Straight-6 300 Engine Swop

[Kaajot]

Hi again-

So, to slow me down from my interior rebuild of the F-150, the engine finally decided to throw a rod. Still runs, but you can hear it. Last month I spent $1200 on getting a new tranny. The engine swop is actually hurting less initially than that -- got a new-to-me engine for $250, runs like a champ, 97K actual miles. Adding my "new" components off the old engine (power stearing pump, water pump, belt tensioner, plugs, dist cap, etc). Going to give it a paint job too on the mainifold head, etc. Should look good.

I bought a hoist (overkill, it's a 2 ton from harbor freight for $200) to hold the old engine (132K miles) so it can be rebuilt. I've been searching the Net for info on upgrades to the engine vs just a standard rebuild or master rebuild kit for the engine.

Any thoughts on the rebuild kit? This will be my first, but with it free and clear of the chasis, this is actually not too daunting at all to me and I'll have a spare engine for a really rainy day.

Also, found this on the F-150.net forums regarding trying to get more torque on the Straight-6 and it not being worth it due to the engine being best-tuned OEM per engineer specs. Any thoughts? Or kit type recommendations for rebuilt and/or upgrade?

http://www.fordf150.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=68077

Also, last 2 posts are dynamite and will make you chuckle in that thread.

Thanks!

-KJ

PS: Here's the new Straight-6. It's plugged in the right spots. We threw degreasers on her and the rain is now doing some work for us. Should take a little elbow grease in the morning to prep her for a clean install.

 

[Bruners4]

Here are a couple of TV episodes for you to take a look at.
http://www.powernationtv.com/episode/EP2014-03/part-1-building-an-old-skool-six
http://www.powernationtv.com/episode/EP2014-04/hopping-up-an-old-skool-six-part-2
They throw quite a bit of time and money at this one. There are dyno results at the end.

 

[Kaajot]

Here are a couple of TV episodes for you to take a look at.
http://www.powernationtv.com/episode/EP2014-03/part-1-building-an-old-skool-six
http://www.powernationtv.com/episode/EP2014-04/hopping-up-an-old-skool-six-part-2
They throw quite a bit of time and money at this one. There are dyno results at the end.

Thanks Bruners! I will look at them as soon as I'm caught up on paperwork. We spent most of this afternoon pulling apart my engine and disco'n things. There are two bolts left and she can come out. We've swopped most of the new components since my engine is super-clean and put them on the donor.

Turns out the donor was rebuilt by the same mechanic about 6 years ago at 40K-50K miles, and the engine has about 40K miles on it since the rebuild at a grand total of about 97K miles.

So total cost on this has added up to $250 engine, $500 labor, $200 in cleaners, gaskets/seals, bolts for those that had to be cut, etc, and a $200 4K lb 2-ton lift to hold the old engine for rebuild.

After that, a rebuild kit ($300-$400 guessing) and whatever else to make the engine cherry (doing paint to the manifolds, etc.)

It will be tempting to put the new engine into the beast, but it's so much work disco'n and reconnecting... I might just hold it in the air for a loooong time looking like a diamond once its rebuilt and painted up.

 

[Fellro]

If you plan on rebuilding the old engine, you will want an engine stand. You will not be able to continue to hold the motor up when you disassemble it, and trust me, the stand is money well spent. It mounts at the bell housing, and allows you to rotate the motor upside down for crank work. Also, it doesn't sound like you threw a rod, but rather spun a rod bearing.

There are somethings that can wake up a 300, just like there is for the V8's. They are no means optimized to their max by the factory. Bump up the compression a little, give it a little more cam, open up the heads, same story as applies to the other motors.

 

[O'Rattlecan]

I agree on the engine stand! They're about 25% of the cost of that cherry picker you bought.

I bought my stand & hoist for about $300, sold them both for $250. $50 to rent them for about 2 years. Not bad.

Ryan

 

[Kaajot]

I agree on the engine stand! They're about 25% of the cost of that cherry picker you bought.

I bought my stand & hoist for about $300, sold them both for $250. $50 to rent them for about 2 years. Not bad.

Ryan

Rats, I was worried someone would say that.

Still, now I can get the engine in/out with the lift. Yeah Harbor Freight has the stands on sale right now about $49 for the 1/2 ton plus 20% off that.

 

[dustybumpers]

Get a stand with 2 legs for a 300. the one leg down the middle makes them top heavy because they are so long.
When you are ready to "hop" it up, I can help point you in the right direction, been there, done that

 

[Kaajot]

Get a stand with 2 legs for a 300. the one leg down the middle makes them top heavy because they are so long.
When you are ready to "hop" it up, I can help point you in the right direction, been there, done that

Niiice pics!

