Replacing the 351W in the '68 Mustang Part 1

As I explained in my last post, the future power for the '68 Mustang will be provided by a remanufactured Ford 351W engine, more specifically a long block that I purchased from Powertrain Products of MD. A "long block" is an engine that comes with the camshaft, lifters, cylinder heads and rocker arms pre-installed. There is no oil pan, timing chain cover, intake manifold, valve covers etc., which is fine because I already have all of those parts. (Note: a "short block" would be an engine that has pistons and the crank installed, but does not have a camshaft or cylinder heads; this terminology should not be confused with the small block/big block expressions). 

The first thing out of the crate is a full gasket set which is a bonus I was not expecting....so great!

I need to get the "new" engine onto my stand, and I need to get the "old" one off the stand and into the packing crate for return shipment to the engine builder - I can save over $500 on the cost of the new engine by returning a "rebuildable core." Obviously a cracked block would not be rebuildable.

Time to play engine Tetrus:

Lift old engine off the stand with hoist...

...dump on dolly and remove balancer

Attach balancer to new engine...

...lift...

...and transfer to engine stand.

Lift old engine off dolly and into crate. 

All packed and ready for collection!

All of that took a few minutes.  I turned the new engine upside down...looks good:

The casting number on the block is D2AE-6015-BA3 which decodes as follows:

1st character = decade of production; D =1970s.

2nd character = year of production; 2 = 1972. 

3rd character =  model; A = generic Ford.

4th character = design office; E = engine.

6015 = engine block

BA3 = small block Windsor, 351 ci displacement, 2-bolt main caps.

I installed the new oil pump that came with the engine and my original oil pump shaft and pickup while the block was upside down. I also added the engine mounts. I then rotated the block on the stand and started cleaning up the parts I will install before I transfer the motor to the engine bay. First up was the timing chain cover which looks like the photo below after the gasket residue has been removed and the crank seal changed:

That was all I had time to accomplish before Monday morning rolled back around, but a couple of days later a big truck showed up to collect the "old" 1969 351 Windsor which I've owned since 2011 and is now just a "rebuildable core". To be perfectly honest, the engine was never "right," but I did have some fun with it:

Day of purchase/collection, 7.31.2011. You can just see my friend Wayne's legs and the tailgate of his Toyota pickup in the background. I still have the valve covers, the timing chain cover and the oil pan.

Martinez, CA, 2011

Dropping off the engine block at Stirtz Machine, 12.28.2012. It was gone for over a year. My car can be seen in the background this time, and there is an Easter Egg in there somewhere.

Oakland, CA, 2012

My good friend and BAMA member Chuck helped me put the engine back together while Samuel Sheep and myself were living in Emeryville. I had a single-width garage at the time so space was at a premium. The heads were rebuilt by another mate from BAMA.

Emeryville, CA, 2014

Selected car show appearances:

Hayward Airport 2022, Hayward, CA

Hayward Airport 2022, Hayward, CA

Ponies and Snakes 2023, Danville, CA

Goodguys Mustang 60th Anniversary 2024, Pleasanton, CA

The last photo...

Mailbox Again

I installed our mailbox back in March 2023. It came out about six (6) inches lower than I intended, but otherwise it was super smart:

The timber post was set in a MASSIVE concrete cylinder. I said at the time that I wanted the mailbox to win if it came into contact with a vehicle. About six months later, the clash was called a draw. The post was destroyed, the four bolts which held the mailbox to the post were sheared off and the box ended up fifteen feet away in the driveway:

The car took some serious damage too. The front spoiler and grille were destroyed, the fender and hood were dented, the headlight array needs replacement and the passenger tie rod and/or ball joint or maybe the suspension was broken. I'll take that.

I put up a temporary mailbox the next day. This one was neither secure nor plumb:

A bit later I cut off the above-ground section of the post which took a surprising amount of effort and several cutting discs:

And that was as far as I got for more than a year. Although I had a replacement mailbox and post in my garage for all that time, I just could not quite get around to installing them. Until the day before independence day and I was off work and at a loose end. It helped that the weather was a very pleasant 65F/17C and, even better, Samuel Sheep was on hand to help.

We started by digging a hole next to the existing concrete, which will be staying where it is. We had one guy jackhammering, followed by one guy shoveling loose dirt into the wheelbarrow. This means that if anyone observes us there will always be one guy working and one guy watching; this is standard union operating procedure in the construction industry in the USA. If you have a three person crew, two of them have to watch, and if you have four guys, three must watch, etc. On the larger crews it is customary for observers to form a circle around the worker.

The hole has a depth of twenty-four (24) inches and a diameter of less than a foot, so it is considerably smaller than last time.  We set a 4" x 4" redwood post in the hole and secured it with some bracing. This was much easier to do with two people. 

