Hi Everybody, yesterday my Nephew bought a 1965 Ford Pickup. It’s a little rough around the edges, but I believe it will be a nice cruiser. According to the door tag, it was built with a 240 and a Warner T89A four speed transmission. We unloaded it and pressure washed it off yesterday and discovered the engine has been painted before, which leads me to believe it’s been out of the truck. I know Chevrolets have a pad with stamped letters indicating year, built factory, and what the engine was installed in. Does this stamping exist on a Ford engine? The carb appears to be original and looks like an Autolite 1100? I’m going to assume it has the wonderful? Load O Matic distributor? If this is the case, then we will need a distributor and proper carb, correct? I was thinking a Carter YF and distributor from an early 70’s 300. Thanks for all of your help!
Ford didn't make it so easy... Look for the "engineering number" cast on the block, and on the head, manifolds, etc. It will be something like C5AP-xxxxx-y. The first four characters tell you when the part was first used, and what the original application was. C=1960s, 5 = 5th year, A= full size car, P=powertrain. The next 5 digits are the basic number of the part, there is one number for engine block, another for cylinder head, another for transmission case, etc.Then there will a suffix, such as -A that will tell you which variety of 1965 full size car engine block design it is. the actual info about the engine was stamped on a metal tag that was bolted to the engine, usually under one of the bolts that holds the coil bracket to the engine. This tag is almost always missing. There is also a casting date on some parts, it might be in a circular pattern, or in a row, it will be like 5 B 17 which would translate 5=last digit of year, B = second month February, 17= 17th day of the month. These are often missing or hard to find or hard to read.
The block is identical to both 240 and 300. The 240 head has an "A" cast into it under the rocker cover near the gasket surface at one end, maybe both. The 240 head is actually the desirable one, as the chambers are a bit smaller, giving about a half point boost in CR. To determine whether it is still a 240 or swapped for a 300, the difference is in the stroke. Just use the time honored method of using a wire through the plug hole and rotating the engine. The 300 stroke is nearly 4 inches. Mine, a '65, did not have the Load O Matic distributor, but I couldn't get parts for it other than the regular consumables. The vacuum pod was locked up, and replacements for my particular model were unavailable. So, I bought a "Dragon-Fire" HEI unit. It's ugly, but it works and take a standard GM HEI module. Finding a workable single barrel carb is a crap shoot, and the offy or Clifford intake manifolds are very pricey. AussieSpeed has a really nice intake manifold that is even more expensive. Some have put an adapter on the stock log intake to run a 2300 series two barrel. Mixed results on that. I reckon it depends on how meticulous you are with fitting the adapter.
Thanks Mike and Jim! I like Fords and Chevies mostly equally, but oftentimes Chevrolet makes things so much easier. Mike, good idea, the first thing we are doing is to check engine compression, and after pulling the plugs, I’ll show Duncan (nephew) how to use a long zip tie and a breaker bar to determine stroke. Maybe helping him with his Olde Ford will motivate my ass to start on our 3100 Chevy swap job!
The 240 exhaust manifold is easy to split. This is from doing it 55 years ago. Cut off one port from one end of the manifold and two ports from the other end. Then braze/weld the cut offs together, cut a hole and add an outlet pipe/tube stub to them. Braze/weld caps to the ends of the center section of the manifold. The things I can't remember are which end got the single port or dual ports cut off and whether center section got moved to the front or rear of the head.
Well, the verdict is in. It’s a 240 with zero compression on 3 cylinders. The zip tie trick showed us that it’s a 240. That’s ok, we pulled the engine, and put it on a stand and tomorrow, Duncan will begin disassembly to determine what needs to be done to it. At this point, if we can get by with rings, bearings, and a valve job, it will likely stay a 240. If the crank is hurt, we will likely turn it into a 300. He would like to put an Offy intake on it, but with the cost of one, I would guess it will stay a one barrel for now. We did talk about using the late model split exhaust manifold and early 70’s distributor with a Carter YF carb. I mentioned an FE, but he wants a 390, and they are kinda rare and pricey around here. Thanks for all of the help, you all never disappoint me with help and advice!
I was surprised that the 240/300 never made it into the figure-8 stock cars. Most ran a 223 Ford or 235 Chevy. I did have the oddball 250 Ford in my Joe Friday '69 Fairlane. That was a good engine and saw service through 1981. Wiki article clip: 250[edit] The 250 cu in (4.1 L) inline-six engine was offered in 1969 in the Mustang, and 1970 in compact Ford cars (Maverick). The 250 was a stroked 200, made by increasing the stroke from 3.126 in (79 mm) to 3.91 in (99 mm). Output was 155 hp (116 kW) in the Mustang, and the 250 became the base engine in 1971. The Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch offered the 250 inline-six for the 1975–1980 model years, when it was replaced by the 200 inline-six. Power was re-evaluated at 98 hp (73 kW) for 1972 (because of power rating changes) and 88 hp (66 kW) the next year. This engine had seven main bearings, and can be identified by the five freeze (core) plugs on the side of the block. The block uses a low-mount starter and six bellhousing bolts, sharing its bellhousing pattern with the 302 and 351 Windsor V8s, late (1965–68) 289, early 4.6L V8, and the 240 and 300 inline-six. Production of the 250 ended in 1980.
I built a 300 for my daughters F100 pocket ported 240 head late fuel injected exhaust manifolds Offenhauser dual port comp 66-248-4 cam. It turned out to be one of the most surprising engines I have ever done My break in procedure amounts to 10 50 to 70 mph pulls in high gear to load the rings I live on a dirt road and had to go to pavement because it was spinning to tires on the dirt road @ 60.
If going with the stock carb and intake, I'd look for the HD truck exhaust manifold. It has a 2 1/2" outlet if you want to upgrade. The dual EFI units don't provide any heat to the bottom of the intake. They do work fine with a water heated aftermarket intake though.
When it comes to heat I like those air cleaners that have the temp flaps that pull exhaust heated air from around the manifolds to heat in incoming air in the winter and can be bypassed in the summer by plugging a vacuum hose.
I believe you can find a “good” used 300 engine for around $400. It may be cheaper and more productive to go to a salvage yard. Just a thought…. https://www.car-part.com/mobile/index.htm
The 240 is almost completely disassembled. It’s worn out, but repairable. The crankshaft will need to be turned, and rather than spending money on the 240 crankshaft, Duncan found a 300 rotating assembly he is going to look at. As soon as I know more, I’ll update you guys.
When considering the cost of the Offenhauser intake, consider how much driving will be done. We had a later 300 CID with the Holley single barrel. Swapping to the Offenhauser and a 400 CFM Carter AFB darn near doubled the mileage, not to mention the increased power when needed. We put almost 450,000 miles on the van. Paid for the carb swap many times over. The worst part of the conversion was the low profile of the van's doghouse, and having to fabricate an air cleaner. Jon
Jim, not yet. Duncan and his Buddy Ryan did most of the disassembly while I stayed inside and worked on a Harley. It was cold here yesterday. I will take a wire brush to the grease on the side of the block if I have time after work this afternoon and take a picture of what is there.
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