Ok will do. I ordered the bolts today.. the cam bolts for that engine are the same as the crank pulley bots, FYI. I haven't progressed much.. plenty of trial and error on the engine lifting mechanism. First I tried sandwiching the Harbor Freight tool (previously mentioned) in between two 2x4s, stacked vertically - those would "extend" the metal bar the full length I needed in order to rest them on the fender. That didn't go so well, so I aborted that operation mid-stream. I decided instead it would be better to bolt the bar up to a couple of 4x4 sections using some 5/8" hardware. That worked better from a construction standpoint and otherwise.. the problem is that when I went to lift the engine, the whole apparatus of turning those tiny little handles proved (in my opinion) too cumbersome to work with. The "proper" solution is to do what they say in Alldata - use an engine hoist to lift it, then grab it with the metal bar to hold it in place. The metal bar could be used to lift the engine, but I'd probably wear out all my strength that way.

So I bought an engine hoist today.. I lucked into a real good deal too. I can't imagine why I won't be successful now. And of course, the obligatory photo.. she's ready to come up just as soon as I hook up the shop crane:

 

Nice pix. What happened to that wheel nut for the L/F wheel at the 3' o clock position?

 

A new set of lugs are on my "to do" list for this car.. she bought it with a couple of missing nuts. Presumably they used to be locking, and the previous owner forgot to put them back on.

 

nice lift setup.

i don't remember where i read it. but there is two types of chain guide/tensioners available. the upgraded are supposed to last longer… it was a 4.6/5.4 buildup in a hot rod mag… i'll see if i can find the info…
still haven't found the article..
the replacements are a light cream/yellow/green (depends on the photo shown) ****not the oem orange***
and it was noted that the vehicles with the most problems were using oil filters without the proper check valve in them or using the wrong motor oil.
***ford now recommends 5-20 simi-synthetic or synthetic motor oil in the mod engine…

a source for upgraded guides:...
http://www.modmaxracing.com/product_p/tfs51800507.htm

 

Ok, it's been a while since I've been back on this, but finally I blocked off 12 solid hours on Friday. Here's the play-by-play on what happened. I'm going to intentionally draw this out over multiple posts, so that the forum will separate my posts into multiple pages, so that you guys aren't downloading pics forever and a day while reading this. All of my pics are 3MB or more, and i've got several.

First of all... my trusty shop crane. Everything is in position, tranny mounts unbolted, exhaust pipes unbolted and supported underneath the car, motor mount bolts are out, and she's ready to come up:




And indeed she does, after a bit of trial and error. Regarding how I'm holding the motor up, it seems to me you'd never be able to hold it by the two central bolts on the block (the ones just above the water pump, which normally bolt up the bottom of the alternator to the block). If you use those two bolts to raise the engine with the shop crane, you won't be able to grab them.. there's just too much interference with the shop crane and the red engine support; the shop crane wants to be where the support is, and it just doesn't work. My solution was to hoist with the 2 alternator bolt holes, and then support the block using the bolt holes on each of the heads, like so:




Now it's raised and supported, and I left the crane hooked up for 5 minutes as a "fail-safe" in case the red engine support decided to give. It hang in there, and didn't dent the fender either. I was surprised actually, given that the fenders are weaker than normal because they were cut to accommodate big rims in a previous life. To those of you who are probably saying that grabbing the motor by the head is bad, it may be. But on most engine platforms, bolts into the front and back of the heads are a perfectly acceptable way to raise and lower an engine. Further, to minimize potential damage, I only hoisted using the two holes in the block.. the bolts in the head were just used to hold the raised motor, but not to raise/lower it.

One more shot of that motor support, just because it's such a beautiful work of art:




The motor kept wanting to creep over to the passenger side, once raised. In all, I ended up lifting it about 5 inches to accommodate the oil pan coming out. I took a picture of the front of the engine while raised, so you can get an idea of what the motor mount looks like when it's raised to a height sufficient to get the oil pan out:

 

It's worth noting that the bolts I was using to raise and support the engine, were Grade 4 stainless. They didn't bend or budge at all. I don't recall the length, maybe 40mm? They were screwed all the way in, so that maybe 20 to 25mm were left hanging out. But they did great.

Another foot-note, in order to break free all of the oil pan mount bolts, you're going to need a 10mm wrench, extended by a pair of vice-grips or a small pipe perhaps. I thought I had a 10 mil wrench and I didn't.. and the consequence was that I couldn't break some of those bolts free until I had the motor raised up a full 5 inches, at which point I could use a socket.

 

With the motor raised and all the bolts broken free, just pull the oil pan mount bolts out and it'll come down easy as pie. There's no RTV or anything with regard to the oil pan, not even on the timing cover as far as I could tell. Just the pan, gasket, and block. You won't be able to move the oil pan much once it drops, and you'll have to unbolt the pickup tube first before you pull everything out. The pickup tube of course bolts up to the oil pump using two 8mm bolts, but it's also attached to the block via a bolt on the passenger side, just behind where the oil dipstick sits. You'll be able to see that well in the coming pictures. The oil pan will tilt a bit - pull it downward, towards you, so that the passenger side of the oil pan tilts up - that's what you'll need to put a wrench or a shallow socket on that bolt to pull it.

So this is not the best picture in the world, but it's a decent illustration of how much crap was all over the oil pan and the pickup tube. I took this as soon as I pulled them out:




Naaaasty. Here's another shot of just the pickup tube, but with no flash:





Notice how the screen is completely covered in plastic, except for a small area that's the size of a pencil eraser??? Do you honestly believe you could ever get that quantity of crap back-flushed and drained out the oil pan without dropping the oil pan and the pickup tube? No way! No disrespect to anyone who's ever flushed that tube in-place, but I simply can't imagine how you'd ever get that amount of crap out without being able to hit both ends of the tube with air/cleaning fluid/etc. It would just wind up in the motor again, and half of it would re-clog the screen.

Another angle, with flash, after I'd gotten about half of the plastic out:

 

My procedure for cleaning the pickup tube was a combination of first a small amount of brake cleaner.. then a bunch of air in both directions. Between air flushes, I'd hit it with carb cleaner, and I never used any more brake cleaner on either the pickup tube or the oil pan, after the first shot. The pickup tube required tapping it on that wooden fence in the background, multiple times, before all the plastic came out. Back and forth, forth and back, flushing with air in both directions, with some carb cleaner in between. After 20 minutes of that, I had it clean as a whistle. And indeed, blowing 90 psi of air toward the pickup screen would cause it to whistle significantly. I probably spent 20 minutes on the oil pan as well.

 

And now... the crankcase. First the front:




The apparent scoring on the two discs of the crankshaft was probably caused by the pickup tube scraping it while I was pulling everything out. It was a tight fit for sure. If I were a professional, the next time I did this, I'd drop the transmission and pull the pan out from the back. You'd still have to lift the engine a full 5 inches to be able to bolt and unbolt the pickup tube, but you wouldn't scrape either the crankcase components, nor the oil pan, as I did.

A closer zoom of the front two cylinders:




Note the scoring on that cylinder.. to my untrained eye, that doesn't look nice at all. Does that look normal in any way to you guys? Or is this going to result in a quicker disintegration of rings, piston slap, compression loss, etc?

 

...continued to the next post