Junk Yard Explorer Engine.. Filthy..

[CarMichael Angelo]

Yeah @RaggedGT , @madmike1157 is one of the greasiest people I know.

 

[RaggedGT]

What are you talking about? I still talk to you. What does Dave know about degreaser that I don't?

Are you implying that Dave is more accustomed to getting greasy?

Just didn't want to wear out my welcome on tagging you in these threads

 

[TRIBUNAL]

lol
So I have a guy with an extra kit Sealed Power 260-1720
The head gaskets are PermaTorque. That will be good right?

 

[TRIBUNAL]

There's always unforeseen costs!
I was lifting the hoist and dragging it into the garage because the damn wheels were stuck and didn't realize the engine was swinging a metal bracket into my leg. Back felt pretty bad for a few days too!
One of those was pretty bad and I probably should have gotten stitches but now I have a scar with a story
So how about those gaskets, anyone have any input?

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Blood drawn is inevitable in the upgrade battle, @madmike1157 ?

I have no ideas about the gaskets, mike might though.

 

[jrichker]

There's always unforeseen costs!
I was lifting the hoist and dragging it into the garage because the damn wheels were stuck and didn't realize the engine was swinging a metal bracket into my leg. Back felt pretty bad for a few days too!
One of those was pretty bad and I probably should have gotten stitches but now I have a scar with a story
So how about those gaskets, anyone have any input?

No auto repair is complete without the shedding of blood.

The good news is that as you get older you are more careful. That means you shed less blood and develop a love for the parts of your body that are easily injured.

 

[Mustang5L5]

I've still got the scar on my hand from my attempt to lift a t5 up by hand to install. It slipped, I tried to catch it


Sent from my big ass iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

I've still got the scar on my hand from my attempt to lift a t5 up by hand to install. It slipped, I tried to catch it


Sent from my big ass iPhone 6 using Tapatalk

At 40 years old I'm getting weak and out of shape. I don't think I could lay on my back and hoist up another manual transmission in to a vehicle again. Heck, this past weekend it was a chore just lifting my cat back tail pipe assembly up and get them on the hangers.

 

[TRIBUNAL]

Haha yea but if you're still doing trying at an older age it's a good sign!
I think I will just go with the gaskets, should be fine, I hope.
Now I need to go see if I can rent a tool to pull this weird Balancer.

 

[TRIBUNAL]

Well I opened it up and the cylinders look great, cross hatch is nice.Pistons have a lot of carbon on the tops. I used the siphon and purple power on the bottom today, cleaned up pretty good.
Is it necessary to take everything apart and clean it? Rods, crank, etc...?

 

[Buddy Tucker]

So after pulling my last mustang engine apart and finding rust and ridge wear in the cylinders I decided to take the advice many people on here gave me and I bought a used Explorer Engine from a junk yard.
Supposedly it has 117k miles out of a 97.5 with the 4 bar gt40P heads but it was at another location. He said it had only been there 50 days and they drove it a bit, ran well. The other engines he had around 100k, were there for over a year. I made a $100 deposit and got the vin number on the receipt. I used e-verify without paying for it to do an initial search and it came back the 187kmiles estimated, I'm not sure what it used to calculate that, but I decided to do a free trial for $2.97 or something. I then did a search that didn't return any mileage so I wasted my money. Carfax wanted like $30 I think and I just couldn't justify it, perhaps a mistake.
I went to the yard to see the vehicle it was being removed from to see if maybe I could see the mileage. Of course the instrument cluster was removed which made this even more suspicious....

I only paid $250 for the engine which was about 150-300 less than every other place I called.

Today I pulled the intake and pass valve cover off. I noticed the water passages are heavily rusted which I was reading can be fixed with some oxalic acid flush? The push rods are even more coated with carbon/sludge than my other engine. Everything seemed to be coated with a layer of thick sludge to be honest. Even the oil, when I removed it, seemed thick, but at least it wasn't a milkshake. Anyway I hope to removed the oil pan tomorrow and I'm more than a bit concerned about what I may find. Assuming I don't find anything catastrophic, What should I do, within reason, to get this engine cleaned before I put it in? Also is there anything I should do to the engine for any reason before I put it in?
I know I need to get a balancer and I have the flywheel, distributor, timing cover, etc...

