Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

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Fine59
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Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Fine59 »

Hello fellow enthusiasts. I have finally made the decision to take the plunge and rebuild the motor in my 59 Mark IV Convertible. I purchased the car earlier this year knowing that the engine was a little tired. She had lots of zip, but there was excessive blow by from the crankcase vent tube. There was also an oil leak from the rear of the motor. Originally, I thought I could get by with just rebuilding the heads, thinking that the valve seals were shot, thus causing the blow by. But after removing the passenger side head, I soon learned that there was scoring on the cylinder walls, so the decision has been made to do a full rebuild.
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I will attemp to chronicle my progress on this thread. I have pulled a motor by myself out of my 65 Thunderbird, but I have never done a rebuild on my own. But I have a shop manual and am enthusiastic to learn something new. After pulling the intake manifold, I soon learned where my oil leak was coming from. Not only was the gasket on the distributor shaft shot, the grommets on the valley pan bolts had disinigrated completely, allowing oil to splash up, run toward the back and down the side of the bell housing.
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I am slowly, but surely disconnecting and removing stuff in preparation for the engine removal, but wouldn’t you know that get almost done and two of the last bolts to be removed are rusted and the back clips just spin. Grrr
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While under the car disconnecting stuff, I found that the transmission is leaking in a couple of places, including the linkage shaft. So now I’m thinking I should just pull the tranny with the motor and have it gone through a re-sealed. Opinions welcome.
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One question is, am I going to have to drop the exhaust to get this motor and transmission out? I hope not because there are a bunch of suspension parts in the way and I may have to disassemble the exhaust. That’s a huge job and I don’t want to cut on the crossover pipe.
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siglumous
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by siglumous »

This will be fun to watch. I no longer have a garage I can work in, so can't do this type of work any more. I have to get my kicks through others' work on this forum. Nice photos. Can't wait to see the progress.
Fine59
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Fine59 »

Getting very close now to being ready to pull this monster after fighting a couple of rusty bolts, but I had to buy a tool to cut them out.
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I’ve started to call around to find the best place to have the motor rebuilt and also the transmission rebuilt and have made my selection. Now I’m just trying to decide on the best plan of attack. Originally I thought I would pull the engine with the tranny connected, but I really don’t want to have to take the exhaust system down. When I was talking to the transmission guy, he suggested unbolting the gear case from the bell housing and dropping the gear case with extension housing down and then pull the motor with the bell housing attached. Has anyone had experience in doing it this way?

I took my radiator cross member and support rods (6 pieces in all) to a powder coating place in the small town I live in. He is going to sandblast, zinc coat, ad special primer to prevent future rust and powder coat satin black for $125.00. I thought this was really reasonable. Pictures to com
gkramer47
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by gkramer47 »

Fine,

What pistons area you using for the rebuild? I just finished a '60 rebuild and can tell you that "off the shelf" flat top pistons are NOT the way to go.
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norgale
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by norgale »

Fine59 I'm really interested in this project too and that's because I've done this before and made every mistake that could be made including trying to put the wrong engine back in the car. I'm glad you decided to have a shop do the engine as it's a special engine and not every part fits other engines. I see you got the grill and the radiator frames out and that's good. You will break the grill if you don't remove it. To get the engine out you should separate it from the tranny and pull it out by it's self. To get the tranny out you will have to cut the crossover pipe or remove the exhaust system from that area.If you cut the pipe leave as much space between the end of the pipe where it joins the exhaust pipe and where you cut so you can put a coupler on it and weld it back together. However it would be better but more work to take the system down in one piece if all the pipes are in good shape. You can't buy these pipes anywhere so if you need to replace anything it will have to be made to order. Be very careful of your shifting linkage as it's a bear to adjust or repair.
One thing you really need is a cross reference book for the parts to your car. A lot of parts on the 58 and the first half of the 59 production year will interchange and the second half of that production are interchangeable with the 60 but not the 58. Gas tanks don't even interchange with these three years of cars. You MUST be sure and get the right part number for your car. Also the pistons are not the same for all three years and the timing gears are not the same. If you need these items you MUST get the right ones. Look up Auto Exchange System, PO box 12385, Las Vegas Nv 89112 and get their 1950 -65 Ford Products Interchange manual.It will save you tons of time and money with this job and other jobs you might want to do. Other things that don't interchange easily are exhaust manifolds and intake manifolds. You should also take everything off the engine that you can including the intake manifold and carb but don't mess with the heads. Leave them on the engine.Leave the valve covers on and all the valve assembly too. This is called a long block. That's what the shop will want. Let them do the complete block assembly and you can do the rest. This makes sure that the shop is responsible for everything internal on the engine. Same with the tranny if you send that off but if it's working ok now you shouldn't have to rebuild it. There's a little pipe that runs across the back of the engine from one head to the other. This is for exhaust pressure equilizing. Check it good for pin hole leaks or bigger leaks. It may need to be replaced but you will probably have to have a new one made. If you have any questions please ask them here. I'll help you all I can. Pete
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Fine59
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Fine59 »

