Our choices are slim when trying to deal with an old auto. Machine shops are not much better ,you take a chance anywhere you go now.
Yeah, it was fine and didn't need any machining, runs fine now. I like the older vehicles like you said the problems are known and easier. Yes new oil, plugs, wires, everything.
Jake can fix almost anything. Except me, but he is this cats meow. I'm so happy he got one down and now my van is next.
For 52 years the government has interfered with the proper design of an automobile engine, instead of making them dependable and last for decades of hard driving and abuse they have been backward engineered to force the engines to meet the government pollution standards. There are no, and will never be another good engine leave a US manufacturer. Not one manufacturer has a dependable engine period. The problem is so severe it was created by the necessity to reduce weight of engines overall, otherwise they would never meet fuel mileage mandates. They won't tell you that the other thing that has been backward engineered is passenger safety. The cars are pure crapola. Most engines today are complete throw a ways. Ford is one of the worst abusers with the throw a ways. In the 90s they were the king of crapola. It became so bad most independent shops wouldn't even attempt an in chassis repair for problems that were fixable but the labor cost was so high they couldn't charge for that much work for so little. They simply told a customer you need a new engine. The Ford Explorer became the laughing stock for mechanics and it was renamed the Ford Explode r. No one wanted to work on their v-6 because Ford made it so cheap they didn't bother to even put timing marks on any of the QUAD cam valve train. Bring a lunch if you want to do one, oh and I should say one gear and chain set is facing the firewall. I simply could not believe how stupid the engineers were to stick something like that into a vehicle. Owners were so insulted when told the shop did not want to work on it. Manufacturers have been getting away with pushing off their crappolla onto the private sector forever.
my E350 has really been a good one but it is a 1995, somehow, they got one good one off the line. It has a 351 aka 5.8. I can go to daughters house 400 miles and still have 1/4 tank of gas. It has a 4 speed E40D trans. Not me International with 7.3 diesel shorty skoolie but its ok. I miss standing up though, in van I have to bend.
@Thomas Stillhere here is a couple pics of it. This one at the beach when we drove down the ramp to the beach a crowd was at the beach side bar, they were hollering, "NO, you'll get stuck", we didn't get stuck, [ it was a dully], got a clapping standing ovation when we made it.
Yeah I believe that particular 351 was a de stroked 400. They made the 400 using the same cleveland 351 design but the crankshaft was bigger and stroked a bit. I never really figured out why they did that, maybe due to cost. Nascar raced that cleveland up until recently but it was very costly, they had to ship castings all the way to Australia to have the final machining applied then ship back to the USA. I believe it was the only place still casting the original cleveland blocks. My last full time job was automatic transmission builder in Nevada. I did a lot of the E40D s ... I don't even want to work on my own truck and just hope it last until I die. They can bury me in it if they like. Now all I want to do is sit here and build some little computer games and take naps. I had to buy a new amplified TV antenna yesterday from walmart. I am too far from Baton Rouge to get a good signal so I miss out on a lot of channels. I get 6 to 9 and that is all, but with the towers in the area I am supposed to get as many as 38 channels. I got free cable for the past 4 years and they changed their system after the guberment started allowing them to start renting their equipment again. Probably because enough politicians still had stock in the suppliers and they wanted to continue to steal. So this new system is all tied into this new router modem combo I recently got from the cable company. I was losing my internet speed and it took two weeks to have them finally wake up and figure out my connection was using the older simple modem and it could not handle the new increased speeds. I do like it because it has a built in router and that allows me to wireless my other computers from it rather than use my routers. I originally had quit the cable ISP and they just left my TV connected at the street pole, but they sold the company and the new company never bothers to check anything and I had TV when I started using the old ISP again. So I got used to the few stations I liked and watched and now I only have a couple stations worth watching,and I am lucky because I get my 3 favorite stations that show my nightly favorites around bed time. The Big Bang Theory and then Young Sheldon and 2 and a half men. I have watched all those so many times I never get tired of watching them.
When I left Nevada I was looking at a nice GMC small yellow bus with the diesel and it had that wheel chair lift on the side. I was thinking about taking my two dogs and just traveling around the country for a while and I could get my tool boxes into the bus with no effort. It was all there and needed some work but I could have done that if I had the time. I didn't get the thing but still made my move, the bottom fell out of the economy after 9/11 and in part that was why I didn't buy it . This photo reminds me of that bus but the bus was smaller and the rear wheels located further to the rear. The hydraulic lift was just a tad in front of the rear wheels
My brothers name was Thomas, he was a very witty smart man. So you think my van will go another 160,000? He is going to put a Solenoid pak in it soon as it comes in it the mail. I don't know much about the internet my first laptop was a WebTV. I'm glad you got the internet fixed.
Well maybe it is best you didn't get it, or you'd be crying like me every time you saw a shorty going by. Ours was yellow but hubby painted it, he was a body man painted all his adult life. I liked the idea that nobody bothered us they all thought it was a prison bus..
Serviced when it needs it and the cooling system. Water pump and radiator would be the heart of the engine, and clean oil of course. Some engines can hit that high mileage but it's machinery and stuff breaks. I worked with a guy in Houston as service writers for the old Tom Peacock dealer on I-10. His name was Herb Ellis and he drove a little Chevy Nova and he had this thing about seeing how high he could get his cigarette ashes to pile up in his ash tray. I think it was about 6 inches high last time I looked at it in 74. He and another writer Phil Parker left after I had left the dealer and they became the service manager and shop foreman in the newest Cadillac dealer around 75. Oh and about your engine, I would not use this new thin engine oil. The new synthetics are all about gas mileage again. They don't protect an engine better only make less friction in the bearings so they spin easier, thus better mileage. Chrysler proved that when their new cars and trucks in the 80s idled with 3 pounds of oil pressure from the plant.
Thanks for the advice on the cooling and oil and glad you mentioned it to me aka us. It's time to say good night.
Yeah, some of their designs really puzzle me too. Like on my Nissan truck, you have to have everything in perfect alignment distributor, gears, and chain, or it's never gonna crank. While I was rebuilding this one I read on one of the Nissan sites about how a professional mechanic, had to try aligning it all, "seven times" before he got it in time. Made me feel better while I was wrestling this 2.4, 4-cylinder, eight-plug engine. Actually, beat him on that one.