So Many Leaks

I’ve been rather enjoying myself while adding the accessories to the motor—taking it slow, working generally when the weather is nice and making steady progress.

Just beginning to install the accessories.

Last week I tackled the PCV system, throttle linkage, soup can reservoir and the carb (temporarily, as I need new gaskets). I also installed the water pump and the heater hoses.

Today, I was determined to finish the cooling system. I cleaned up the radiator, then put it in after the fan and overflow tank were in place.

Starting to look official.

Everything was going well until I added coolant. Even with no pressure in the system, there were two small leaks: one from the water pump, apparently seeping out around one of the bolts.

This is probably my fault. I had to loosen the pump after it was on for an hour when I realized I forgot that tiny hose that connects it to the manifold. The sealant was still wet after removal, so I figured I could get away with reusing the gaskets.

Apparently not!

Looking up from under the passenger side of the water pump, you can see a drop forming under the bolt head.

The second is some weeping around a freeze plug, which I really can’t explain. These I installed some time ago, even taking the precaution of adding a little sealant around the opening before I drove it in. I can’t see any reason for it to leak, nor what I can do different when I replace it.

The weeping isn’t visible in this photo, but the plug was wet to the touch. Fortunately, this is relatively accessible—the front-most plug on the passenger side.

Before quitting for the day, I drained the new coolant. I’ll probably take a couple of days off before digging back down to the pump. With the coolant out, I’ll likely tackle the plug then, too, though I’m not looking forward to that at all.

Re-Engined (Again!)

A couple of weeks back, I spent a weekend re-organizing my garage space, and part of that project included breaking out the welding cart so I could install an oxygen sensor bung on the exhaust (in anticipation of a future EFI system).

At this point, all that I really need to do is move the engine about 15 feet to the left. Simple!

After a few practice welds (and remembering to turn on the gas for my MIG welder!), I felt comfortable enough to take a stab at the real thing. I made the opening with a step drill, then got a pretty good start welding the bung itself, at least from the side that’s easy to reach.

I had practiced getting the welding tip around between the fender and the exhaust, but when it came to the real thing, I realized that I had the setting sun at my back, and the glare inside my welding mask meant that I couldn’t see. I packed up my gear to wait for better conditions.

Later that night, I woke up and realized that I had left the exhaust flange on the wrong side of the bung!

Nice welds, wasted.

When the next cool overcast morning rolled around, I cut off the nicely welded bit, drilled the hole again and welded in another (after moving the flange). The new welds were not nearly as nice. I’m hopeful it’s sealed. If not, I’ll have to drop the exhaust to try again.

With the shelter-in-place orders not yet expired here, I decided to take a stab at installing the motor without an assistant. (My driveway has some slope to it, so my wife did stand by for safety’s sake most of the job.) I figured there’d be a lot of up-and-down—normally I work below while my son handles the hoist and topside work—and I was not disappointed.

Nice to see a motor sitting there. The engine bay had been empty for a long while.

There was the usual frustration of working to get a bulky mass in just the right position, but also that satisfying moment when the engine comes together with the bell housing. Overall, installation took four hours including setting up tools beforehand. Much of that time was spent lining up and screwing in the engine mount bolts—a job that looks easy but is decidedly not.

There is much left to do before it’s ready to run: accessories to install, re-wiring part of the engine harness, hooking up the exhaust, and more. Looks like I have a shot at getting it running this month, though, which would be awesome.

“Mask and Paint” Done!

The weather was perfect for painting and my motivation level was high. As a result, last few days have been a nice steady stream of Thunderbird work.

I hit the firewall, brake booster and master cylinder with POR-15 paint prep, which magically neutralizes rust. The instructions have you spray it on, then keep the area damp with it for around 30 minutes. In warm weather and direct sun, that was a lot of spraying. Afterwards, the solution is washed off with water, which always seemed a bit odd in a rust preventative. I toweled off what I could and left it to dry.

Masked and tarped. You can see that the surface rust is gone and the grey film left by the paint prep spray.

I masked as best I could and used old bedsheets as additional insurance. The tiny spray pattern doesn’t allow for much overspray, so this was a little overkill.

The following morning was overcast, but windless, dry, and warm (actually really odd weather for us). The flat light made it a bit difficult to see, but I got a relatively smooth first coat down. (I really wanted one coat to be good enough, but once it was dry and the spray gun cleaned, I could see thin spots and unevenness. Once I did, I couldn’t rationalize leaving it as is.)

