Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Forced Induction I'm LIVID ... the saga begins!!!

Fast coug,

What are you worrying about those studs for? They don't have nuts on them currently, all you do is get a 13mm deep socket on there, pull them off and replace them with new. If they're the ones I'm thinking they are, they hold the heat shield for the AC in place and that's it.

Rick

Doh! I thought that they where true studs with an independent nut, not an attached nut

Sorry, but with my luck lately, I guess I'm a little paranoid with anything car related. I swear, I'm waiting for one the jack stands to give out ... hopefully I'm not under the car at the time

How many miles on this engine?

60k IIRC

I don't know what fuse that is.

Looks like the engine was burning a lot of oil. There appears to be rust at the top of the one cylinder wall but hard to tell from the pics.

Is this from the 3L that you bought?
BTW, the cylinders don't look bad at all. 60K miles and the cylinders have the crosshatch marks in them and look good.
I agree you'd want to put in new rings...assuming the cylinders are all smooth and still retain the crosshatch marks, don't use a hand hone or the new rings will wear out faster and not seat. If you use factory rings that is. If you have discoloration, maybe 1000 grit fine sandpaper to gently check it out and remove it.
You need to do valve job. At a minimum, have the guides checked and at least lap in the valves if there is no pitting in the seats. Should just have them all done at a shop, they used to charge around $60 a head and you can supply them with a new set of Ford Valve seals. I'd speculate this engine could have potentially more than 60K miles on it though. At this point it doesn't matter if you put in new rod and main bearings, rings and valve seals with the valve job.

That fuse-thingy looks like a switch of some sort that you can swing open or closed - weird ish - I've NEVER seen one. My bet; another hack they used, probably cos they were blowing that fuse over and over. I don't have my car nearby to check what that fuse location is for, but someone should chime in.

As for the engine - holy crud build-up. Looks like what Rogers SVT would look like inside when he used to own it. They were using crap-tastic gas in that car - and I bet it NEVER saw injector cleaner, ever. Once you start running good premium like Shell V-Power and rev the bish she'll stay clean (water injection also does wonders here!).

Honing looks excellent stil so no need for any cylinder work. New rings would be OK - but not 100% necessary. But seeing that crud it might be the way to go as the rings are probably gummed to hell and back (why I would never buy a motor with that many miles - to much prep work required).

Like I said - my thought is that they used 87 octane all the time and never revved out the engine - hence tons of carbon build-up.

To remove the fibre (which look like a smashed twig to me), I would reinstall the cam (PROPERLY) on that side and rotate it till it cracked open the valve - otherwise, if you have the right valve spring tool you could use that.

The Escape owners manual calls for 87 so I'm guessing that's what was ran. Also it's mated to an auto so of course it was never reved. Some soccer mom bought it to get from point a to b. I've never seen a fuse like that. It's not factory I can tell you that. I would have bought a low mileage Duratec as well. Too much work needs to be done to that one.

<==== (* Saving pix & taking notes *)

Learning some useful stuff guys, thanks for keeping it in an open thread & documenting so well!

I would also suspect from the engine condition that the previous owner skipped a few oil changes...

Originally posted by Stazi:

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That fuse-thingy looks like a switch of some sort that you can swing open or closed - weird ish - I've NEVER seen one. My bet; another hack they used, probably cos they were blowing that fuse over and over.

Honing looks excellent stil so no need for any cylinder work. New rings would be OK - but not 100% necessary. But seeing that crud it might be the way to go as the rings are probably gummed to hell and back (why I would never buy a motor with that many miles - to much prep work required).

Like I said - my thought is that they used 87 octane all the time and never revved out the engine - hence tons of carbon build-up.

To remove the fibre (which look like a smashed twig to me), I would reinstall the cam (PROPERLY) on that side and rotate it till it cracked open the valve - otherwise, if you have the right valve spring tool you could use that.

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Not sure why everyone is giving advice on what I should do to the block as I clearly stated it was going to the machine shop this morning

I just got to work right now after dropping it off about 45 minutes ago. Work notice stated:

Block:
- Hone block and rering.
- Replace rod & main bearings with Clevite77 parts
- Remove crank shaft pilot bearing/bushing

Heads: (Yes, I took them too)
- lap valves & replace all seals
- Replace guides as needed

I now have to get the TTY block bolts for them and drop that off with my rebuild manual so they have the torque specs.

I built a custom 3L/2.5L "hybrid" PDF file from the two factory rebuild manuals (I had both in PDF format already). I printed both and then went through each page by page and mixed and matched where needed. It's basically just 3.0L on all the short block stuff, 2.5L on all the accessories for full block buildup. It's a complete manual that I will share with all if I can find the time to go back to the PDF files and do the same thing I did with the printed version (swap pages here-n-there).