Well, here I am continuing my temporary
"Flash Forward" theme.
One of these days I will find the time to get back and continue the earlier story/time line.
As we all know, "life get's in the way..." sometimes, with the things we like or want to do. Recent events in my family follow along with that, keeping me mostly away from any significant work on my truck, but as the saying goes - "Family Comes First" and I wouldn't do it any other way. As mentioned in my last update, the truck is in its winter storage spot and I have been routinely (at least once a week) firing it up, getting it up to full operating temps and pulling it out for a little basking in sunshine. Those efforts went great, with the truck starting regularly without a need for battery charging (I disconnect it after each weekly run) and only once needing to add "juice" directly to the carb to prime and get past a dried out fuel bowl. Even in our recent sub-zero temps, no problems - Yay! Or so I thought.
During the weekly start up and run in the 2nd week of February, all of a sudden the engine developed a "knock" (deep and slow "thunk - thunk - thunk...").
Only happened during deceleration. No "thunk" at start up or acceleration/idle and steady high idle of around 1200-1400 rpm. At the time I chalked it up to the super cold temps (was in the single digits) and the fact I'm still running Rotella 15W40 and the hydraulic lifters are known for similar sounds until they refill/get warmed up. Then the next weekly startup resulted in the knock happening through any engine speed. Not noticed at initial startup, but then happening regardless of rpm. I've worked on enough vehicles over the years to know a "rod knock", so further weekly startup/runs have been paused until I can do some further inspection. Thinking about dropping the pan with engine still in truck as some fellow Bolters have suggested, to get a better idea of what the potential damage and repairs may be.
Right about the time this is all going on, I get a message from fellow Bolter "bowtietim". He managed to snag a "261" from some guy who bought a truck for the cab and wondered if I'm interested in acquiring it? Well, HECK YEAH!!!.
Tim got the engine back to his place noting it's a later low water pump location 261, gave it a good check, and test fired the engine in an "engine dolly" patterned on the
Engine Dolly Legacy Tech Tip. Tim also removed the water pump to look at front internal coolant passages (clear) and replaced the block side freeze pugs as one had a pin hole and turned out to be fairly rusted on the inside. He sent me videos of the engine on initial startup and a couple more with it restarted and running smooth as could be after a couple of tuning tweaks. Videos are too large for me to post here (but there are a couple of screen shots from the videos below). Suffice it to say the engine ran great from what I saw!
A little "fast forward" and Tim showed up yesterday morning with the 261 in his daily driver ready for hand off. I had my lift and newly built "Engine Dolly" waiting for delivery. My dolly has a slight modification to the plans, with a 2" narrower front cross beam. The front legs on my lift are just a bit too narrow for the lift arm to reach the engine to drop into or remove from the dolly without the modification. The slightly narrower front cross beam lets the lift arm reach just far enough to resolve that problem, while keep the dolly wide enough to prevent toppling the engine over.
Once we got the engine unloaded and stowed in the garage next to my truck, I took a more detailed look and pictures to help ID the engine which I've included below. No doubt it's definitely a 261! Here are the details I've gleaned so far:
Block Casting# = 3769925 (confirmed as a 1960-62 261 block)
Block Casting Date Code = I 24 2 (I = September / 24 = 24th day of September / 2 = 1962 (Captains Bars visible above the date code)
Engine Serial# = NONE/BLANK (indicates this would be a replacement engine/block)
Head Casting# = 3836850 (confirmed 1956-62 261 head - I still need to pull the valve cover to look for the casting date info there)
There are other thing to explore on this engine, including the external oiler line feeding the head/valve train, pulling the coolant drain plug to look for sediment/blockage in the rear of the water jackets (the normal drain cock was replaced by a pipe plug) and looking closer as I couldn't see any provisions for an oil pressure gauge line with the existing head oiler line.
Before I go any further, I want to give a big "Thank You" to Tim for thinking of me and helping me acquire this engine. He's a great Bolter and glad I can call him a friend!
As to my plans for the 261, I need to do some further investigation and reading of 261 info, including the
261 Rebuild Legacy Tech Tip, but eventual the engine is going to end up in my truck, attached to an already on-hand T-5 and an as yet to be acquired TF series "open drive" differential. Yup - One of these days!
Until next time...
NOTE: 1st batch of pictures attached (more in next post)
