Oh Lordy, I now own a Fordy (a Lincoln actually)..

[njsteve]

Thanks for noticing! It took three people to get that hood up and away. As we moved it to the side we all heard the nuts and acorns inside the hood framework rolling around. Lots of homeless chipmunks got evicted from the Lincoln when I moved this thing out of my Dad's garage in 2013.

At least now, Gramma and Grampa will both have freshly rebuilt, matching engines. The funny thing is that they both have the exact same mileage at the moment: 85,000 miles.

[njsteve]

Spoke with the machinist yesterday. The block is all cleaned up already. As usual he is my mechanical conscience. He said the cylinders, once honed, would be around .005 larger than a std bore and: "Yeah you could slap it together with the original pistons and it would run OK but since its apart you might as well do it right..."

So we are ordering a set of hypereutectic cast pistons for the block (which are actually rather cheap) in .020 or .030 over. As you may recall, this version of the 460 has 10-1/2 to 1 compression instead of the '72 and newer, which are much lower for regular gas use. He found a set of the correct high compression pistons and we will go with that.

I was going over some of my grandfather's original paperwork from the car and got a good laugh when I read the engine specs and it said: "use gasoline of 99 octane rating minimum."

[mockingbird812]

Great work. Thanks for the update! Cool cruiser to be sure!!!!

[Astock]

Not your average soccer mom Suburban 1500. Good color too.

[njsteve]

Yeah, our 1995 K2500 diesel 'Burb was last Summer's project: pulled the original engine and replaced it with a new AMG updated 18 to 1 compression HUMVEE refit engine bought right off the assembly line in Ohio. Turns out the original engine had flaking bearings from the old head gasket loss back in 2013. Found out from an oil analysis. Lucky I pulled it because we found all the main webs had cracked in the block. (A common malady with these). Here's that thread in case you need some heavy (pun intended) entertainment.

https://www.dieselplace.com/forum/63...camper-18.html

We bought this truck brand new back in 1995 so she's a keeper!

[njsteve]

Borrowed my buddy's pressure washer yesterday and spent the afternoon blasting the engine compartment, and as much of the underside that I could reach while the car was on jackstands.

Here's the rear differential shots. The weird harness going to the pinion hub is actually a prehistoric version of ABS that would monitor the differential speed and pulse the breaks at an amazing (for the time) 4 pulses per second to prevent rear brake lockup. Unfortunately the valve component that sits in the engine compartment failed years ago with an internal leak and was removed and thrown out by my Dad's favorite Lincoln dealer...

Gotta love that old blue Permatex attempt at sealing the leaking pinion gasket by the same Lincoln dealer.

[big gear head]

That is the 9 3/8 rear end, not a 9 inch. If you ever have to get parts for it then this is what you need to ask for. The pinion housing is sealed with an O ring, not a gasket. Sometimes you can pull the pinion housing out without having to remove the whole chunk, but many times you have to remove the chunk and loosen up the backlash before the pinion housing will come out. When you remove the pinion housing there will be shims between it and the chunk. This is how the pinion depth is adjusted. Don't damage these shims. It's been several years since I built one of these, but I think the shims are larger than what a 9 inch uses, and I'd hate to have to find replacements.

[njsteve]

I think I'll just live with the oil drips for the time being given the complexity of the repair. Looks like the dealer loosened the bolts and tried to inject blue Permatex in the gap, and then tightened it back up.

[njsteve]

Here's the engine bay after pressure washing. You can see some of the original factory markings on the sway bar and in the passenger side front fender behind the battery tray. Does that say "427 COPO" ??? (Just kidding)

I already started buying up suspension parts - upper and lower ball joints, lower control arm bushings., etc. Perusing my Dad's repair orders from the Lincoln dealer I could see that they already replaced the inner and outer tie rods, idler arm, the center link assembly, and the sway bar and strut rod bushings around 500 miles ago (in 1998).

[njsteve]

Engine progress! Block is already tanked, bored, honed and cam bearings installed. Heads are next. The Speed Pro H535CP .030 pistons are installed on the rods. These are an updated version of the factory piston with valve reliefs instead of a compression lowering pocket in the center.

With the factory DOVE-C heads it is well over 10 to 1. Once I CC the chambers I will know exactly what it will be. The Speed Pro spec says 10.8 to 1 with 72 CC chambers and 10.3 to 1 with the 77 CC chambers.