Oh Lordy, I now own a Fordy (a Lincoln actually)..

[njsteve]

Since the engine was already warmed up, I pulled an oil sample and I'll send it out for analysis just to see what it says. Once I get the engine out and on the stand I'll pull the pan and check the main and rod bearings. I don't plan on touching the short block other than maybe a new oil pump, rear main seal, and gaskets. I will most likely pull the heads and get a valve job and new valve seals installed. Maybe new valve springs if they don't meet spec.

[John Brown]

Been a long time since I had a Ford with transmission problems, but when I had shifting problems like that it was because the aluminum valve body was worn and the valves that were supposed to move freely were hung up by a ridge of aluminum. I pulled the valve body, removed several of the valves and lightly scraped the openings in the valve body till the valves were able to move freely again. Of course your problem could be something completely different, but I'd ask someone familiar with those transmissions before going to all the work of pulling the complete transmission.

[big gear head]

A friend of mine put a big block Ford together many years ago and put the rods and pistons in like a Chevy and couldn't figure out why they didn't look right.

[njsteve]

I got the engine fully apart today. Almost got a hernia too, breaking loose those $%#@*& head bolts with my old trusty diesel mechanic 3/4" drive ratchet and a pipe on the end of it.

The rod bearings looked decent but you can see the small copper wear pattern on the tops of each rod bearing - most likely from my Dad running the 10-1/5 to 1 compression engine on 87 octane for the random times he was driving it over the past couple decades. OUCH! All the mains were at the copper layer top and bottom. The crank itself looked very nice. I guess the original Ford Clevite bearings did their job and sacrificed themselves instead of the crank journals.

I Plastigaged a couple bearings and the rods looked to be really tight: much tighter than the minimum 001. line on the paper. The mains came in at .002.

I had to borrow a ridge reamer from the local autoparts store to get the minor ridge out of the tops of the cylinders so as not to damage anything coming out.

The lifters has a varnish buildup and were sticking in their bores at the top of their travel so I just left them there and turned the block over and then pulled the camshaft out while the lifters hung upside-down. I then pushed them back down their bores and they slid out nicely from underneath without scratching the lifter bores at all. The original camshaft looked decent but there was varnish on the surface in spots. All the bottoms of the lifters were evenly worn with a hint of concave wear.

The combustion chambers on the heads looked very nice, as did the pistons. Not much carbon buildup at all.

[njsteve]

And here's the giant assemblage of parts as of this evening.

[njsteve]

I dropped off the block and all the engine parts at the machine shop today. The machinist noticed the "Felpro blue" on the deck surface and said that the headgaskets had been replaced sometime in the past. It had to be when Grampa had it as I have no paperwork documenting any major engine work since we have had the car since 1991.

We also notice how badly the valve stems are chewed up. Looks like we need a new set of valves and rocker arms, at least.

Stay tuned for further episodes of "As The Wallet Opens..."

[big gear head]

I don't think I've ever seen valve stem tips look like that before.

[Jonesy]

Wow Steve when you make up your mind to do something, things get done.
This will be fun to follow.

[Canuck]

Steve
I am following along, great project. How many people did it take to lift the hood off?
I know a fellow up in Vermont that is into these older Lincolns. Let me know if you want his contact info, he may be able to offer some info of tricks he has learned over the years.
Couldn't help but notice Grandmas Firebird and your old Suburban in the background.

Paul

[njsteve]

Thanks for noticing! It took three people to get that hood up and away. As we moved it to the side we all heard the nuts and acorns inside the hood framework rolling around. Lots of homeless chipmunks got evicted from the Lincoln when I moved this thing out of my Dad's garage in 2013.

At least now, Gramma and Grampa will both have freshly rebuilt, matching engines. The funny thing is that they both have the exact same mileage at the moment: 85,000 miles.