We mixed up two full bags and one open bag of concrete in the wheelbarrow and poured it into the abyss. It wasn't worth getting the concrete mixer out for a small job like this. 

We took a quick tea break, and then we came back out and filled in the rest of the crater with dirt and replanted the grass we had to temporarily remove:

The next day I was on my own. I removed the bracing, marked the post at 42 inches above grade, and cut off the excess with a circular saw. 

After that I installed the steel sleeve over the post and secured the mailbox. At the time of writing it is has survived over a week of exposure to traffic.

Reviving the 351 Windsor V8 Part 2

It's been a few weeks since there was a progress report on the Mustang engine, and there is a good reason. About three weeks ago (in real time) I popped down to the garage with some newly acquired tools and tapped a 1/4 inch NPT thread into both of the "unplugged" oil galleries.

Stainless threaded plugs were installed and tightened all the way up to 11.

Which gives this:

The next step could have been re-installation of the oil pan, oil pump and so on, and check the oil pressure. Instead I decided to pull one of the main caps and check for wear. What I found was well beyond excessive wear: 

The bearings at the rod caps were not any better. I pulled a few of the rocker arms and here I discovered that some of my push rods have become shorter than others:

This is collectively awful news since it indicates that a full rebuild will be necessary. Not only that, but there is an excellent chance that the block will need machine work; at the very least it needs to go back to the machine shop to be checked over and the crank shaft will have to be rebalanced.

As I mentioned at the start, that was three weeks ago. Since then I've been trying to figure out how much and how long it will take to rebuild the engine. This is the equation I came up with:

A + B + C + D = CE

Where:    A = cost of machine work

                B = cost of replacement parts (pistons, cam, lifters, push rods etc. etc.)

                C = at least six months at the machine shop

                D = hours/days/weeks of frustration while wielding a torque wrench 

and

                CE = a crate engine.

 

If you're not already familiar, a crate engine is an engine that is delivered in a crate. Exactly like the one below in fact:

Stay tuned to find out just what is inside the crate!

Ponies and Snakes 2025

This Sunday was the latest edition of Ponies and Snakes, the Bay Area Mustang Association's annual car show. I didn't take as many photos this year as I usually do:

Reviving the 351 Windsor V8 Part 1

If you can remember back to this post, you'll know that I have a serious problem with the 351 Windsor engine in the Mustang: namely no oil pressure whatsoever and fine metal particles in the oil pan and filter. I actually started preparing to pull the engine at the end of last year, and I only stopped because I decided to concentrate on the F250.  This is what I came back to:

I previously drained the oil and the coolant, and pulled the valve covers and the air cleaner. Next to go was the intake manifold and carburetor:

After that I had Amy Sheep help me remove the hood. It has to go eventually, and it will make the rest of the preparations much easier. I loved working on the F250 because there was SO MUCH SPACE around the engine, and I can get under the truck without needing to jack it up. The Mustang is a tight fit; it doesn't help that I'm using an engine from 1969 that wasn't designed to fit into the 1968 engine bay. 

Pulled the radiator, fan, alternator, starter and the exhaust/headers and disconnected all the remaining electrical connections to the block.:

There is one header bolt that is extremely difficult to get at:

I have a unique wrench in my toolbox that I made some years ago when the headers were originally installed:

I'm a bit disappointed by how dull the headers have become. I may have them powder coated in the future.

The transmission was next to go:

Time to attach the engine balancer:

Going once...

Going twice...

Gone!

This time I pulled the engine entirely on my own! And I'm establishing a tradition of leaving the freshly pulled motor on the dolly for twenty minutes while I have a cup of tea! After that I took off the bell housing, clutch and flywheel and mounted the stand plate.

Engine on stand

Turned upside down to drain remaining coolant, and removed the oil pan:

There were a bunch more small metal pieces in the oil pan:

I had a problem with one of the header bolts at the rear of the passenger side a while back; the soot all over the block is the result of an exhaust leak in this area. Some of the header bolt holes will need to be re-tapped or sleeved before the rebuild.

Pulled the water pump, harmonic balancer and the timing chain cover:

At this point I reinstalled the crank bolt and used a 15/16" socket on a breaker bar to turn the crank to TDC, then I pulled the timing chain which exposed this:

What this shows is that while the threaded oil galley plug at the top right remains intact, the two push-in plugs at the left side are missing. Oops! The absence of one plug would the enough to kill the oil pressure, never mind two. Pending further investigation, it seems likely that the plugs have been dislodged and "ground up" by the engine....

A well-known Ford small block modification is to replace both push-in plugs with threaded versions, as shown in the photo below which I found online. Obviously, this is the modification I will be making next.

To be continued....