Thanks guys, I'll post pics and updates tomorrow after I get the oil pan off.

 

[Buddy Tucker]

So after pulling my last mustang engine apart and finding rust and ridge wear in the cylinders I decided to take the advice many people on here gave me and I bought a used Explorer Engine from a junk yard.
Supposedly it has 117k miles out of a 97.5 with the 4 bar gt40P heads but it was at another location. He said it had only been there 50 days and they drove it a bit, ran well. The other engines he had around 100k, were there for over a year. I made a $100 deposit and got the vin number on the receipt. I used e-verify without paying for it to do an initial search and it came back the 187kmiles estimated, I'm not sure what it used to calculate that, but I decided to do a free trial for $2.97 or something. I then did a search that didn't return any mileage so I wasted my money. Carfax wanted like $30 I think and I just couldn't justify it, perhaps a mistake.
I went to the yard to see the vehicle it was being removed from to see if maybe I could see the mileage. Of course the instrument cluster was removed which made this even more suspicious....

I only paid $250 for the engine which was about 150-300 less than every other place I called.

Today I pulled the intake and pass valve cover off. I noticed the water passages are heavily rusted which I was reading can be fixed with some oxalic acid flush? The push rods are even more coated with carbon/sludge than my other engine. Everything seemed to be coated with a layer of thick sludge to be honest. Even the oil, when I removed it, seemed thick, but at least it wasn't a milkshake. Anyway I hope to removed the oil pan tomorrow and I'm more than a bit concerned about what I may find. Assuming I don't find anything catastrophic, What should I do, within reason, to get this engine cleaned before I put it in? Also is there anything I should do to the engine for any reason before I put it in?
I know I need to get a balancer and I have the flywheel, distributor, timing cover, etc...

Thanks guys, I'll post pics and updates tomorrow after I get the oil pan off.

Ya a lot of times you get that sludge from using pensoil it is no detergent oil and it will not mix with a detergent oil
I would pull a compromise check on the eng before I put it in and if that's ok then I would change the front and rear main seals
O and for that sludge try a bit of k1

 

[Buddy Tucker]

Well I opened it up and the cylinders look great, cross hatch is nice.Pistons have a lot of carbon on the tops. I used the siphon and purple power on the bottom today, cleaned up pretty good.
Is it necessary to take everything apart and clean it? Rods, crank, etc...?

If your going to take the rods and crank apart you should just rebilding the engine

 

[TRIBUNAL]

Yea I don't plan to do that because of time constraints. Was just hoping you would say its unnecessary
by "pull a compromise check on the eng" you mean check the piston and rod clearance with feeler gauges? I do plan to do that asap. I do also plan to change the seals.

 

[Buddy Tucker]

Yea I don't plan to do that because of time constraints. Was just hoping you would say its unnecessary
by "pull a compromise check on the eng" you mean check the piston and rod clearance with feeler gauges? I do plan to do that asap. I do also plan to change the seals.

Man sounds like you no what you are doing but by a compression check I mean put a compression gauge on it and remove all the other sparkplug's so you can spin the engine with a larger ratchet or something.
Even if you can't turn it fast you can still see if you get the same read off all cylinders to make sure theres no problems like burnt valves also if you have the tool a leak down test would be good
I hope she runs like a 13 year old Kentucky girl with 5 brother's for you

 

[TRIBUNAL]

lol.
yea sorry I think the auto correct messed us up "compromise" vs Compression.
Yea I tried to run it with the heads on using a P.O.S. compression gauge I rented from autozone but the damn thing read 0 and must have been shot like most of what I have bought from that trash store. So i just gave up on it.
I'm probably going to replace the valve springs and seals as well and try to find a stock mustang cam to put in, that way I don't need to upgrade the rockers to 1.7 like I would need with the E303 camshaft. The explorer cam apparently is a real P.O.S.

 

[Buddy Tucker]

Man look on eBay for your parts if you want to save a buck there are lots of stores that have pages on there it is ware I get most of my parts anymore I just looked at 1998 Ford 5.0 cams and you can get a cam and lifters as low as 125 bucks .
But ya man unless you need oil or sparkplug's stay away from autozone (dangerzone)
And with all this work you are doing you might want to get a new oil pump why you got the engine out as well