Just bought this 428 and was "supposed" to be overhauled professionally. I bought it knowing that if I had not done it myself, I'd better be prepared to do it myself. Anyway, put it in the car and the thing ran perfect. After about 30 mins of runtime, i was adjusting my front suspension and was idling on a incline , and the damn thing started smoking like a freight train. I shut it down and pulled it into the shop again. Now it smokes blue when warmed up and under moderate to hard acceleration. No noticable smoke when idling. But its very sporatic so its hard to diagnose. Motor has 40 psi OP when idling hot and 80 when driving. I digress. So I noticed that when it starts smoking (after about 2-3 mins of running) I get smoke from valve cover breather. (No PCV. Just breathers in both valve covers). Drivers side is worse. I pulled both valve covers to find what you can see in the picture. Then I pulled the plugs to find that all 8 were carbon fouled, but not wet at all. All 8 plugs were wet with oil where the plug seals to the block though. (I found this interesting since the passenger side of the motor does not smoke at all that ive seen.) No oil in water. No noticable water in crankcase.(dipstick) No noticeable water anywhere else in motor other than valve covers. None on head. So maybe this is just condensation? (see pic) Going to do a compression test first. So I guess unless someone talks me out of it, Im going to replace head gaskets and intake gaskets. Take heads to machine shop to make sure guides and seals are ok. Then check cylinders and walls and hope like hell the bores mic out good and are in good repair. But, before I do all that crap, I just wanted to get a few more points of views. Thanks A.P.
yep, do complete compression test/leak down test. had a Chevy 6 cyl like that. Had new valve stem seals put in, still smoked. rings never set after rebuild? never did compression test.
Didn't do one when I bought it because it was on the stand. Just rolled the dice. I'm going to check compression tomorrow. But the motor runs like a raped ape and doesn't miss or do anything out out of the ordinary. (Except smoke)
Make sure the 'splash shield' is installed under the intake manifold. This is similar to a valley cover, but just fits in place under the intake and is held in place by tabs on the head gaskets. These keep oil off the exhaust crossover under the intake.
Bought a longblock 350 from a uppity builder years ago...20 to be exact in Bonnie lake WA. Bought a new edelbrock intake with the longblock had them put it on.....Round and round about oil consumption...... It was pulling it in through the valley gasket
If you wind up taking the heads in for work , look into the spiral cut valve guides. Good luck. Flux.
probably needs pc valve seals the stock umbrella seals are noted for getting stiff and leaking. a pvc is a must
Sounds like classic intake gasket problem, you need to glue them to the head and let them set up before you set the intake.
Ford FE engines are not SB Chevys. They have lots of little gotchas that will sink someone unfamiliar with their ways. One area that gives people a lot of problems is the oiling of the rocker system. If not set up correctly, they will flood the rocker area and cause the engine to suck oil directly down the valve guides. You may be facing a problem in that area. One common cause of this is installing the rocker shaft upside down. The shaft has oiling holes that should face down toward the head, not up toward the cover. These oiling holes are covered by the rocker arms. The pushrods and valve springs should push the rocker up to minimize the amount of oil that can flow from inside the shaft to the rockers but if the shaft is upside down, the holes are allowed to flow freely and will allow more oil to the top side than the oil return holes can carry back to the pan. That can flood the guides when the oil level in the cover gets high enough. Another problem with FEs that can flood the guides is that the oil return holes can be partially blocked by the head gaskets. There can be slight variations in the placement of the return holes on the heads and in the block. minor misalignment is usually OK but if you add in a head gasket with too small a hole, then the return can be restricted. Many FE gurus recommend restricting the oil to the top end, even after dealing with these issues, especially if the engine has a high volume oil pump. The oil feed to the rocker shaft is in a recessed area under one of the rocker stands. It is about 5/16" in diameter. You can thread the hole for an Allen set screw. Drill a hole through the screw before you screw it into the oil passage. Most FE builder who use this method recommend a .090" or .120" hole. And, yeah, the intake can be a real bear to seal on these engines. Lots of trouble area there to deal with. If all else fails, talk to the experts at Fordfe.com. Those guys know more about these engines than anyone on the planet.
The easy test for the intake gasket not sealing in the lifter valley is. Start the engine with one valve cover breather hole closed off with tape or your hand now on the other valve cover breather open put your hand over that hole and see if you have vacuum sucking your hand down to the cover if you fill vacuum you have a leak in the valley under the intake.
Intake gasket is where I would place my bets! These are bad for port mismatching of parts and sucking oil into the cylinders and water into the crankcase . Huge difference in port sizes used on FE style engines . Bolt holes all fit correctly , just ports are not sealed by gaskets . If you have a CI intake expect a trip to the back Doctor trying to lift it off without major help !
Had a customer bring in a 351 in a van with a blue smoke complaint. Drove it a few times and couldn't replicate the problem. Customer brings it back again and a few more test drives, finally saw the smoke on a down hill decel. Smoke screen!!! Oil had been puddling on the valley pan and a front intake port would suck it up thru a bad intake seal.
=============== That's part of the difference between having a few breathers to merely relieve pressure, and real Crankcase Ventilation to sweep out all the stoats and weasels.
FEs have the intake gasket under the valve covers where oil lays on top of the gasket. pull the valve covers and spray wd 40 at the gasket with a vacuum leak it will pull it right in
I have seen brown streaks in the plenum of single plane aluminum intake manifolds that wre caused by a vacuum leak...if your manifolds aluminum pull the carb and take a peak....may be hard to see streaks in an iron manifold....
Also be aware that FE engines in general are bad valve guide/stem wear units.. Depending on the level/quality of the "rebuild" there could be some issues.. Most of the FE's that go thru my shop get new valves and bronze guides/liners, modern seals.
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