Galaxie Engine Swap

2005-09-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

These pictures relate the experience of one software developer (me, Charles) and one Nissan mechanic (Jeff) in changing the 302 engine on my 1968 Ford Galaxie.

But first, a little background. The Galaxie has been in my family since my Grandfather bought it new in New Mexico. He drove it as his primary car for several years and then it sat in his driveway in New Mexico from 1988 until about 2003. At that time, he went to the nursing home, and the Galaxie came to arrive at its own nursing home of sorts, in Marietta, GA. It arrived on a truck on a cold January day in 2003 and sat with no brakes and a hole in the gas tank until the long revival could begin.
The dry New Mexico climate had preserved the body of the car, there is no rust anywhere on this car, but the paint suffered and many of the seals were dry rotted.

She had over 1300 dollars in mechanical work at that time in brakes, hoses, belts, new gas tank, tires, and other miscellanous things just to get her running. Then, she was driven to the guys at Georgia Classic Restorations, where she was given a new interior (matching the original) a new paint job (that is the original color) and the dashboard was recovered.

The goal from the beginning was to get the car in daily driver condition, to the point where she looked nice but was also driveable. I also would like to keep her as close to the original condition as possible, rather than pimp my ride.

I drove the car for several months, but she just wouldn't stay in tune, the rings in the engine were likely ruined, and she had little power and spewed black smoke out of the exhaust. She needed a new engine (the original one has 99k miles on it.) When I learned that my house was finally sold, I decided that this was the time to replace the engine. I ordered a replacement 302 from PowerPro and convinced my mechanic friend, Jeff, to help me for a "day" of his time.

In selecting a replacement engine, I had decided that this car was to be a daily driver, a cruiser, and a remanufactured 302 longblock (remanufactured block with head attached, shipped in a crate), similar to the one in it (210 hp), would be more than sufficient (as opposed to a custom built engine from a local shop.) For this year and model, matching numbers is not an issue, and I do not intend to sell the car. Not to mention, time was a critical factor. Also, I could have purchased a turn-key engine with all new accessories already bolted on, but that would have been much more expensive and besides, how hard could it be?

This brings us to the present. These pictures show our work on replacing the car's engine from Sept. 11 - 13. Yes, 1 day = 3 days when you are performing your first engine change, and doing it in your driveway.

Day 1: Sunday

Here we are trying to coax the car out of the garage and get her turned around so that we can have easy access to the engine bay. It took about half an hour to convince her to turn around, with the old engine. Notice the thick black soot pouring out of the exhaust. Later, we found gas in the oil pan... Yes it was time for a new engine.

Jeff is shown here planning the attack. At this point, we still think we can have the engine out of the car, swap all of the accessories to the new engine, and get the new one into the car by the end of the day.

Ah, the hood has been removed and we are ready to start unhooking hoses and unbolting the engine from the transmission. That is where Jeff is, in fact in this photo, under the car.

Taking the engine out was going smoothly until we discovered that the hoist would not lift high enough to clear the front of the car. After a few minutes of panic, we spent the next few hours trying to get the engine out. We lowered the engine, removed the carbeurator so we could shorten the chain, let air out of the tires, and were able to clear the front of the car by about 1/4 inch and get the engine out.

Scratch this off of the list of things to do before I die.

By this point, it was getting dark and we couldn't see well enough to remove the accessories. Removing the accessories is not the hard part.

Removing them and being able to see where they went so that we could put them back later was time consuming. Every set of bolts that was removed was put into a plastic baggie and labeled. Hoses were tagged, and marked with red dots of paint to show where they belonged. We took photos of complicated assemblies, like the one above, to see how to put components back where they belongd.

Day 2: Monday

Jeff hadn't started his new job yet, and I took the day off work to continue working on the engine. We would get it done today, for sure. In the back of my mind, I was also dealing with the house sale and closing, which was coming on Wed. I still had to move things out of the house and garage and clean up our mess. I would move at night after we finished working on the car.

Each component that we removed needed to have the old gaskets removed and cleaned before putting onto the new engine. Here I am cutting off the 37 year old gasket from the intake manifold with a knife, before moving on to a razor blade and then a polisher. Jeff says to be gentle, "pretend it is my face and I am shaving." This was very time consuming and cleaning all of these parts and putting them back on took most of the day. I only wish I had more time to repaint the oil pan and some of the accessories to make them look sharper.

Ah, two engines in my front yard. The neighbors must have been thrilled. Well, I am from Alabama.

In moving all of the accessores to the new engine we had to proceed carefully. Everything had to be put back in order, with fresh gaskets and bolts had to be torqued properly.

Nearing the end of the day, the accessories are all back on the new engine and it is ready to go back into the car. The problem is, we are tired and it is getting dark, but we still think we can pull it off.

Lining the engine up with the car, the wheels of the hoist refuse to clear the raised edge of the garage floor, keeping us about 4 inches short of our goal. We wasted a lot of time trying to roll the car forward, while keeping the transmission supported on a jack. If the transmission fell off of the jack, it would haved caused a lot of damage to the linkages.

Finally, at around 9pm we get the engine into the car, but are unable to get it lined up properly with the transmission housing, to get some bolts in. Jeff himself has to bolt to pick his girlfriend up at the airport. We decide to try again in the morning.

Day 3: Tuesday

With a fresh morning start, we are able to get the engine lined up properly and bolted to the transmission and resting on the engine mounts. Then we can begin hooking everything back up: fan, radiator, power steering hoses, carb, electrical and gas lines, exhaust, battery and the alternator. This takes a good part of the day but goes smoothly for the most part.

Finally, we go to start the car. All of the fluids have been added, everything was reconnected and checked again and we have the new battery in place. Surprisingly, we have no left over parts or bolts, that is a good sign. It is time to "burn gas".

I turn the key and all of the lights on the dash go out. We think we might have blown a fuse and spend a couple of hours checking electrical connections and make a trip to the parts store to get a new starter relay. It turns out we had one ground wire accidentally wired to positive. No harm was done, though.

Now, the engine cranks, but just won't catch. We check the timing (top dead center, lined up to #1, etc.), the spark (jeff shocks himself nicely and I had a good laugh) and the carb. Nothing.

We have run out of time. The engine is finished, but won't start. At the end of day 3, with nothing else to try, I have to punt. The house closes the next day and the walk-thru is the next morning. I have to get out of the house and clean it up. I call a tow truck in the morning and have it towed to Georgia Classics for them to give it a once over.

Day 4: Wednesday (post script)

The guys at Georgia Classics get the car running in about 20 minutes. We had installed the distributor 180 degrees off. So the timing was about as bad as it could be. An engine will never start in that condition. We just needed to have rotated the engine one more time before lining it up. No harm done, we would have found the problem given a little more time. In any case, it was good to have another set of eyes give our work a once over. They also eased the engine into new life, by running it at 2000 rpm for 20 minutes.

Special thanks go to Jeff for all of his hard work and patience in our "one day" job. I was impressed by his talent, and I think we both learned a lot in the process. Thanks to Jim for some brilliant photos and comic relief. Thanks to neighbors who tolerated engines everywhere.

I drove the car all over town yesterday (Thursday,) and it was a sweet, sweet drive. I can see why my Grandfather bought this car when it was new the first time.