Hey guys, New guy here and I thought I would do***ent my engine rebuild on here. A bit of history on the car, its a 62 Ford Fairlane 500 that I bought 4 years ago from my dads buddy. The car had been sitting for 30 years and was used intermittantly during that time to run a sawmill (it had a bare steel rim on the drivers rear which ran a belt to a buzz saw, he had a stick he would jam between the seat and gas pedal for throttle control!) When I got the car it burned oil but was a strong runner so I did the valve stem seals which didnt help so I ***umed that some of the rings were just gummed up from sitting. I drove it hoping it would free itself since it only had 73,000 miles on it. Flash forward 4 years and 12,000 miles and the oil burning hasn't slowed, on a roadtrip this summer I drove 500 miles and burnt 2 gallons of oil so I decided its time for a rebuild. The strange thing about this engine is that although it burned oil bad it only really smoked when cold and never fouled a plug.
So the story starts 3 weeks ago when I planned to go pull the engine, the weather was beautiful on the friday but the saturday when I went to go yank the engine this is what I awoke to Being the hearty Canadian I am I was undaunted with this bit of snow. When I arrived at the grandparents farm where I store my cars I saw I had a bit of digging to do. Two of my other cars nested away for the winter After putting in a battery the old Fairlane reluctantly fired up
After a bunch of digging and tugging at it with the truck I managed to free it and get it up the icy slope to the garage In the garage where she can thaw out a bit The old engine, which is what I had thought to be the original 221 V8 Doing things by the book on this rebuild
Heres a neat photo the previous owner included, its the car back in the early 70's in its former glory Draining the coolant Marked the hood hinges to keep the alignment After a bit of wrestling I managed to get the hood off and was ready to get this engine outta there
So I've been busy and thought now that I have some time I should continue the story. The original leaky rad thats covered in bugs from summer road trips Crawling underneith to get take out the started and fight with the exhaust manifold nuts. Everything is convienently coated in oil so I didn't have to deal with many seized fastners. Success! after 3 hours (1 of those fighting with exhaust nuts which suprisingly didn't twist off) the engine is out and ready to be brought home and torn down. A very empty looking engine bay, before the engine goes back in she definately needs a good washing and a splash of paint.
Got er home and on the engine stand ready for teardown. After years of oilburning the whole engine is pretty gunked up Once I pulled the head off I was in for a real suprise, since I got the car I was told that it was the original 221, the engine had never been pulled so I had no reason to believe otherwise. The bores looked big for the 3.5" they were supposed to be, I whipped out the old calipers and hot damn if I didn't have myself a 260! After doing some reasearch I found that the 260 was an optional engine to the 221 in 62. The cylinder heads show some carbon buildup but nothing too serious. The bottom end looks in pretty good shape at first glance Pulled the pistons, they all look good with no scoring, the rings appear to be in good shape.
Its definately time for new rod bearings with this copper showing Add a timing chain to the list, this one stretched far beyond the factory wear limit of 0.5" Rod journals are in nice shape, and they measured out within factory spec You can see where the cylinders had some slight surface rust, probably from sitting, that was polished away by the rings and pistons as see here
Haha, it was a real treat to find out I was now pushing a whopping 164 hp instead of the 145 the 221 puts out. My only complaint with it is that I jumped the gun and ordered rings for a 221
Why don't you drop a 302 crank and rods into it [ it's a bolt in ] and take her out to 271 cu in In a 221 this swap make 239 cu in which is the limit for our stockcars down under with a clean up rebore [ 241 cu in ]
Checking the endplay, she came in at 0.008", the far end of the ford factory specs but new bearings should tighten that up The main bearings were also worn down to the copper Measuring the cylinder bores, they were all pretty close to factory, I figure a quick hone should set them in order
From the wear on that rod, you'd also better check for rod straightness. I'm surprised the main and rod journals, and the bores, are within spec. The bearing inserts show plenty of wear, and the oil consumption apparently came from ring wear.
The Jalopy Journal
