The post mortem pics. The really sad part is this engine had never been apart. Nope, it still had the nylon toothed timing gear, 410 marked pistons, shim gasket and Ford marked bearings and no ridge on the cylinder walls, I polished off the carbon with a Scotchbride and it was almost smooth
So, an observation or two on the dead 390
1 I had assumed that my truck has 264000+miles, not the PO stated 164000, based on the rust on the body, tightness of the front suspension with the radius arm brackets bolted rather than riveted on, bad Ujoints, and other things ie a work truck that was well taken care of until it was parked.
2 The truck was sold in WA, spent time in CA (CARB Engine swap sticker on the door jamb to a 360), then ended up in Lake City, FL working on a ranch
3 The engine had been swapped back to a 390 before I had gotten it, but I figured that since the timing cover and intake manifold both showed signs of silver paint, someone had already been in it and had rebuilt it
If I would have known it was still untouched, I would have looked for another eng and put a simple rebuild on that to run with, and rebuilt the one in it with all the glory parts
