Rembrant

I was thinking of using some header wrap around the collector and flange. Are there starter blankets? On the upside, it's not like this thing will get driven all that much...couple thousand miles per year.

Hey Rick, Did the shop to a 2 wheel alignment, or four? I think I'd also check the back end to make sure nothing is loose or out of line somehow. To rule out anything in the steering box, you could maybe pop the power steering belt off and take it for a drive?

Hey John, My El-Cheapo EBay headers showed up yesterday, and for money spent I'm pretty happy with them. The fit and finish is decent, and the bolts and gaskets that came with them all fit and seem good. For $129 or whatever they were, they were worth the risk. No good for a Bullnose obviously, but I had to go with the block huggers in my '52 build. Only issue with them...and nothing to do with them being Chinese, is that the block hugger headers don't leave much room for the starter. Otherwise I'm happy with them, and they look pretty good. My aftermarket tubular crossmember is bolted up here to make sure it clears also. It's close, but there's room.

Well Gary, as you know I’m more of a half ton guy, so Given the choice I’d be taking the wimpy little 5-lug truck with the 5.0:nabble_anim_handshake:

Don't know if any of you have stumbled across these nice old blue '86 Bulls. This F150 is pretty clean looking, and well documented too. Even comes with cassette tapes;) https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1986-ford-f-150-27/ And a single wheel '86 F350 4x4... https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1986-ford-f-350-3/

A quick check looks like it takes 1/4 turn to hit the stop from slack, and then I can turn it another 1/4 turn before it's tight, so that's 180 deg. I have only tried a couple so far, but that's where I seem to be.

Ok, I am finally getting back to this. Some of the lifters are easy to compress and I can bottom them out by hand. Some of them move a tiny bit, and others are hard as a rock. I guess this is why you need the tool to bleed them down (by applying pressure?). Anyway, on the ones that I can easily collapse and bottom out, it looks like my clearances are in the 0.110" to 0.115" range, which is well within spec above. If I run the nut down slowly until all the slop comes out of the pushrod and rocker arm, it then takes about 1/4 turn to hit the stop, and then another 1/4 turn to tighten it (with a little 1/4" ratchet). That 1/4 turn is collapsing the lifter a tiny bit. If I go by the distance traveled of a 5/16-18 nut, that converts a 1/4 turn to 0.014". I assume it is OK that the lifters are collapsed 0.014"-0.020" at rest with the valve closed?

Gary, I saw this engine in a truck on Ebay. This is all I'm trying to do with the valve covers. Of course most will know exactly what the engine is, but a lot of people will not;). Distributor in the back? What in tarnation?....Y-Block? Anybody know how to find a font? How would I figure out what font those Mercury letters are?

By the way, if you search on that number, it brings up all kinds of other grills with the same number, so I'd say this is just a regular old Bullnose grill for the North American market. Even this Ebay auction, which actually shows two different grills... https://www.ebay.com/itm/133799956983 And a post from right here several years ago, with a now dead link to a grill on Ebay with that same number. https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Grills-NOS-used-tp30817.html Actually, all of these Bullnose grills on Ebay are listed with the same number... https://www.ebay.com/itm/274760031726?epid=1749199248&hash=item3ff8f95dee:g:c3gAAOSwGulgeDGS https://www.ebay.com/itm/114855540583?epid=1749199248&hash=item1abdec7767:g:hwAAAOSwgh1gy9CH https://www.ebay.com/itm/264894588978?hash=item3dacf2a832:g:g~UAAOSw-mNfggSd

Gary, if there's anything in there regarding rocker installation that is different from the previous trucks I wouldn't mind seeing it, but the 1984 FSM just says to install and torque, nothing more. I know in the 1995 they had roller cams, but the hydraulic lifters, rocker arms, and pushrods would all be the same thing really...so the procedure should be the same all things considered...

I know the XLS trucks and Bronco's had the completely black grills, but I thought the dark charcoal grills were a Bronco thing. From the 82-84 Brochures: I know the Bronco on the left is an XLS, but the one on the right isn't.

Ok perfect, a spec, thank you! Where do I measure? I snuggled down two rockers on cylinder 1, and one of the lifters squishes, and the other doesn’t.

Gentlemen, This may be a dumb question, I don't know...but I started Googling answers and I ended up going down a rabbit hole and now I'm more confused than ever lol. I love my 302's, but the major downside to them is that if you try to search for ANYTHING you will invariably end up sorting through 10,000 Mustang threads looking for answers. Anyway... Engine is a 302/5.0 with roller cam/lifters, and the same SBF stamped steel rocker arms that have been used since the late 70's. So my question is: When does one need to be concerned with shimming them during re-installation on a rebuilt engine? Or does one need to be concerned at all? I thought the whole point of these things was to just stick 'em on and torque 'em down. I understand if you mill your heads 0.030" to boost compression and have the blocked resurfaced and run a thinner head gasket then OK, you'll have to shim the rockers or get shorter pushrods. But what if you just had basic clean-up resurface work done? The bare minimum to clean up a set of heads, and take 0.005" off the decks on the block? Or 0.010"? Lets say that the worst case scenario is 0.020" material removed between the heads and the block, and then you install a head gasket that is supposedly 0.007" thicker than stock. That leaves 0.013" difference, on the high side. Surely the stacked manufacturing tolerances of the heads and block varied by 5 or 10 thou, no? What IS the procedure for installing the factory rockers? And does that procedure change on a rebuilt engine?

