Hi everyone,
I'm in the process of getting my '61 Galaxie roadworthy again & as luck would have it I've stumbled across an opportunity to purchase a 390 to replace the 352 that came with the car. I'm going to ask for your guidance on this, with first some back story and then details on the motor up for sale.
In the past five months, I've gone pretty far into my motor, it's accessories are removed, all that remains are manifolds and heads, and I've come to realize that this poor motor led a very hard life for 66,000 Mi. It may well have rolled past 100k miles for the shape it's in, although for the shape the bdy is in I'm willing to doubt it; the doors still close solidly, the suspension, while not in good shape, doesn't appear t have had the nuts and bolts loose and/or have any wear on the nuts & bolts so I doubt it's ever been apart / had parts replaced. (I figure that if someone had driven it that much, say a traveling salesman, he'd have had the shocks & the like replaced. Assumption, I know, but stay with me...) What I've been able to determine is that it was put to pasture with sixteen dead valve oil seals ; the poor buggers absolutely grenaded! Oil-sludge had built-up both inside the valve cover and on the exterior of the motor in some parts as much as an inch thick! I don't believe the previous owner much moved the car since then and I have good reason to think it sat for quite a few years, was run in the Nineties and was again sent out to pasture. (There are receipts in the car from the late eighties and early nineties as well as a port sticker fade shadow on the windshield showing an expiration date of 1995. I was pizzazed when I found five poly-glas tires mounted (and very flat) with the car.. a piece of history in my eye but I digress... Where was I?
Oh yes, anyhow!! I figure it'll take a full rebuild, replacing pistons and the like to get this thing to be a solid platform for future upgrading whereas a 390 sits ready, waiting and in running condition for $250. A little about this supposed 390: its casting code is d3te, according to "High Performance Ford Engine Parts Interchange"(ace book, btw) is a truck 390 block cast in 73 and can be safely bored out to .030" over. Now where this seems to excel as a purchase for the dollars are the intake manifold (plus 4 bbl) and heads: the intake manifold is a '67 jobby with a Holley perched atop, harking from ye olde 67 (C7AE[right beneath appears]9425) whereas the cylinder heads are C8AE-H and that H means exactly what you think: Hi-Po (woohoo!) Now I figure the 390's been worked doesn't show some huge overbore (on it based on the mix-n-match of parts & pieces but the seller's made mention of performing a compression-test on it to determine it's health further than the spark-plug reading he's already done. Where that's concerned, by the way, it shows cylinder two or three as having an oily plug and that means a bad seal or rings on the piston, am I right?
Anyhow I'm going with my gut that provided his motor doesn't show some huge overbore, greater than .03") I'm interested and sure it can be bored as necessary. Anywho-all that aside; is this a deal you would make? Why or why not?
I thank you for your time and hope I didn't kill you with my meandering "style" of posting.
Have a great one,
Chris B