So, we're checking with a guy that rebuilds racing engines local. He may have a 300 or a 302 (staying away from 351) already rebuilt with some extras willing to take a trade with some cash.

Turns out the 300 I bought as a donor was rebuilt with some extras in it already, so it has more torque than standard. I'll ask my mechanic friend, Les, what he did to it already when he rebuilt it for the original owner.

UPDATE:

So, we pulled the engine out. The new transmission that I had to pay shop price for ($700 plus $500 labor) was cracked on the bell housing. So now we're in extreme negotiations with the shop -- it had a 90 day warranty, we're less than 30 days in, and we pulled the transmission out so we could drive it to his door. Going to ask for the labor charge paid back to us that he was allowed to charge the company with the warranty on the tranny and put it in ourselves.

Sheesh.... I hate shops.

 

[Kaajot]

Update: In addition to the transmission bell casing being cracked with rust INSIDE the crack, the flex plate on the engine that mates up to the tranny was shattered. Not new shattered, but has been shattered for awhile shattered. The guy never looked at it, but it is what he put the transmission up to!

To make matters worse, I called him and sent him pictures. The $700 tranny with $500 labor had a 90 Day Warranty, but he quickly said he thought my guys broke the transmission (rust says otherwise on the inside of the cracked bell housing piece and remainder) and that his supplier likely won't allow him to warranty it.

I smell lawsuit. I just won one -- took 4 years, but I'm happy to make it hard on this guy because this was shady maintenance. If it was a fresh crack, yep. But there is galvanized rust in the cracks and the shattered flex plate was something he should have called me about and had me replace!

Pics to be uploaded shortly from my phone...

 

[Fellro]

Ya know, that would make a racket like the engine blew...

 

[Kaajot]

The crack in the flex plate?

Maybe. But my engine mechanic (this guy is like a Mensa for Mechanics, he placed #2 and #1 in NY State during High School and Technical College on the final exams and secured a lotta free tools then) also showed me today the piston that went bad due to some high oil pressure. Just one, but was noticeable enough to warrant pulling the engine out (to fix that).

The new engine has oversized pistons from its rebuild, so I'm excited about that.

I'm more concerned with this guy not warranting his overcharged work that had a 90 day warranty. I didn't pull his transmission out because I thought it went bad -- I had the engine pulled because it had some hard knocks going on.

 

[Big Jim F150]

That ROYALLY SUCKS to get taken like that, you pay to have something done like your transmission done, the mechanics didn't do a good job and reused parts that were junk, I've had something like that happen to me with my 78 F-150 Ranger Lariat when I was having ignition issues I had a mechanic check my distributor only to find a pinched wire, and after about three times of that , I had gotten pissed off and took my truck to the local Ford dealer and rebuilt my distributor and they had reused the old pickup wheel in my distributor, and it only lasted for two or three days and then it quit. So I had stopped back at the Ford dealer and talked with the Service Manager and the mechanic who had worked on my truck, and he had the mechanic come to my house to get my truck going and he had wiggled the wires going to the distributor, and he showed me what wires to wiggle, and I had told him to fix it after he had told me that I had a bad pickup wheel in my distributor, so I had told him to get me a new pickup wheel and put it and all I had to pay for was the part , and I wasn't charged labor for that job, and all I had to pay for was the part. So I had stopped by the Ford dealer after I had drove my truck for a while and I told the Service Manager and the mechanic who had worked on my truck that it was running well, and that he had done a good job on my truck and I had slipped the mechanic a $20 dollar bill to show my appreciation for going above and beyond the call of duty for coming check out my truck on his lunch hour.

 

[Kaajot]

That ROYALLY SUCKS to get taken like that, you pay to have something done like your transmission done, the mechanics didn't do a good job and reused parts that were junk, I've had something like that happen to me with my 78 F-150 Ranger Lariat when I was having ignition issues I had a mechanic check my distributor only to find a pinched wire, and after about three times of that , I had gotten pissed off and took my truck to the local Ford dealer and rebuilt my distributor and they had reused the old pickup wheel in my distributor, and it only lasted for two or three days and then it quit. So I had stopped back at the Ford dealer and talked with the Service Manager and the mechanic who had worked on my truck, and he had the mechanic come to my house to get my truck going and he had wiggled the wires going to the distributor, and he showed me what wires to wiggle, and I had told him to fix it after he had told me that I had a bad pickup wheel in my distributor, so I had told him to get me a new pickup wheel and put it and all I had to pay for was the part , and I wasn't charged labor for that job, and all I had to pay for was the part. So I had stopped by the Ford dealer after I had drove my truck for a while and I told the Service Manager and the mechanic who had worked on my truck that it was running well, and that he had done a good job on my truck and I had slipped the mechanic a $20 dollar bill to show my appreciation for going above and beyond the call of duty for coming check out my truck on his lunch hour.