I can't answer the question, but it looks just like the grill I bought for my '84 F150. It was a NOS piece still in the Ford box. There is a local guy here that worked in the body shop of a Ford dealer for 40 years, and he has a barn full of used and NOS Ford parts that he sells. I don't know if I'd call mine black, it seemed like more of a charcoal color up close, but it was an actual Ford part. Unfortunately I didn't save the part number.

I opened the thread thinking this was going to be like a Mecum Auction or Barrett Jackson type auction haha. Still, Flaresides turn me on regardless, whether they are grown into the trees or not.

I had BBK 3510 shorties on my '84 302, and I really liked them. I had a set of the JBA versions as well briefly...I bought a NOS set really cheap and then re-sold them lol, but they were very nice also...I'd say basically the same thing as the BBK's. I did have to buy new header bolts and gaskets though. The ones that came with the headers were too short. Maybe I got a bad batch, I dunno. And this is the color they turned after being used for a while. They stayed the same after this. I never did polish them or anything. I imagine it would help.

I only have the little 302 to compare to, but I thought that there was loads of room under there no? I had an Edelbrock Performer intake, Holley 4bbl, with a 1" spacer under the carb, and a 1" spacer on top of the carb. The air cleaner had a 1.125" drop, but I was running a 4" tall filter, so it basically adds up to 4" above the carb. Mind you, the "top" of the 302 is approximately 1" lower than a 351W. Even with all that, I thought there were still several inches clearance above the air cleaner lid. Could be wrong though. I had to run the 1" spacer so that the 14" air cleaner would clear the coil and distributor, and also keep the throttle cable level in the factory position. The factory intake had that giant EGR spacer under there. Of course the factory air cleaners have the massive "cut-out" in the front to clear the distributor and the coil (if mounted on the intake like mine was).

My headlamp arrived from Amazon today. I really like it…my wife just ordered one for herself lol. Will come in handy as I have a lot of work to do under the truck soon. Thanks John.

What the market really needs is a radiator conversion kit, or at the very least an aftermarket set of the lower mounting brackets. They would be a good product for Reamer to make!

Convert to the newer rad Shaun! The later rads are way cheaper, and far more available. Did you happen to see all the people on FB last year trying to find 80-84 radiators and they were out of stock everywhere? You couldn't buy one at any cost. The 1985-up ones were used right up until 1996, so they're much more common.

When I see something like this it makes me want to buy it and build a truck around it...lol.

That’s how it should have been repaired the first time!

Speaking of the "Previous Owner Blues"... I'm trying to clean up this old Mustang Foxbody carbed 4bbl intake manifold. It was rough, and dirty, but it was also very cheap so I can't complain too much, but... The upper thermostat housing bolt hole has been buggered up almost to becoming useless lol. It is supposed to be 5/16". Somebody stripped it at some point and tapped in partially to 3/8". Obviously that didn't work, so it was tapped partially again to 7/16" lol. So now the hole is like a cone shape, and it's not even centered. Using the few remaining 5/16" threads in the bottom of the hole I stuck a short length of threaded rod in there with Loctite. It did tighten pretty good. I then filled the rest of the hole with metal filled 2-part epoxy. I'll trim the rod off later and use an acorn nut on it to keep it "pretty". ...if it works...lol. Fingers crossed.

Hey John, I went with truck shorty headers on my '84, and I really liked them. They seemed to stand up well too, as they discolored a little with heat, but they didn't rust at all. They were the BBK 3510's. I believe there is a different set again for the 351w. They weren't cheap however, and the gaskets and bolts that came with them were no good, so they had to be replaced before I even installed them. Having said that, if you do end up going with headers, make a note to buy Remflex header gaskets. I had two engine shops recommend these as "set-it-and-forget-it" gaskets, and they were right. Never did leak. I hate to go against what Mat says above about Mustang headers, but I'd be a bit leery of them myself. I know some guys make them work, but I've read a lot of reports of guys that couldn't make them fit. A lot of things come into play with fitment of them, and the slightly taller 351W might aggravate that a bit as well (Mustang headers are meant for a 302 after all, at least the Foxbody ones). A lot of guys have issues with them getting in the way of shifter linkages, and hydraulic and mechanical clutch equipment. I assume they're OK with certain automatics...I'm not sure. The good news about Mustang headers is that they're everywhere, and pretty easy to find used, so if you did buy a set and they didn't work, you won't be out much money. I have a set of Foxbody stock shorty headers here. If you were just down the road I'd give 'em to ya for test fitment! The other thing is to look on Ebay, Amazon, and elsewhere. I just ordered a set of stainless shorty block hugger headers for my 5.0 project, and there were like $129 bucks, plus $20 shipping (shipping to you likely would have been free). I have talked to a couple of guys that have been running the cheap Ebay headers for a few seasons now, trouble free. I figured for the price, they're worth the risk. So if you do look at the Mustang headers, you should be able to find used ones for a decent price, and if you can't, you can buy new Chinese ones for the same or less.

Oh if it’s a roller block then definitely a 50z. The cranks can’t be swapped without machining the blocks.