February 8, 2008 – Heart Transplant

After all of the hard work of pulling the engine and replacing the rear main seal along with needing to tap out the broken bolt from the flywheel. We cleaned up the engine, painted it to look perfect followed by another oil slick. It turns out that either the crank or journal are scored.

In November, Chris and I went looking for an engine that would meet our needs. On the day after Thanksgiving we found a motor. A 302 HO out of a Lincoln Mark VII LSC with only 119,000 miles. From what we saw, the only reason it was there was that the owner did not want to repair the car any more. Thinking that using another Windsor motor would not be a problem, We jumped at pulling the engine. 6 hours later it was ours.

Over the next few weeks, we worked on the car and engine to make the engine fit into the car and install parts from the 351. As it turns out, the distributer would not migrate from the 351 to the 302 as previously thought. Because of that, I had to order a new one on E-bay.

From there, I did get the engine started, but it had an exhaust leak on the passenger side of the car.

Here, I started to fix the problem, but more grinding was needed.

Here, it is able to fit the block on the Passenger side, but I now worry that the strength may be compromised.

On the Passenger side, the oil filter is with in 1/16” of the header. We will try to modify the engine to fit the remote oil filter we pulled off of an 80’s van.

The next challenge is to keep it running. Right now, the fuel pump is too far from the tank and needs to be moved closer to the tank. Second is that the Alternator will not provide enough power if all accessories are on. We did get another alternator from the Lincoln, but do not know if it is an internally regulated alternator or external like the current one.

Here is our crew manager in her favorite place to be.