This is just a little story about what started out to be a learning exercise into FE engines that really turned out to be what you can do on a budget with some ingenuity. While just about any of us (gear heads and car lovers alike) can rebuild/refresh an engine and for some it's as easy as grabbing a Hot Rod magazine or other favorite Ford periodical and melting down your credit card with loads of aftermarket parts from new heads, pistons, cams, forged cranks, rods etc to extensive machining at your local shop.

This one however is done on a budget, priding myself on finding deals and using loads of determination to do as much of the work as I can. Believe me I can melt down a credit card in a heartbeat with the best of them.

With that I need to say, this was only possible because the car turned out to be really low mileage (~30K) and the engine didn't need any major machine work.

Let me start by introducing this gem. Actually it's gems. We bought two 1966 galaxies that had sunk up to the rockers from being abandoned sitting in a field for 3 decades and probably change. While the blue one came engineless everything else was left in the car and the red one was pretty much complete, sans a shattered drivers side window.

This is them after carting them hundreds of miles home. They were still on their bias ply tyres of which 3 miraculously held air so I had to get creative finding other tyres that held air that I could use at least temporarily. At first, we destined these cars for a restoration and had no plans of driving them till they were done. But on a holiday weekend and with nothing better to do we actually got the red one started after many decades. When we bought them we were told the engine was junk and I wrote it off then.

Well it wasn't......

Seeing it run, but burning tons of oil made me think of just rebuilding the engine now and at least that would be done. But to return it to stock standards didn't require much as it turned out.

This is the engine after it's long sleep and rebuilding the carb and using some garden hose in a last minute idea in order to fill the cooling system as it was a holiday and the autoparts stores were closed.

I was still pretty much floored at just how well it ran after all that time, it idled beautifully and revved up smoothly. It just burned so much oil you could not see behind the car.

Well, now time to take apart the engine and Oh My Gosh,,, I can't believe the amount of carbon!!!!

What a mess! Now it really gets challenging. Time to crack on, first off clean the block, heads and everything else and inspect them for cracks and dimensionally check the critical areas and wear items. In order to clean the gunk and carbon out of the parts, block and heads I made a make-shift furnace cabinet out of old metal shelves, a 50,000 btu torpedo heater and some baffling. It was extremely crude but it worked nicely. In order to monitor the temperature of the parts I attached thermocouples to a few areas and monitored the temperature of the parts while they were being cooked at 400-450 degrees F for a few hours.

This is important, after they are cooked let them cool very slowly. Just about everything turned to ash and you could literally just blow the crud out with an air hose. On the block I removed the core plugs (err freeze plugs) and made sure all the cooling and oil passages were cleared out. Same with the heads, etc.

Once everything was cleaned I could measure the bearings, valves, guides etc. Turned out everything except the rocker arms were in limits. I'm guessing the carbon blocked oil passages in the rocker shafts and oil starved the rockers. Both sides were excessively worn. On the flip side, the piston rings were in such good shape I re-used them. There was a bit of a ridge at the top of the cylinders so a little reaming and a hone on the cylinders and the block was ready to go. The crank, rod and cam and their bearings were all with in limits. As for the heads; the guides, valves and seats were serviceable, all I did was lap the valves.

Now for replacement parts, I managed to find fantastic deals on Rock Auto, just dumb luck really, most of the parts I needed were on clearance. Stupid cheap prices on just about everything.

This is what I bought new for the engine/car:

*complete gasket kit *fuel pump *water pump *coolant hoses *belts *high volume oil pump *pick up screen *timing chain set *160 degree thermostat *power steering pump rebuild kit *power steering hoses *dist cap, rotor, points and condenser *platinum plugs and HT leads *oil pressure sensor *coolant temperature sensor *engine mounts *electronic voltage regulator

I did have to buy the core/freeze plug set from Napa and a set of used rocker assemblies from the local U-Pull and Pay, as they always have a dozen or so 60's early 70's Ford trucks with FE's in them. So it's easy pickings and for 20 dollars for a complete pair, it's hard to find a better deal.

So time for some reassembly:

While I was at it I rebuilt the power steering pump, the alternator, and the hydraulic brakes on the car, also installed new Cardon joints and prepped the prop-shaft. Not to mention cleaning 7 dead mice out of the fuel tank and the tar like residue that glued them in there (absolutely revolting!). Also rebuilt the fuel pick up with a modern pick up screen and mended the electrical sending unit.

It's ready for a proper test drive now.

Of which I'm happy to report, that it runs like a champ, purrs like kitten, quiet and burns no oil. Even in the dead of winter at -10 degrees F, pump the gas a few times and it starts right up. Most of all, I know the condition of the internals and having gone through everything, I have every faith in the engine and would happily trust it on a cross country drive...

The rest of the car, not so much, but it's a start

Eventually when all the other cars are done, the engine will be re-done again, this was a cheap learning experience because I had never worked on or owned an FE engine. I also wanted to see and feel how much power a stock 1966 model 352, dual exhaust, 4100 carb, 3.0 rear end in a 3600 pound car would have.

Turns out, not that much..... It's really quite doggy. But now after getting into it's innards, I know why and have plans in the future to increase the power as well as the efficiency. But for now it was a fun experience and the engine will last a good long time if nothing else is done to it. We have AV-gas here to help increase the life of the valve seats, and also with 100 octane fuel I can advance the timing a bit for bit more oomph without worries of detonation.

Here's some more pictures if you're interested:

There's definitely a long way to go with it, but for now, it's fun to drive around the subdivision and we use it every day to get the mail as it's a 2 mile trek to the mail box from the house. In the interim we found some decent turbine wheels at our favorite wrecking yard still on a 1980 Grand Marquis, and for 60 dollars we liberated them and they now feel more content on our red mail getter for the time being.

Oh and thanks to Ebay for a cheap replacement drivers side door glass.

Hope you enjoyed.

‹ the end ›