Wednesday: I arrive at 8am sharp. Today's planned events: Cam, lifters, intake, carb. Rip it all apart, slide the cam out. We noticed that the cam bearings were a lil worn, but we thought it might be ok. Slide new cam in and well, the cam just falls in. No effort necessary because the cam bearings were worn so far you could take the came and ring the motor like a bell. Bing Bing! "everybody ashore!!!" Now theres a choice to be made. Pull the motor and do cam bearings, OR get another short block. After all, worn cam bearings, lifter ticking, no oil pressure and hugely leaking rear main, replacing cam bearings just wont do it
Thursday: Mainly a cleaning day. Clean all the lifters and heads and take the old stuff off the old motor and clean it to go on the new motor which is now sitting on an engine stand. Pretty much got everything for the roller motor except the steel distributor gear. The problem with this is, the late model gears are .531 (i think, bigger lol)diameter and the early model is .461 shaft (again, i think, smaller) diameter. End up calling the huge Ford place in Houston after spending hours at o'reilley trying to figure it out to no avail. So now we got the gear thing figured out. 14 hour day
Friday: go get gear and start assembly of motor. clean every bolt and start building roller motor. We used the early 302 oil pan, valve cover gaskets, timing chain cover, waterpump. Check 50 ounce balancer and old pulleys on the engine stand. They wont line up. Early model 302's use a 28 ounce imbalance which is bigger, plus the 50 ounce balancer has a cast in spacer. Ron takes the balancer to a buddys machine shop and grinds off the spacer. Makes a 3/16" spacer to put on the water pump up top to push the water pump pully out a bit. It all lines up
Saturday: Start putting front of the motor on when its evident, the alternator nor power steering pump are going to bolt to this motor. Apparantly the previous owner ghettoed it to work on the early 302. Get all this worked out eventually, wire everything up put everything else back on and start it up. CLANK CLANK CLANK! motor fires and runs fine but is making a HUGE awful sounding noise. Flywheel weight was hitting the tranny cover plate. Fix that, start it up, clank clank clank. Water pump was apparantly hit too much, put a new one on. clank clank clank, passenger side timing pointer is hitting the balancer so we revert to the original driver side pointer. start it up and purrrrrrrrrrr. best sound you ever heard. adjust it, put the hood on put all the old parts in my parents truck and im off to home again. 18 hour day.
I now have this:
86 Roller 5.0 0.060 short block
E7 heads
95 Cobra roller cam
90 Tbird pushrods and roller lifters
67 oil pan, timing chaing cover, water pump, valve cover gaskets
new 600 cfm edelbrock carb
new performer intake
original small diameter shaft distributor with the correct steel cam gear
Things needed for the swap:
Proper thicker flywheel with the thicker imbalance
50 ounce balancer (either the special ford one, or shave the front spacer off another one)
Steel small diameter distributor cam gear
351W spark plug firing order
New spark plugs (smaller diameter than early model 302)
And you need a whole lotta patience
p.s. im sure if i said something wrong, ron will correct it.
Many thanks to Ronstang
Thursday: Mainly a cleaning day. Clean all the lifters and heads and take the old stuff off the old motor and clean it to go on the new motor which is now sitting on an engine stand. Pretty much got everything for the roller motor except the steel distributor gear. The problem with this is, the late model gears are .531 (i think, bigger lol)diameter and the early model is .461 shaft (again, i think, smaller) diameter. End up calling the huge Ford place in Houston after spending hours at o'reilley trying to figure it out to no avail. So now we got the gear thing figured out. 14 hour day
Friday: go get gear and start assembly of motor. clean every bolt and start building roller motor. We used the early 302 oil pan, valve cover gaskets, timing chain cover, waterpump. Check 50 ounce balancer and old pulleys on the engine stand. They wont line up. Early model 302's use a 28 ounce imbalance which is bigger, plus the 50 ounce balancer has a cast in spacer. Ron takes the balancer to a buddys machine shop and grinds off the spacer. Makes a 3/16" spacer to put on the water pump up top to push the water pump pully out a bit. It all lines up
Saturday: Start putting front of the motor on when its evident, the alternator nor power steering pump are going to bolt to this motor. Apparantly the previous owner ghettoed it to work on the early 302. Get all this worked out eventually, wire everything up put everything else back on and start it up. CLANK CLANK CLANK! motor fires and runs fine but is making a HUGE awful sounding noise. Flywheel weight was hitting the tranny cover plate. Fix that, start it up, clank clank clank. Water pump was apparantly hit too much, put a new one on. clank clank clank, passenger side timing pointer is hitting the balancer so we revert to the original driver side pointer. start it up and purrrrrrrrrrr. best sound you ever heard. adjust it, put the hood on put all the old parts in my parents truck and im off to home again. 18 hour day.
I now have this:
86 Roller 5.0 0.060 short block
E7 heads
95 Cobra roller cam
90 Tbird pushrods and roller lifters
67 oil pan, timing chaing cover, water pump, valve cover gaskets
new 600 cfm edelbrock carb
new performer intake
original small diameter shaft distributor with the correct steel cam gear
Things needed for the swap:
Proper thicker flywheel with the thicker imbalance
50 ounce balancer (either the special ford one, or shave the front spacer off another one)
Steel small diameter distributor cam gear
351W spark plug firing order
New spark plugs (smaller diameter than early model 302)
And you need a whole lotta patience
p.s. im sure if i said something wrong, ron will correct it.
Many thanks to Ronstang