I hear ya. I slipped a $20 to an advance auto guy for taking care of me with a serpentine and tension belt a couple months ago. Saved me a lot of time -- got that belt warrantied too because I bought it from them a year earlier.

The roughest part about this is I'm trying to transition from Active Duty to Civilian (may join Guard later) Air Force and this transmission/engine thing started 2 days after Separation and threw a huge monkey wrench into my entire timeline and plans. My severance pay will only take me so far, but so far I'm sitting at -$3K on the truck and probably another -$5K in time lost because truck has left my other plans on hold.

 

[Kaajot]

Pictorial of Engine Swop/Tranny Issues

Pictorial:

Here's the Bell Casing Issues and my "Junk Yard." I also included a picture of my 2014 Warrior Mustang #8 of 50. Hope ya don't mind -- I put a pineapple on the roof. ^_^

I'll add the Flex Plate next post.

 

[Kaajot]

Flex Plate

Here's the Flex Plate the Transmission Mechanic should have identified as bad when he was putting the new transmission on. I don't think that happened overnight. The third picture we popped out the cracked piece with one good hit from a hammer tap so I could get the rust/corrosion showing.

 

[Fellro]

That isn't a cracked bell, that is broken! Commonly happens from not having the converter fully seated into the pump when they are drawing the bell to the motor.

Cracked/broken flex plates can often sound like a bad rod bearing. It may have been also due to the aforementioned not seating the converter.

A little confused on how a piston can be damaged from high oil pressure? Most times they are simply splash lubed. There are a few engines that pressure lube the wrist pin, but not the piston.

 

[Kaajot]

That isn't a cracked bell, that is broken! Commonly happens from not having the converter fully seated into the pump when they are drawing the bell to the motor.

Cracked/broken flex plates can often sound like a bad rod bearing. It may have been also due to the aforementioned not seating the converter.

A little confused on how a piston can be damaged from high oil pressure? Most times they are simply splash lubed. There are a few engines that pressure lube the wrist pin, but not the piston.

Well, it was a crack that broke it. But you can see in the piece there's a difference between the "break" and where the crack was (a lot of rust on 2/3 to 4/5 of the crack prior to breaking). The shop I had install the tranny for $1200 doesn't want to replace it even though we were pulling the motor out because it was running so poorly.

Part of the problem was there was too much oil in the engine too, which caused some extra pressure. Also after we took the old one apart we found that my engine was burning oil, so it is good all of this is getting worked on.

I don't think it's necessary the piston, but one of the... rods? I saw it -- mechanic showed it to me from the bottom side of my old engine, it is wobbling and loose. Either way, the engine was rumbling fierce and choking/jolting at low RPMs and rev-down once below 20 mph.

Nomenclature is killing me here. Sorry if I'm confusing anything!

Also, on the back end of the transmission we had some of the bolt heads broken from too much force when they put the drive/tranny back in. Literally half of a couple of heads were missing.

 

[Fellro]

The rust is not from the transmission, aluminum doesn't have iron rust, the corrosion for aluminum is typically either a white powder, or a black staining.

Overfilling a motor will not build extra pressure, if anything it will cause the oil to foam which then lowers the pressure, not raise it.

The wobbling indicates a spun rod bearing, which yes is absolutely needed to be fixed before it gets even worse and totally trashes the crank and/or pitches a rod through the block.

 

[Kaajot]

The rust is not from the transmission, aluminum doesn't have iron rust, the corrosion for aluminum is typically either a white powder, or a black staining.

Overfilling a motor will not build extra pressure, if anything it will cause the oil to foam which then lowers the pressure, not raise it.

The wobbling indicates a spun rod bearing, which yes is absolutely needed to be fixed before it gets even worse and totally trashes the crank and/or pitches a rod through the block.

Right, Aluminum doesn't have iron rust, it has white powder or black staining. The aluminum looks like black staining to me. And I was told the white powder oxidation can absorb the oil/rust running through/over the crack from the engine block.

When I saw the break there was a fresh part and an "older" part. Unfortunately the mechanic that has a 90 day warranty on the transmission (we're on day 30 of it today) wants to weld the bell casing back together and call it a done deal. Suggestions?

I'm thinking of telling him I get to pick where he has it welded and have him take it to a good marine shop for the welding job. Also it says the warranty covers bills from maintenance on the job if needed. Going to bill him the same hours I was billed for the R^2 so I can pay my mechanics.

Yes, it's a a rod that was the problem on the original engine. You're right about that.

Not too sure I follow the oil analysis, but ok.

 

[dustybumpers]

Having welded bellhousings before with horrible results, I vote no.
I would get a core transmission from a rebuilder, or a junk yard, and have him switch everything over.