Hello gkramer, well I’m going to see if the rebuilder recommends new pistons. If he does, I think I may bite the bullet and go with Wiseco. They are expensive, but from what I’m hearing, these guys are the only people that are making the correct piston. I talked to Vic at Wiseco and it’s going to be $127.00 per piston
Last edited by Fine59 on Wed Dec 20, 2017 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fine59
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Fine59 »

Hi Pete, thanks for all the great advice. I actually pulled the motor and tranny out together this morning. I had not seen your post yet. It went really easy with the exception of the draft tube. That was a bear to get out. The shop manual simply says to remove it, like it’s easy. After I got that out, the motor came right out. I hope I did mot bend the shift linkage. I forgot it was there until I got the motor completely out. Thankfully, I did not have to cut on the exhaust system at all. I was able to pull everything out together by myself. Any other advice is greatly appreciated.
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norgale
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by norgale »

Way to go Fine59. That's the way to do it but it's not easy by yourself. Now you know how it comes out you can put it back in the same way. As for the drive shaft it would have just pulled out as you remove the engine. It's just a splined end that rides up into the rear of the tranny. You can disconnect the U joint at the back and take it out that way. Do that anyway and when you reinstall the E&T you won't have to be messing with the DS at the same time. I really miss working on my old Lincoln so I'm enjoying watching your progress. Pete
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Fine59
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Fine59 »

Today was a full day. I spent most of it removing parts from the motor and trying to degunk the motor as much as possible before delivering it to the machine shop. It’s been about 15 years since I pulled a motor and did all this clean up. I had forgotten how much work it was.
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I did notice that when I removed the starter, there was a lot of crap laying in there. Flywheel looks great though.
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. My next task will be to unbolt the Torque Converter from the flywheel. I am delivering the motor to the machine shop and the transmission to the transmission shop on the same day, so I think I will separate the motor from the tranny after I load it on the trailer.
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norgale
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by norgale »

Make a mark with some paint on one of the fly wheel bolts to the converter and mark the hole too. I think the bolts aren't equally spaced but if you start with a marked one the rest will line right up. If I'm wrong it won't make any difference but if I'm right it will save you some time and aggregation. Also were there any shims on the starter? If so you'll need them to reinstall. If there are none you need to read up on that in your manual. It's important to get the starter teeth square with the flywheel. I think you can do that with the tranny off the engine so you can see what your doing.
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Dan Szwarc
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Dan Szwarc »

The flywheel only goes on one way, although having it marked does make it easier. The bolts are in an irregular pattern.
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norgale
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by norgale »

Thanks for that Dan. I thought I remembered that from working on the Lincoln back in 05. I don't know how many times I ran in a bolt only to find the next one didn't line up. Guess I learned everything the hard way. Pete
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by action »

After you are done a correct engine paint will set it off.

Along with a Motorcraft FL1A filter instead of brand x.

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norgale
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by norgale »

I think you'll find that all these 58-60 430 engines were black. Not very original but if the entire engine bay is painted the color of the car and the engine is black it will look very nice and it will be original. I had my valve covers chromed to the tune of abut $250 which is not stock but with the black engine they looked great. You can come up with lots of chromed goodies to put on these engines that will look good like the chromed or maybe stainless steel hose covers and some of the brackets and things like that to add some pizzazz to the color scheme. My 60 was black so the engine compartment was black also so anything of color would have drawn attention had I had the time to finish it. There is also an outfit in Atlanta that makes reproductions of the decals that appear on most engines. Something Reproductions I think and I'll try and find the correct name and post it. :geek: :geek:
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Sheradan
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Re: Follow my 430 rebuild adventure

Post by Sheradan »

My 1960 was white. Engine compartment is black, engine is black.
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