The fact that I can see the piston ring in the gap between the piston and the cylinder is of some concern.  The fact the piston itself has severe pitting on it that has been cleaned up is of concern.  You do not know if that is from sitting with water in the cylinder or severe preignition problems.  There is no way that much oil got in there when the engine was running.  It had to have been tipped over and the oil ran past the rings (concern...concern...) into the combustion chamber.

If you saw the engine run and there was no smoke or excessive blowby (evidenced by air flowing outward when the oil fill cap is removed while running) then clean it up and install it and drive it.

It might be a good idea to inspect every cylinder from the top, with the pistons at BDC, then with the pan removed, invert the engine and inspect the pistons from the bottom. You will be looking for cracks or missing pieces of piston.

My concern about the pitted piston is you cannot see the side of the piston to know its condition.  Cast pistons are incredibly inexpensive.  Might be worth looking at.  But, if you ran the engine... and it did OK, then go for it.

If you want a perfect engine, then tear it down, throw the block away, get another virgin block, bore it 0.030", install new pistons and go from there !

If you want to make that one work and run, then tear it down, removing pistons with their rods, and the crank.  Inspect everything.  We will be glad to help.  Just get good clear pictures.  It won't cost you anything but time to do that.  Then at least you know exactly what you have.  Be sure to keep rod caps with the rods they came from, and in the direction they were installed from the factory.  Since it has been rebuilt, you MAY have to determine if the last guy did the job right.  Piston rods have a ROD side and a CRANK side.  The side that faces the adjoining rod will be flat while the side facing the crank throws will have a chamfer.  If you install them backwards, that flat side can damage the crank.
 

Is that pitting? It kind of looks like a carbon build up on the piston face.

It might seem like drastic work for a guy who just bought an engine that supposedly should be ready to install and run, but the prior posts are spot on.

Bob

Well damn, that's not what I was hoping to hear.  I guess I got a little too excited to find a car w/ the engine, t5, aluminum driveshaft, computer, etc. all in one donor.
I'll work on further disassembly and see where it leads me.

Piston doesn''t look bad to me,did you check the valveseals on that wet cilinder?

the oil might be comming for above...

Tonie

piston looks ok once it was out of the block. Fords are nice in that the rod and cap are numbered from the factory, and the main caps have the numbers cast in them. The lip locks or bearing tangs go on the same side of each other. when you take the rod cap off, a safety tip is to put something like 2-3 inch pieces of i think 5/16 rubber hose (whatever is snug over the bolt and covers the threads) over the rod bolts so the threads dont nick up the rod journals. Do this for installation as well. You dont want to have any nicks put in the journals at all, it will cause binding and ruin bearings. The small notches on top of the pistons also indicate the front.

That is alot of oil in that cylinder though, make sure the ring gaps are not lined up. I'll try to explain how i put my ring gaps. with the forward facing notch being 12 oclock as reference. the oil ring expander notch or butt joints are at 12 oclock. lower oil ring is at 7 o clock , upper oil ring at 5 o clock, 2nd ring at 11 oclock and top ring at 5 o clock. reason why the oil ring gaps are on the same side and not say at 1 is that you dont want it to move and overlap the expander butt joint otherwise the ring gaps are off the thrust sides and the oil/combustion gases have the longes way to travel.

I take it the pan was full when you rolled the engine over, maybe could have got a little oil in the chamber but that is kind of alot so maybe the ring gaps weren't set up great or the oil was coming in from the valve guides like someone else mentioned. (after looking at your piston pictures again you can see the top ring and 2nd ring gaps are lined up hopefully they werent installed that way)

that hole in the valve  cover baffle isnt a big deal, the bigger question perhaps is why is there a hole in the valve cover baffle.

Last edited by MachTJ (8/07/2014 5:11 PM)

Does the engine have some kind of roller rockers on it or something?  That is usually why valve cover baffles get modified...

The optical dilusion got me apparently. But glad you tore it down.  Use some carb or brake cleaner to remove that carbon around the ring lands.

You do not want the ring gaps on the thrust sides of the pistons.  If the piston notch was 12 o clock, make top ring gap beween two and four, or eight and ten o clock.  Second ring goes 180 from top ring.  Oil ring not so critical, but usually opposite the second ring's gap.  Or some similar variation.

Yes, I believe the rockers are rollers.  They look new and have Ford SVO 1.60 8351 stamped on the top of them.

Googling for ring gap location, I found the following recommendation in How to Rebuild Small-Block Ford Engines by Tom Monroe
Front = 12, Compression Ring between 1 & 2 and 2nd Compression ring between 10 & 11.
Autozone's docs google found contrast with Tom's info though.
Thanks for the advice.

MachTJ wrote:

MustangSteve wrote:

You do not want the ring gaps on the thrust sides of the pistons.  If the piston notch was 12 o clock, make top ring gap beween two and four, or eight and ten o clock.  Second ring goes 180 from top ring.  Oil ring not so critical, but usually opposite the second ring's gap.  Or some similar variation.

Wouldn't that actually put the gaps on the thrust sides?

DOH !!!  Yes... Should have said in relation to the rod, not notch.  That makes it 90 degrees off...