so im rebuilding my 2003 ffv 3.0 due to #1 spun rod bearing. inspected and everything checks out but the crankshaft, #1 connecting rod and #5 exhaust valve seat. took to the local the machine shop and the valve seat replaced, crank resized with main/rod bearing and connecting rod on its way from ebay.

now im making my parts list and would like to reuse what parts i can as im not trying to spend more than necessary. pistons cleaned up nice and can still see the crosshatch in the cylinders so plan on honing the block with new rings. not sure what the thoughts on valve train are as far as cam valves and springs and i cant find specs to check my measurements against.

what i plan to reuse that has been repaired or replaced recently

crankshaft (machined)
cylinder heads (repaired exhaust seat)
connecting rods (waiting on delivery)
timing chain w/ gears (replaced less than 10k ago)
cam position sensor (^)
sparky plug wires (^)
sparky plugs (^)


looking for advice as to what else is mandatory or recommended to replace in addition to my parts and rockauto shopping cart


Conversion (Lower) Gasket Set
AMAHLE ORIGINAL/VICTOR REINZ CS5891A Material: Rubber Info
Use with Head Set to Make Full Set
$44.79

Cylinder Head Bolt
BMAHLE ORIGINAL/VICTOR REINZ GS33359 Info
$9.19 ea x2 = $18.38

Cylinder Head Gasket Set
BMAHLE ORIGINAL/VICTOR REINZ HS5926A Set
without Cylinder Head Bolts
$45.79

Camshaft Bearing
AMAHLE/CLEVITE SH1789S Full Set
$28.79

Piston Rings
AMAHLE/CLEVITE 41916CP
Premium; Material: UCR-Carbon Steel; LCR-Carbon Steel; OCR-Stainless Steel; Facing: UCR-Plasma-Moly; OCR-Chrome; Axial Height: UCR-1.5MM; LCR-1.5MM; OCR-3.0MM; Ring Type: UCR:RF-13PF; LCR:THM-13; OCR: CP-20; Shallow Groove
$67.79

 

Use new oversized pistons and rebore...
The first set is usually 20 thou, 10 thou. after that.
If you hone the bores out, even with new rings, the clearance becomes too large and because the compression is quite high in these engines, too much "blow by" may become an issue. (depending on how much you hone)
With hand honing it's impossible to tell how much material is being removed, when to stop and when the stones are wearing down.
Pistons are inexpensive, get the machine shop to install the connecting rods on the pistons.
They are a tight fit and require a special jig and press to prevent damage.

Connecting rod from eBay ???
A new Chinese one or a used one ???
If it's Chinese, don't use it.

You may want to replace your lifters as well, even if they are quiet.

Use Felpro, head bolts and gaskets.

 

the connecting rod is a from a 2004 taurus and numbers match mine.. ad said low miles excellent condition so well see...

ill have to find a few machine shops to get local prices but whats the ballpark rate of getting a block bored so i have an idea if the guys trying to screw me?

so felpro is better than mahle? ive always thought mahle was top notch stuff.. not that fel-pro isnt but mahle is on closeout for $45 normally $75 and felpro is $60.. or am i just falling for a advertising tactic?

 

I've rebuilt many engines and I've always used Felpro.
I've known my machinist for 20 years and he uses Felpro.

Good on the connecting rod, as long as it's not off-shore.
I have no proof of this, but I don't think they have much for quality control _ I've seen some pretty bad things happen with crappy steel.

I just had my 3 Litre done, I'll dig up the bill later.

 

Boring and honing the block was 262.50 _ take not that that is in Canadian funds, but it's good enough so you can get a handle on things.
I hydro locked my engine, so I had them balance the crank and all moving parts just to be sure nothing was damaged, that was the most expensive at 475.00$

If you get new pistons, it's a given that at least the piston and rod assembly should be balanced, so there is that extra expense.

It was another 101.25 to install the rods and wrist pins.

 

talked to the guy that fixed my head and crank and he said 220 to over bore and hone.. but i also have a vw head he wants so he might be trying to get on my good side.. works for me..

by balance the piston/rod you mean like weight each one and make them all weigh what ever the lightest one was? id take material from inside the wrist pin to lighten up the heavy ones...

$475 to balance the rotating assembly? daang... probably not going to do that one..

i have access to a 12ton press and im sure i can make a jig to hold the piston to press the pins in/out.. now is there anything tricky with these? like tapered and only come out one way or anything? or is it just a normal straight pin just pressed into a hole? my vw ones slide in easy and are held by c-clips so these are little different but its just machinery..

 

Yes on balancing, weigh each one _ should be done if you want to do it right.
The rod piston assembly is done as a unit, there is a chunk of steel at the bottom of the rod where material is simply ground off.
I suppose you could take it from the inside of the wrist pin, but that's not where it's done, plus you don't want to be removing metal from that high stress area.
You could easily do it yourself, if you had access to an accurate scale like at the post office or grocery store, it's not rocket science.

My balance job was expensive because I had the crank done too, that and the flywheel, pressure plate _ the whole thing.
It shouldn't be as expensive if you just get the rods/pistons done.

If you're going to press in the wrist pins yourself, do some practice runs with your old parts, it's very easy to damage a new piston, the wrist pins are really in there.
Make sure and clean the varnish off the old pins before using them in your new pistons.

The pins come out either or, no taper, the interference fit is on the rod itself.

The rods on your VW are referred to as "free floating".