After the first coat. You can see the unevenness on the blower motor cover and the missed area under the lip of the cowl. Some of this was having the spray too thin, others I blame on the poor light.

This morning was sunny, but no wind, so I donned my respirator, re-draped the old bedsheet tarps and climbed into the engine bay for the last spray. I turned up the product on the gun to improve the coverage a bit.

Final coat. Not the greatest photo.

The second coat went fast, and I ended up with a nice satin finish (glossy paint + the rough surface of the firewall) that I rather like. I used POR-15 engine paint–the same that I used on the motor. It’s durable and easy to touch up.

The best part of any painting project is unmasking. I think this will be a nice backdrop to the motor when it’s back in.

There’s one last item before I’m ready to install the engine, and that welding in a small oxygen sensor bung on the exhaust pipe. It will be plugged for now, but it’s the first step on the road to electronic fuel injection.

Quarantine Shuffle

For the past couple of weeks I’ve had “mask and paint Thunderbird engine bay” on my to-do list, so yesterday I spent the entire afternoon . . . tidying up the garage.

Since reinstalling the timing cover some weeks back, it seemed like the engine was close enough to done to think about engine bay prep. Once I cleared the cobwebs out of the garage, I could see that thought was a little premature. I had set up a makeshift workbench when this project began, just some plywood scraps on two sawhorses. On top were some mislaid tools (“Oh, that’s where that socket is!) and miscellaneous motor parts. Underneath were accessories like the alternator, fan shroud, etc.

Timing cover on, paint done. This is as good as it is gonna get.

I cleared off the top of the bench by reinstalling the harmonic balancer, fuel pump and oil filter adapter. While I was at it, I gave the engine a spin just to reassure myself that all was still well inside. (If I can acquire an oil filter and oil, I can pre-oil the internals, which would feel even better.)

Accessories installed. You can see that I took some time to clean the fuel pump. The oil filter adapter, not so much. (What’s with all those little fins, anyhow?)

With the engine pretty much assembled, I took down the temporary bench and moved all the remaining parts to the bench in my main workshop. They will be a real nuisance there (and hopefully a spur to pick up the pace). In the now clean garage, I pushed the motor into a corner and put my wife’s car in there.

Lots of work to needed to make this look pretty. In addition to masking off parts, I’m going to cut off some of the screws that project through and use POR-15 metal prep on the rusty areas. I have a very small HVLP paint gun that can get into tight areas while minimizing overspray. Still, this will be a chore.

With the light fading and cocktail hour approaching, I pulled the cover off the ‘Bird just to assess the work needed for masking and painting. I pulled off the heater hoses and the vacuum lines at the brake booster, then removed the throttle linkage (finding it hard to believe that I was still doing disassembly). There are a lot of nooks and crannies on the firewall and painting it with major components in place won’t be perfect, but still worth doing.

I haven’t decided yet how to handle these hinges. (Except that they won’t be going back in looking like this.

My plan had been to paint the firewall black and touch up the white around the rest of the bay. However, this car needs to get back on the road, so I’ll forgo the body color paint. To do that job properly, the engine bay really needs to be stripped bare, and at the rate I’m going, that could add months to an already-too-long project.

The forecast this week is sunny and hot with windy afternoons, so I’ll be masking when it’s not too hot and painting when I can find a warm, windless morning.

Two Steps Forward, One Back

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working steadily on the valve covers. I’m guess that for some, removal involves a good whack with a hammer; both of those I bought had some otherwise unexplainable dents. After cleaning them up inside and out, I straightened the metal as best I could, though it’s tight work up inside the dome. I also removed the wiring harness tabs, as I like to run the ignition wires along the front of the engine to get a cleaner look.

About half way through the paint-and-sand process. The repaired sections are on the right of both covers. The scars from the tab removal are mostly invisible at this point.

I was pretty happy with the end results. After multiple coats of high-build primer (sanding between each), I ended up with a decent, if not perfect finish. I’ll be spraying the motor with POR-15 engine paint, but I’m not certain it’s compatible with the primer I used on the covers. Instead, I’m using rattle cans paint, which requires many coats to get a decent finish. I still have a few more to go before they’re ready for installation.

