's got the Flex-O-Matic springs and absolutely zero luxuries. Manual steering, manual brakes, no radio, no AC, no nothing you could ever want. And you know what? I love it for that. It was bought as a work truck, and work it does well. My distributor's vacuum spark advance and retard diaphragms are both broken, my gaskets and rear main seal are all leaking, my carburetor desperately needs a rebuild, my insurance is now up and thanks to emissions testing that I can't pass, I can't re-insure the truck. Obviously, this means tear it down. I've always wanted to restore a vehicle, so this is my time.

I'm 18 years old. I bought the truck when I was 16 in Puyallup, WA and drove it home to Langley, BC in second gear as third gear wouldn't get up off its lazy ass and function properly, winding away at 45mph and who-knows-what RPM. I didn't actually have a driver's license at the time. The truck has treated me well. To my surprise, despite its issues, it's never failed me and I can't thank it enough. I can't neglect it any longer though; I'd been holding off on repairs for this moment. I suppose when you take a truck that sat for 16 years in someone's backyard and then daily drive it for a couple years, you're going to run into some inevitable issues. It's time to address those and it's time to improve upon them.

I've rebuilt bikes, I've rebuilt motorcycles; it was only a matter of time until I got into rebuilding the big four wheelers. I'll be building the engine and restoring the chassis. I'll also be body swapping and repainting the truck. Nothing will be left untouched.

[trozei]

Anyway, on with the build. My friends decided it was too nice of a day out to help me pull my hood off, so I tackled it myself. This sure wins the pain-in-the-ass-of-the-year award of 2014. And I thought it was annoying doing it with a helping hand...



Always bag and tag your bolts. You'll thank yourself later.





Disconnected all the electrical and then removed the front clip. Boy those rad mounts were a major pain. For anyone else who may take on this task, read: To remove the front clip of a bumpside Ford truck, there are bolts in the circled locations that must be removed. Note that one bolt is inside the door jamb where the hinges are. Look for it through the oval hole. Another is inside the fender well, attaching the inner fender panel to the cab with a rubber insulator mount. The lower fender panel bolt will likely not want to come out easily. Get creative. As for the rad mounts, you need only remove the lower hockey puck. Grind whatever metal is there so that it is nothing more than a dowel pin. They are all either 9/16" or 1/2" bolts, except for the radiator support mounts - those are just a pain in the ass.





And out with the engine.

[trozei]

The rain cleared and I got a chance to clean my engine. She sure did need a re-seal.





Soaked in Easy-Off oven cleaner for 20 minutes.



Et voilà.



I had a nice little scare though. The engineering number on the block says C6AE, indicative of a 240, not a 300. I was very confused until I clarified everything later...

[trozei]

So, took the engine apart a little bit. The head was stuck on tight, even with the hoist pulling up on it. Took a while to get it off, but I managed. 75lb of weight savings right there. Race car status.



I might be reusing these pushrods so I wanted to label their locations for future use.



So, here's the scoop. The cylinder head is definitely a 240 head. I was a little disappointed to see this as it would mean my engine is a 240. But, looking at the pistons travelling up and down, I noticed the stroke looked a little long. Sure enough, my engine is a 300 with the 3.980 stroke. A 300 is just a stroked 300, exactly like a 390 is to a 360. There is no difference otherwise, which, also like the FE, makes it impossible to truly identify without measuring.



Now, the block is a 1966 AE block for a car, and cars only got the 240, but the engine tag says 1969 300. I know my truck is low miles and this engine also appears to be low miles. On rare occasions Ford would use car blocks on trucks and even blocks predating the vehicle because they maybe had leftover stock or who-knows-what, so my theory is this: the block was originally cast to be used in a car such as a Galaxy but wasn't actually used until 1969 when the manufacturer threw in 300 internals and put it in my F100. Why the 240 head, you ask? Someone along the line added that. It's an old hot rodder's trick to do this as it bumps your compression up half a point. Other than the combustion chamber size, the 240 and 300 head are identical. This is why I spent months looking for a 240 head. I now have two.

Either way, I'm in a much better mood now. I wanted a 300, I got a 300, and I now have a 240 head that will cost much less to have refinished at a machine shop.

I also did some measuring. My cylinders are all round to within under a thousandth and there's no taper, so that's of course a good thing.

[trozei]

I got my 240 connecting rods in. They're remanufactured but I checked the specs and none of them seem to have been bored out, which is perfect. They're going to be getting ARP studs.



You may be wondering why I have 240 rods and 302 pistons. The 240 rod is longer (6.795") than the 300 rod (6.210"). At the sacrifice of a little torque due to the rod giving a little less leverage on the crank, the longer rod allows for a smaller, lighter piston. The pistons I chose weigh something like 360g each. It also gives a better rod length to stroke ratio, which means less piston side loading and therefore less stress at high RPM. My camshaft's redline is 6,000rpm and you can bet that I plan to take it that high, but special preparations must be made when your crank stroke is 3.980". I could build the engine for higher RPM yet quite easily, but I want to keep at least a little bottom end power and overall reliability.

