My son who's 15 saved up and I helped him buy a 1974 maveric 2dr with a 200ci. The car had been sitting for years and was missing a radiator carbarator exast and alot of other things. along with the master cylinder leaking and all the wheel cylinders being bad. We went through with him learning and rebuilt all the drum brakes replacing everything with new. We then started on the motor. We got a radiator hoses new fan carbarator from a bone yard and then rebuilt it and so on. Drained the gas all the normal things. Started the motor up for the first time an it missed bad. We had already replaced all the wires plugs cap ect. I know better and should have started with a compression test. Cyl 1 had 120 cyl 2 105 cly 3 120 cyl 4 105 cyl 5 0 cyl 6 95 I looked down cylinder 5 and could see antifreeze. I pulled the head to find that the intake valve in cylinder 5 was stuck open and the push rod bent. I have the head in the shop now hoping that its not cracked and that it was just a bad head gasket and that condinsation and the leak caused the valve to stick open. the head itself looked good. I took pics of the job. I noticed in cyl 2 and cyl 4 that the cylinder walls had some light scratches on them so I know this motor will need to be rebuilt. my kid wants to keep it a stick and keep the 200. I found one five hours away out of a 69 mustang complete with everything radiator to transmission. It has a I belive c-3 automatic on it. Im going to sell the transmission and use the 200 if it all checks out. The guy said he bought it from a guy that drove it the last 5 years. He bought it specifically to take the front end off to putin a new fuel injected motor and trans. He said he never heard it run but it does turn over and its as is. Im hoping every thing works out so I can get his car working and out on the road so I can get back to mine. I have a 1973 ford with a 250 automatic with 48000 originakl miles sat in a garage since 1993. The lady I bought it from was 99 years old. I just bought it a few mounths ago and am ecited to dive in to it. I am going to need parts to for my kids car like a fromn passanger side seat belt mirrors inside door handels and stuff if anyone sells that stuff on here. I may even need to buy anothe 200 if the one I buy dosent work out.
nice to see another Father/Son project. that's how my 73 started out... would upgrading to a 250 be out of the question?
from Northeast Pennsylvania I took a 304 out of my Jeep CJ5 and found a 360 that had been "pickled" which meant it was filled up to the top with kerosene before it was to be stored for an extended period of time - it really worked as everything looked good except for one thing----a stuck valve that, when I turned the engine over with a breaker bar, I bent the push rod - at that point I sent both heads out to be worked on, no valves had to be replaced, no cracked head and after using a good push rod from the 304 the engine ran great
