Replacing the 351W in the '68 Mustang Part 2

The past weekend was mostly taken up with working and preparing for our trip out of state that's coming up in a few days, but I did manage to sneak into the garage for a couple of hours. The first thing I did was install the timing chain cover I cleaned up last weekend.

I also installed the harmonic balancer and the timing pointer:

I rotated the crankshaft to Top Dead Center (TDC) on the #1 cylinder...

...and confirmed that the "zero" mark on the balancer aligns with the pointer:

The last thing to go on prior to install into the car is the oil pan, which requires turning the engine upside down again:

I installed studs at the four corners of the oil pan:

This really helps with alignment of the oil pan and the gaskets and holds the pan in place while the bolts at the sides are installed.

The final step is removal of the studs from the corners and replacement with zinc-plated bolts. I've always loved the custom look of unpainted fasteners. Painting the engine is the last step at the factory, so the fasteners on a stock engine are always painted.

Turned the engine the right way up and attached the balancer:

Moved the V8 onto a dolly and removed the engine stand:

Up....

Up some more....

And down:

You may have noticed that the old engine was red, and that the new engine is black apart from the parts which have been transferred, which are red. You may also have noticed that the red parts are not exactly in pristine condition - the oil pan is chipped all over the place for a start. Well here's the thing: I am hoping to send the car to paint in the not too distant future, and paint shops have a reputation for being a bit slap dash when it comes to keeping overspray out of the engine compartment. In other words, I'm planning to repaint the engine a bit further down the road. For now I quite like the black and red look, and best of all, this decision expediates the process of getting the '68 back on the road.

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!