I also dragged out the manifold, cleaned it up and scraped down the mating surfaces. With the lifters in place, I made a small lifting block to attach to the carburetor studs, hooked it up to the hoist and settled it onto the heads. Once it was torqued down, I installed the rocker arm shaft, but as I snugged it up, I noticed that none of the valves were properly depressed.

The intake manifold in place. Seems like overkill to use the hoist for this, but it did make for perfect placement with little effort.

I feared that somehow the camshaft had slipped and had visions of removing the lifters—undoing an entire day’s work.

I had held off installing the camshaft end plug, as the engine stand made it difficult to reach. Looking at the last cam journal (where the plug ought to be), I could see that the shaft was a few millimeters too far back. It didn’t seem far enough out to let the lifters slip off the lobes, but I opted to fix a known problem first before digging deeper into the motor.

This is taken after I got the camshaft back in place. You can just see the small groove where the plug is supposed to seat. With a mallet and a couple of long hardwood sticks, I was able to get the plug installed even with the engine still on the stand. There was a pretty good chance of forgetting this step before installing the motor, so I’m glad to have it done.

I was already prepared to remove the timing cover (installed last week) as I had forgotten the little oil slinger that fits on the end of the crankshaft. With the timing chain also removed, I used the cam sprocket to get the camshaft properly aligned. It spun freely and I was able to confirm the lifters were in place by watching the pushrods move as I turned it.

Well, the timing cover is going to need some work and the valve covers are just sitting on there, but it is starting to look pretty complete.

After that, the rocker shafts went in and I reinstalled the timing chain. I need a gasket set to get the timing cover back on, but in the meantime the engine is essentially assembled. I’ll be turning my attention to cleaning the engine bay, touching up the paint and getting the motor installed, hopefully before the end of October.

Making Headway

Over the last week, I dragged the heads out from underneath the workbench. (Sheesh . . . they didn’t get any lighter over the last six months!) and set about prepping them for install.

The old gaskets came off easily enough with a new, sharp blade in the scraper. I was surprised at the amount of carbon build up in the combustion areas. These heads were professionally rebuilt and have less than a thousand miles on them since then.

You can see the carbon build up with half the combustion chamber scraped. The cracked cylinder was cleaner than the rest, probably from the steam.

On the first head, I used steel wool and acetone to clean up the recessed areas around the valves. I wasn’t wild about cleaning up the metal fragments, and a little nervous that I might miss some. For the second effort, I used a 3M grey pad with acetone, which worked just as well but without all the worry.

Installation was routine. I ran the head bolts through a wire wheel to ensure the threads were clean. The block, of course, was professionally prepped, so no need to worry about the threads there.

With the block starting to look like an engine again, I started looking around for new valve covers. (Mine were destroyed in the disassembly.) Good originals are getting a little hard to come by, especially the early ones with no PCV vents. Cheap, highly suspect knock-offs are readily available online for less than $50. Pristine restored covers can be had from Bird Nest for $200, but that seemed a tad excessive to me.

My originals, which these will replace, were once sandblasted, which left them pitted. These have some rust and a few dents on the back side, but they should clean up nicely.

I did find a good pair from a junkyard used parts supplier for only $50 each. Or so I thought! They turned out to be truck parts with the “Powered by FORD” imprint instead of Thunderbird, which is, of course, far classier.

A decent pair turned up just in time on eBay, and they were little more than the truck units. They arrived a few days ago, and I hope to begin working on them this weekend.

It’s Been Too Long

I’ve got a lull in my schedule for the next month or so and am determined to get the T-Bird out of the driveway and into the garage before things pick up again. A home renovation project consumed much of my time earlier this year, so my engine rebuilding space has been doubling as a storage and staging area for tile, drywall and even a bathtub.

Evil sludge.

How long has it been? I dug out the oil pan and went to work attacking the sludge stuck to the bottom, thinking to myself, “How did this get here?” It took a moment to remember that, oh . . . the block was cracked.

What is even the function of this baffle?

I did my best to clean underneath the baffle using a thin stick, rag and acetone. Coarse steel wool took off the staining and scoured the remaining gasket sealer off the flange.

The timing chain cover got similar treatment, though it wasn’t nearly as gunky. The front seal was still pretty new, but since I had a replacement, I pried it out and drove in the new one.

When installing, I used a thin layer of gasket sealant, following the instructions to the letter: install with the sealant wet, bolts just snug, then come back in an hour to torque.

