questions on rebuilding a 390 fe?

[wolfonahunt]

A friends father passed away last year and he got his old truck. We pulled the motor and disassembled it for a rebuild. Then we found the damaged cylinder walls. He sent the disassembled motor to a local machine shop where they vatted the block and had to sleeve the cylinders and bore and hone it to .060. Long story short...$1800 dollars later and 2 months we have the engine back in pieces and need to find out about the oil gallery plugs. We have read that we need to change the push in type to threaded plugs. I have found the locations thanks to previous posts but am not sure if we are handy enough to do that. Does it hurt to use the push in and any recomendations on doing it would be appreciated.

Tommy

[Naumoff]

The push in plugs worked fine for the 30 plus years before you rebuilt it so I would think there is nothing wrong with continuing to use them.

[RICK LAKE]

wolfonahunt The choice is yours. You can use the pushin plugs as long as you stake them into the holes. Drilling, tapping and maken sure you get all the metal shaving takes more time. You also have to make sure you don't screw the threaded plugs in too deep or they may cut down or off the oil supply to other parts of the motor. Make sure you use a sealer on either way. Very thin coating is needed. You will need a deep tap for one of the holes. Threaded when done right is better as long as the sealer holds the plug from spinning. The standard way of pushin plugs has worked for better than 40 years. If you are running a HVHP oil pump, I would go to threads. IMO Rick L.

[orich]

Hi i'm new on this site but not new to the FE engines.. Geee guy this is the type of stuff that should have been done before it had gone to the M-shop that way all the medal filings would have been cleaned from the block, alot of filing cutting chips will drop down in the cam bearing oil holes that you may not get out.Then will move in to the bearing some time later from the high oil PSI. You can't use a magnet to get the little small filing will not come out.High air PSI will blow most out. If you do it you should have a good sharp tap keep it well oiled good and a reamer help start the hole face tapered angle this makes for a good clean ez starting cut.. If you never drilled and tapped a hole, I would say learn to do a few hole in the piece of iron stock first. You'll have to drill the block holes about 3/4" deep and run your tap way in, in some places one liike the distribtor hole. Use a good thread sealer, not to to keep them from turing out but from seeping. There's alot of info on the net and in books on how to do this...my 2 cents
orich