I'm pulling the 390 Super Marauder out of my '68 F-250 4wd to put in my '70 F-350 dumptruck, hopefully to make the tow/haul to Beaver Springs here in one week. The original 100,000 mile 360 is an "unknown" as far as reliability goes and I don't want to chance taking it through the mountains of Pennsylvania hauling my Mach 1. I know this won't be very exciting compared to most stuff on here but I thought I'd show it for a couple of reasons.
First, I built this engine 20 years ago. It's the longest I've ever had an engine together and remain untouched since the day I did it. Besides adjusting the valves about 1/2 a dozen times the first few years, and getting tired of pulling the covers for nothing after the first couple of adjustments, I quit and haven't had them off, or needed to, in the past 15 years. And besides the original starter, which I had to replace after about a year, I have not done one single thing to the engine beyond replacing the wires once and adjusting the points a couple of times. It has an MSD Blaster ignition that is triggered by the points, and they have been in the truck the whole 20 years. Same goes for the plugs, same ones for 20 years. It has literally been the most dead-nuts reliable engine I have ever had and has been through a lifetime or two of hard work and lots of play. I thought it might be interesting to see how things have held up after all the years and abuse it's been through.
Second, I'm going to do a minor, and very quick, refresh of the bearings, gaskets and replace the intake with an Edelbrock RPM. The engine has never made a noise, but I figure after this long it deserves new bearings and a better intake. She's earned it
Quick background, the engine is a Super Marauder out of a '64 Mercury Monterey. It had the extra webbing and crossbolt nibs with thick cylinder walls, so I figured it was basically a left over 406 block or something cast using their performance block molds at the least. Either way, it is a stout block. I lightly ported the C4 heads, stuck a solid lifter Crane cam in it (mid .5s on lift) with blocked lifter passages, Crane hollow shell lifters (no longer available) with Crane pushrods, stock type adjustable rockers with Crane jam nuts on stock shafts with iron stands and no end stands, a Melling high volume oil pump with a HD shaft, a 750 Holley dual inlet center pivot carb and a set of Hedman headers running through a 2 1/2" custom exhaust with Edelbrock Crossflow mufflers, also no longer available.
The truck body is wasted from 21 years of Ohio winters and salt, and led it's previous farm life in Michigan. How it's lasted this long is beyond me. The hood mounting points on the inner fenderwells let go several years ago and the last 2 years I literally had a ratchet strap stretched across from front fenderwell to fenderwell to hold the hood on.
The starting point, after sitting the last year due to a busted brake line. It wasn't worth fixing at that point.
The engine looks remarkably good for how long it's been in there, and having NEVER been garaged. Mostly due to a healthy coat of DP40 Epoxy primer before painting. Now banned due to toxicity.
After a few hours cutting with a torch. I figured it would be MUCH easier to do it this way, and nothing is worth saving.
Yep, MUCH easier to do it this way!
So far I've been amazed at how good everything looks. The paint is still holding up and except for the front timing cover there is only minor seepage at a few spots on the engine. The rocker system still looks great and there is NO sludge buildup in the heads, and that's with no PCV and just a rear breather on the intake. Regular 10w-30 oil changes probably helped, as did letting the engine fully warm up 95% of the time.
I think what surprised me the most is the clutch, which shows little material wear despite the pilot bearing being worn fairly badly and the flywheel showing some heat marks. I often rode the clutch when doing heavy pulling jobs, like pulling over trees so they didn't fall towards a house or building. I treated this thing like a tractor.
As you can see, there was literally nothing holding the hood on!
I really hate to say goodbye to this truck, but I'll salvage the drivetrain, which has a somewhat rare large knuckle Dana 44 6BF-HD front axle with a locked center. This thing was a brute! It was a Special Order DSO destined for a hard life on a farm. In my experience, there never has been and never will be a better stronger truck made than the '67-'72 bumpsides. There's a reason Ak Miller was winning Baja races with these things!
Today I'll be cleaning the engine up and pulling the pan to check bearings and prepping it for a quicky paint job, fresh gaskets and some new hardware, as well as getting the 360 ready to pull in the F-350.