Just about ready to flip this over and install the heads.

There’s really not a lot left to do with the motor, but once assembly is done, there’s plenty of cleanup in the engine bay, not to mention some iffy wiring that should be replaced.

The Bottom End

There hasn’t been a lot of time to tend to the motor, but with the damp weather we’ve been having, I was spending a lot of mental energy worried about rust in my newly conditioned block. It seemed best to get the bottom end installed, even if my schedule didn’t really permit it.

You can’t see it, but at this point the camshaft is installed—you can tell by the thrust plate and screws in the front. Also, I’ve got the freeze plugs in at this point. The block came with the oil gallery plugs installed, thank goodness—there are a lot of them.

I got the camshaft installed a week or two ago. The block came with the cam bearings installed, so it was just a matter of lubing up the cam and getting it seated in place. When it comes to cams like this, everyone says to take it slow and ensure that none of the lobs bump up against a bearing on the way in. I’m pretty sure that’s not humanly possible. I’ve installed a few of these now, and what with lining up the bearing races, dealing with a heavy hunk of iron and limited hand grips inside the block, it’s pretty impossible not to bump up against a bearing at least once during installation. No damage was done. I was moving slowly after all.

I tackled the crank last week, which seems like a straightforward job: insert the bearings, drop in the crank and torque down the caps. In my case, most of the caps fit very snugly into the block. Getting the cap square to the crank and still aligned with the bolt holes (while holding the bearing in place) sometimes took a little persuasion from a rubber mallet—and I always feel a little odd taking a hammer (of any sort) to an engine.

Crank is in and spinning freely. Those two dark spots on the rear-most cap are the bottom ends of the main seal (including the nails). They are supposed to be a little proud of the block, but after hammering in the nails, everything was flush. (Of course! I was hammering on them!)

The rear cap fit a little more loosely, thankfully, because it houses the rear main seal. This seal has six pieces, two half-rounds to seal the rotating crank, two silicon strips to seal the cap against the block, and two nails driven into the cap to hold the silicon elements tight. Once it’s all installed, it’s mostly hidden. There’s no way to know if it all went together properly

When putting the seal in place, I tried following the instruction in my rebuilding book (How to Rebuild Your Big Block Ford) and those that came with the seal. I find it hard to believe that the person who wrote either of those instructions every tried the process. After a protracted battle, the seals were in place and appear snug. The proof will come after a few miles on the motor. Of course, by then it will be too late to do much of anything about it if they fail.

Today, I was finally able to take on the piston installation, which seems like a straightforward process. The book—now some 40 years old and showing it—says to install the bearings in the rods, install the rings (right side up, gaps spaced just so), dunk the piston in a can of oil(!), compress the rings and drive the piston into the cylinder with the butt end of a hammer.

Everything you need to prep a piston for installation, even a snazzy snow-themed drop cloth.

What’s not said is all the variables that go into that process. The rings fit very loosely on the piston. After drenching the whole thing in oil and wrapping the mess with a very slippery ring compressor, who knows if the ring gaps are still properly spaced?

A big pot ‘o oil for piston dipping, but a drip tray not quite big enough to catch the spills. I finally moved those baseboards out of my way, but not before oiling them up real good.

Driving the pistons into the bores, I felt pretty lucky that none of them got hung up on a loose ring, but was not at all prepared for the bearings to be shaken loose due to the pounding. I frequently found myself delicately trying to coax a bearing back into place just before the rod end seated on the crank.

One bank done. My machine shop thoughtfully labeled each of the assembled rods.

The most difficult part of this process was installing the second bank of pistons. Tolerances between the rods are pretty tight; the second rod on the journal requires some finesse to seat. The caps for those rods required some gentle persuasion before settling into position. (I, uh, had to tap some of them with a hammer.) In the end, the crank rotates smoothly, but certainly with a tightness it didn’t have in the old, worn block.

Second bank complete. The book says to install the pistons with the notch towards the front. Some pistons have an arrow, which seems more self-evident to me.

Tomorrow, I’ll double check my work with fresh eyes and take a look at next steps. It would be great to have the heads in place and the oil pan on, if even loosely, to get the internals sealed off from the elements.

Some Assembly Required

I’m getting close to having a working motor again.

The leads I had on clean blocks or built-up short blocks didn’t pan out. One, on Craigslist, was an outright scam.