 

just made a jig to press out the pins.. the 2nd one bound up and cracked the piston because the part that supported the skirt bent pressing out the first one.. re supported the skirts section of the jig and all the rest came out easy. not sure if i want to install the pins.. the rig could damage the pistons and i didnt care about these ones since they were getting replaced anyway.. guess i can practice on the the junkl #1 rod that spun..

i have scales for balancing.. ive weighed a few sets of vw set ups and never actually had to adjust any.. just read somewhere that inside the pin was a good spot since the weight is further away from the center of the rotation the weight removed will make have a bigger impact on the rotating assembly than somewhere closer to the center. something along those lines...

i went and saw the machinest today and gave him a vw head and in return will get my .020 over bore and hone for $120... good deal to me since the head was sitting in a shed and had no plan of using for anything.
i drained the tranny and changed the filter.. is there anything i should do to it? ive always had good results with lucas oil stabalizer and thinking about trying the tranny stuff.. it has a hard shift from time to time.. use to buck real bad merging on the freeway but replacing the cam posistion sensor fixed that..

 

Can't advise you with your auto trans, too complicated and costly to maintain.
I've never owned a vehicle with an automatic and never will.

But if the tranny is acting up, now is the time to work on it and at the very least replace the seal behind the torque converter.
Consider that it's 14 years old, so maybe it's time for a rebuild.

Yeah I know...
Lots of cash going out the window, but by nature, older vehicles are money pits.

 

geez what happened i feel like old cars are pre 90s.. now old is up to at least 2003?!

this is 03' ranger is my 'new' vehicle compared to my 68' bug lol

 

I'm in the same boat too, my 99 B3000 which I just bought this last summer is 18 years old.
My old "beater" (B2200) which the B3000 replaced, is 30 years old, if it was in good shape I could get collector plates for it !

 

so getting the block bored cost me $120 and a vw head..
but as far as honing the cylinders how important is the angle of the crosshatch lines on the walls? i know they should be 45° up and down but these are almost horizontal like 15° from the tool spinning to fast or moving up and down too slow..
is that an issue cuz i brought it up and the he said hes done it like that for 15 yrs and never had any problems.. but he also said he didnt know the material of the exhaust seat he installed in my cylinder head when i asked. plus the crank i got from him has a groove right where the rear main seal rides so i have to go talk him about that..​​​​​​​ i think i need a new machine shop..

 

That's odd why the machine shop didn't put the cross-hatch pattern in, they usually have a machine that does it.
If you must do it by hand make sure your stones are new.
It should look like these photos when done.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=cross...HV5FAhcQsAQIKw

I'm not sure how critical the angle is, I think what matters is that it is done so the rings break in properly.

The groove on the crank is normal wear and tear, mine has it too, if it's really bad, I think there is a kit at RockAuto to take care of it.
I know there is one for the front.

Couldn't tell you what the exhaust seat material is.

 

heres a pic of the cross hatch.. its pretty horizontal.. from what ive read to vertical and the walls dont hold enough oil and wear the rings faster and too horizontal and the rings can hydroplace on to walla from holding too much oil and may never seat properly.. not sure how accurate that really is

now ive got the crank and pistons in and i have 1 rod with a side clearence of .020 and the specs call for .004-.016 so wtf am i supposed to do? measure them and see if theey are all equal width? maybe swap it with a wider one if there is one? shoulda measured them first..

oh and another thing i just saw something about the rods being directional and someghing about a beveled edge.. how can i tell which go what way? and i already got the pistons and pins on the rods

 

I'll have to take a carful look at my rods to see how my machine shop installed them.

As for the .020 clearance issue, if that clearance is beyond spec, nothing will happen.
However there will be a bit too much oil splash coming from the rod. Once the oil leaves the rod bearings, a tighter clearance in that region helps to control oil splash.
With this going on, too much oil coming from this region will end up on the bores and the oil scraper rings may not be able to deal with the extra oil.

The machine shop in grinding the crank, probably unintentionally removed some material in that region causing the clearance issue.
Measure them all and see of this can't be corrected by changing the rods around.

 

looking at an old rod you can barely tell with the bearing cap off that one side is a little wider than the other.. maybe that little bump on the side of the rod means something? i dont think i can safely remove the pins to swap rods around if they are wrong id probably break a piston so hopefully it doesn't matter

i got the gaskets with the engine tech rebuild kit and says fire seal technology gaskets.. they look pretty cheap to me.. like whats the deal with this exhaust gasket? its right in the way of the spark plug.. am i supposed to break it after its installed and have those little peckers sticking out between ports? the only piece of instructions it came with was about how to bolt up the oil pan..

what kind of head gasket is this and should i just buy a felpro set?

 

The little bump does mean something, on mine the machine shop put that bump facing the front of the engine (I'll double check to be sure later).
The bump coincides with the arrows on top of the pistons _ the arrows point to the front of the engine.
If I hold the rod so the bump is facing me, then that puts the alignment keys for the bearing on the right side.
And just to be clear, the bump is at the end of the Ford part number on the rods.

Those head gaskets will probably be OK, what matters is that they go in correctly of course.
There is a left and a right, when installed correctly the largest hole at the back of the engine on each head gasket on both banks will be at the back with the "up" facing up.
That same hole is blanked off on the front closest to the water pump.

I would think that those tabs on the exhaust gasket are just to hold the thing together until its mounted.

 

just ordered a set jba headers for 02-03 3.0 ranger for $50 on autoplicity.. ill check back when i get them if its legit or not...


well crap that listing is totally misleading.. decided to check and looked up the part number and its a set of damn wires. what would you think if you saw this ad when you googled '3.0 ranger headers'



what is the best choice for the throttle body upgrade on the 3.0? ive seen threads on using one from 3.0 duratec and possibly a 3.8