Bad news, my engine passed away today!

Okey, this is getting silly..., but anyway, here´s an update on the progress (or rather lack thereoff).

First, I´ve been out of town for a 4-day crasch course in logistics. This monday (while I was away) my good buddy called me and told me that the engine I was going to buy was no good. The guy who was selling it to me (also a friend) had pulled the engine out of his boat, but first he tried to start it without much success. He then took the heads off to investigate, and the valves were stuck, the pushrods bent and the interior was rusted (presumablyt from saltwater). Seems he got taken when he bought that engine as "recently restored".
Anyway, I didn´t buy the engine as you can imagine. Might have for a reduced price if it hadn´t been for the fact that this engine had problems in the same areas as my ruined engine, so no chance of turning two bad engines into one decent engines there.

Okey, so there I was, long way from home and with little chance to look for another engine. My good buddy did a bit of searching and by tuesday he came up with a couple of engines that were roughly 3 times the price I was to pay for the "boat-engine" (boat-anchor perhaps? ). Way too steep for my financial situation right now (and there was no warranty on those engines either).

Wednesday morning he got in contact with a guy who imports cars and parts directly from the US, and he "thought" he would be able to find an engine and import it for me. The price was "fair" (at least in comparison to the alternatives around 20% higher than the boat-anchor) but the problem was that the engine wouldn´t be here until christmas at the very earliest!
So..., it seemed that I wouldn´t be able to drive my car this side of christmas.

Well, I´m not in the mood to be too optimistic after all this, but there seems to be a solution afterall. My buddy called me wednesday afternoon and told me he had found an add for an engine on the internet. It´s a 1989 5.0l, that is reported to be in fair condition. Was purchased to be swapped into a Vintage Mustang (with injection and all), but the guy got fed up with the paperwork needed for such a swap, so he restored the original engine instead. He´s asking the equivalent of 740$US, and we´re going to pick it up on sunday, unless ofcorse we find something suspicious when we see the engine.

So, with a bit of luck (and I think I deserve some by now ) there WILL be an engine in the car within the next couple of weeks or so.

AFAIK there is nothing stopping me from using my 2V intake and carb on the 5.0 engine, is this correct? If I´m not mistaken, the only major difference is that I can´t run a mechanical fuelpump on the 5.0, but is there anything else to look out for?:confused:

Anders O

 

Anders,

You'll need to use your old distributor also. The oil pump pickup is located at the rear of the engine. Use your old pickup screen (and oil pan obviously).

The water pump rotates in the opposite direction (a good idea to change that out anyway, if it is relatively cheap to do).

I believe you can run the mech fuel pump, you could use your old timing chain cover (etc).

Hmmm.... I'm sure I'm missing something else.

I'm no expert but I believe these to be correct.

Gluck!

 

Might have a different firing order ... might need a different distributor gear for the roller cam ... If you car is a standard shift car the block will not have the threaded area needed to bolt your z-bar mount to. Need to close the air pump holes on the back of the heads. Will need differently balanced flywheel. Those are a couple of issues ...

 

Okey, those are definitely "issues". Let´s see if I got this straight:
- Firing order, no biggie, just "swap" the wires?
- Distributor gear, not much trouble either, spareparts are pretty easy to come by here, so the gear for the distributor shouldn´t be much trouble.
- What IS the Z-bar (forgive a foreigner) and in which way will this cause problems (my car has a manual 3-speed trans by the way)?
- Close the airpump-holes, no biggie as far as I can see.
- Need differently balanced flywheel. Now this may be a problem. I´m uncertain if the "new" engine comes complete with the flywheel. Shouldn´t be too hard to find one though.

Thanks for the info so far. Hope this swap isn´t too complicated. I was hoping for pretty much just "shoving" the engine in there and connect everything to get it running.

Anders O

 

Hey Rick!

Using the distributor from my old engine is no problem.

Regarding the oil-pickup, am I correct in assuming that the reason for needing to use the old oilpan is for clearance under the engine, or is there another reason?

The significance of the waterpumps direction of rotation eludes me, except for the rotation of the fan (which I can replace for little cost), am I missing something? Anyway, could I just use my old waterpump (or buy a new one for a Ford 289 or 302), that is, will the "old style" waterpump with "correct" rotational direction bolt on to the 5.0?

The fuelpump is no biggie. I had an electric pump for the old engine, and will buy a new one for this engine anyway.


What I want to do is use as much as possible of the "external stuff" from my old engine (starter, intake and carb, clutch and flexplate and so on). So any info on what I can use and what I can´t is greatly aprecciated.

Anders O

 

Too bad ya can't get a hold on this one I found here in the states. read thisIhave a 302 ford motor for sale it came out of a 81 model thunderbird it run good when itook it out but its been sitting about 1 year but it could be fixed Ill take 100.00 for it if any one can use it they can contact me http://forum.semo.net/viewtopic.php?t=21967&highlight=302

 

The '89 oilpan has a 'rear sump' oil pickup tube (thought: under acceleration, the pump does not rund 'dry'). Most (all?) early small block Fords use a front sump pick-up tube.


Just found this again (great info from fellow member, Charlie) Swap Link. It should answer a lot of your (our) questions.

Gluck!

 

Thanks for that link Rick, excellent info!

Okey, so there certainly seems to be a couple of issues. The bracket for the clutch-linkage doesn´t look as it would cause too much trouble. The flywheel and the clutch itself might present a bit of a worry, but I suppose that if I get the original flywheel rebalanced, that would take care of any problems with the clutch and flywheel mating.

I printed the page and will show it to my buddy, and we will take a look at how much work is involved, if it´s worth it to get this engine or if I shoul continue looking. So far it seems to me that it shouldn´t be too hard to use the 5.0.

Anders O

 

Ohh well..., looks like I´ll have to keep on searching. Even though the 302 to 5.0 swap is doable, the cost of the machining neccessary together with the price for the motor would easily allow me to buy a 302 (or a 289, which may actually be easier to find here) instead, so what´s the point?

There´s a swapmeet tomorrow, which will be a good place to look for an engine.

Thanks for the support guys. This mess WILL be sorted out eventually, there´s no doubt about that.

Anders O