Towards the end of November, I found a Thunderbird specialist in Southern California who had numerous blocks on hand, some reconditioned, others not. Asking around the community, I found that he was a reputable dealer, and that others had good experiences with him.

I sold the old block for scrap. Got about $18 for it, too.

He located a reconditioned block, sonic tested and bored .030 over. It even carries April 1964 date codes, only weeks away from when my car was built. He left it unpainted (at my request) and even delivered it to me in Northern California for free. (He was making an unrelated trip in this direction anyhow.)

Much of this is going out into the trash today.

With the replacement block secured, I finished the disassembly of the old one. Deep inside the motor was a paradox: the bearings were heavily worn, but the crank was not. The old pistons were relatively clean, but my new camshaft already looked rough and used up.

Most of the bearings were worn down to the copper. This one wasn’t even the worst of the lot.

I took the crank down to my machinist and he confirmed that it was ground .020 under but was in otherwise excellent condition. He polished it, ordered a master engine kit (bearings, pistons, gaskets, timing chain, etc.), and balanced the entire rotating assembly, including the flex plate and dampener. (He removed 35 grams(!) from the crank to bring it in balance.)

Everything you need to build a new FE motor, just add labor.

I picked up all the parts this week, so all that’s really left is assembly. Three things are working against me at the moment: rainy weather, a busy work schedule and a bathroom remodel I started about a week ago (which is not only eating up time, but also space: my workshop is full of drywall)

Nonetheless, I hope to have the new block up on the engine stand next week. Assembly of the bottom end should go pretty quick, and getting that done would free up space in the shop (which will no doubt get filled with lumber and flooring materials.)

The car is outside, under cover, to fend of the worst of the rain. Before the engine goes in, I’ll be reworking the worst of the wiring and freshening up the engine bay (again, ug.) The goal is to have the car rolling in late spring.

An FE Odyssey

Since the engine went south, I’ve looked at a lot of options for Thunderbird—from selling it as-is to dropping in a modern motor. As it turns out, I’m not (yet) ready to part with the car and dropping in a non-stock motor is fraught with more variables than I want to face. 

The headless block, out of the car once again.

That leaves repairing the motor I have or sourcing a replacement. My initial thought was to swallow the cost of sleeving all eight cylinders in my block to bring it back to stock displacement. What I’ve learned is that cylinder sleeves are really an extreme measure, and doing all eight degrades the structure of the block. The weakness in the block probably wouldn’t be an issue at stock power levels, but it feels wrong to move in that direction unless absolutely necessary. A better solution would be an assembled short block or a sound used block that has never been rebuilt and will clean up nicely when bored .030″ oversized. (The next step up, .060″, flirts with danger, as I have learned.)

The connecting rods are off. Once I get the balancer and timing chain off, the crank can come out as well. I’ve also learned that 65 and later FE blocks have four holes for the motor mounts, not the two you can see here.

I was able to get a short block quote from an FE rebuilder, but it was expensive and contingent on him finding a usable block to start from—he didn’t have any in stock. There was also considerable shipping to factor in as well. A second lead took me to a shop in Southern California that advertised sound, tested blocks at reasonable prices. I thought I had found the perfect solution, but a call to the owner shot it all down–blocks are too scarce and he doesn’t deal in them anymore. The final retail solution was a complete, assembled long block from JEGS, but it comes with a suspiciously low price tag and no information about the motor whatsoever.

The obligatory pile of parts on a makeshift workbench. I am trying to stay organized!

I think I’ve exhausted all the retail possibilities. The last resort is Craigslist and eBay, where bare blocks and complete FE motors occasionally appear. I’ve found quite a lot of good things in the past on both these sites, but I’ve also experienced plenty of disappointment as well. At the moment, I’m in touch with someone that has a 68 block, supposedly unmolested. If all goes well, I’ll get a chance to inspect it later this week.

The last time I had the motor out I cleaned up the engine bay, but didn’t repaint. This time, I plan to at least paint the firewall. I’ll also be replacing some of the brittle under hood wiring.

At the moment, I’ve got the old motor out of the car and partially disassembled. I hope to re-use the crank and connecting rods (and possibly the camshaft, too, since it’s relatively new). I believe I can keep the cost to a reasonable level, but history teaches that once in the midst of a project like this, extra expenses are a certainty.