Here's a diagram I drew up of how it will all work together.



I also got some 1.94" oversized intake valves from SI. I took some comparison pictures. The small valve is a factory intake valve for a 300 from a junkyard head I pulled, and the one on the right is the SI valve. Chevy width in a Ford length.





When I get my exhaust valves and pistons in, it'll be a trip to the machine shop.

[trozei]

I inquired into my exhaust valves from SI. Turns out they decided to discontinue them! Would've been nice to have known that a long time ago. So I bought 1.600" small block Chevy valves. They're 0.101" longer, but maintain the 0.342" stem diameter of the Ford. Just gotta do some fiddling with pushrods and springs to make up for it. I don't have much choice without getting into the expensive realm of custom valves.



I showed the oversized intake valve comparison, so here's the same picture on the exhaust side of things. Not too much bigger, but it helps.



Perspective aside, you can see they're a bit taller.



They look sexy as hell together though!

[trozei]

And this is what I'm left with.



Popped the timing cover off. My cam gear is metal, not nylon fiber like I expected it to be. It does say FoMoCo on it and I seriously doubt this engine has ever had someone messing around with its internals. This is indicative to a heavy duty 300. Wouldn't that be a nice surprise to have the forged crank!



Pulled the camshaft out. For those who don't know, the procedure to remove the camshaft out of a Ford 300 is to pop off the timing cover, rotate the engine until the timing marks line up, remove the fuel pump, turn the engine upside down, remove the two 1/2" camshaft thrust plate bolts which will be behind two of the four holes in the camshaft gear, and then pull the cam out. It shouldn't be stuck in there. Just be careful to not smash the lobes into anything upon removal. Slow and steady.



I had the engine upside down, pulled the rod caps off, and then tapped on the studs with the wooden handle of a hammer and had my hand underneath to catch the piston and guide it out. It's always a good habit to lay everything out exactly how it was in the block.



And then the crank. I knew it would be heavy so for extra assurance I had my dad help me take it out to limit the chances of damaging anything. I put it on the bathroom scale. 70 pounds! Another surprise was the main cap bolts. They came out with a sucking noise as if there was a seal, and sure enough there was. Almost 50 years old and the bolts still have assembly lube on them. Amazing.



And then I was left with a bare block. I took it today to a machine shop to have it hot tanked.



I have a lot in store for this engine. Stay tuned to find out what happens.

[guhfluh]

It looks like you had the elusive fine tooth metal gears everyone talks about. I wonder why they went to coarse.

I've seen your build start somewhere else before...FTE? Looks great so far!

[ultraranger]

Nice attention to detail and cool projected plans for the truck/engine.

In reference to the forged crank for a 300; I believe the only 300's you would find a factory forged crank in would have to come from a mid-'60s F500 dump truck with the low compression heavy duty 300.

The casting number to look for on the forged steel 300 crank is C6TE-G.

[trozei]

It looks like you had the elusive fine tooth metal gears everyone talks about. I wonder why they went to coarse.

I've seen your bild start somewhere else before...FTE? Looks great so far!

That didn't even occur to me. I'd forgotten about the fine tooth gears. I guess that would be why I never noticed any gear noises from the engine. I have a Cloyes gear set in my toolbox awaiting installation. And yes, I'm a regular over on FTE so that's probably where you've seen my stuff before.

Nice attention to detail and cool projected plans for the truck/engine.

In reference to the forged crank for a 300; I believe the only 300's you would find a factory forged crank in would have to come from a mid-'60s F500 dump truck with the low compression heavy duty 300.

You are correct, but Ford was known to sometimes throw an HD engine with the batch of half ton trucks.

[motzingg]

ha i just did my hood by hand, on and off... the engine hoist is a good idea, why didn't i think of that?

[trozei]

Walked into the speed shop yesterday. "Where's my stuff????"
"Oh, um, actually we just got a huge Fel-Pro order in today. Your head gasket is in the pile."
"And where are the pistons?"
"No idea. I'll phone Probe tomorrow morning and find out."

Walked into the speed shop today. "Where's my stuff????"
"I was on hold with Probe for 20 minutes. They wouldn't pick up. I send an email though."
[other employee] "Actually there's a set of 302 pistons in the back waiting for pickup."

And bam. Here they are.

[trozei]

Update! Woo. So I got fed up with working the same hours as the machine shop was open, so I sent my dad down to go pick it up for me. It costed a whopping $30! Which was a happy surprise. The big name shop around town would charge $100.

I completely forgot how grey cast iron is. I'm so used to the brownish colour.

[trozei]

Picked this up today.

[trozei]

I got my custom camshaft in on Monday with a nice $85 UPS fee. I remember specifically asking Crower to use Fedex, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I've attached the cam card for anyone wondering.





Can you tell which brand I like? :-X04



And on New Years Eve, I picked up some cab stainless. I also have rear cab stainless on the way. If anyone has rear window stainless in good condition, I will buy it.