Engine in the house. I like it. Now that is a piece of art !

 

here is mine V12 assembled the complete engine on the stand,sticks out pretty far, but worked out ok.

notice the safety chain is slack, dont want any surprises, in the end i took the chain off so i could roll it over to do bottom end work, no problems, weight 750lbs!

stand was made in the 1950s, so very thick metals, round tubing.

 

@jhartz - the other half got used to it years ago, but still...it's in the spare bedroom, engine now in the car

@ron, Jag factory V12 engine cradle, can swing the block any angle once the bottom end is buttoned.
That engine is an early TWR 7lt, steel mains, notice the magnesium throttle bodies, spacers etc

 

So Sean,
Are those 4 bolts in the main block only, I guess? Did you hang it that way fully assembled, heads, supercharger and all?
I would be tempted to mount the bolts as far apart as possible, but I guess the oil pan design prevents that.

 

For bottom end I used stacked washers on the bolts to get clearance.

It's a lightweight engine compared to cast iron block stuff. I didn't install the s/c or coolers in the cradle, heads yes.

 

I have just bolted the cradle on now. All of the mounting bolts are above the split for the upper oil pan. By that I mean above the starter. I'm about to test it out now. The supercharger is still on.
Seems ok. I'm always a bit nervous about the leverage involved here, not to mention my toes underneath it.

 

Thats about how I had mine bolted to the stand.

 

Wow, am I ever glad I pulled the engine. Access to the infamous rear supercharger bolt is a good example. To make that easier, I pulled the coolant line, which means pulling the starter, and all these jobs would be far worse on the car.
The only problem so far is a s/c bolt that is binding. I am soaking it in Aerokroil and will try again tomorrow.

 

Any particular issue that you ran into pulling the engine without the trans?

 

The hardest part was splitting the engine and trans. The dowels had a good grip and it was a battle. But it did let me leave the exhaust intact.

 

The engine is pretty bare now. I was spinning it over by hand, and there was a loud "clack" from the RH bank on every revolution. This is accompanied by a huge amount of slack in the primary chain. Presumably a lower tensioner failure or guide failure. Once I get the timing cover off, we'll see.
I am assuming that is the cause of the loud, intermittent rattle I heard. I was checking the valve timing, and you can see the small differnce between the left and right banks, here.

 

The pulley came off today. I bought a basic puller and used the bolts from the intake runners. It worked great.

 

Well, that tells me something. My engine had sae threads in the damper instead of metric, so I suppose that means someone put them there when they went into the engine, I guess!

 

Ross, I had read your post about that, so I was careful and tried a bunch of different bolts, Metric and SAE. The ones I used just needed a gentle back and forth insertion with some oil, since the threads were pretty dirty and gummed up.
I used my impact gun to loosen the bolt, then installed the puller and did the time honoured trick of tightening the puller, bang with a big hammer, tighten, bang, tighten,bang,etc, and she came off easily. Plus I'm pleased at $27 from NAPA, versus $200 I saw somewhere for the Jag puller.
Tomorrow, the other pulleys and the timing cover............

 

Yeah, that has been bothering me some since I found it. I am pretty darn sure my threads were sae, and I don't believe either of us could have crossed the threads enough to get the damper off. Since I did not see any other evidence of someone coming before me, in my engine, I still wonder what the story was/

 

ford crankshaft?? or damper.

 

I wonder if there's a close match between that size in both metric and SAE. I ask because I had to buy an unusual size bolt for my 911, for the seatbelt. It turns out that the bolt is virtually identical in both sizes.

 

Finally I'm down to the point of this whole exercise- the head gasket. Today I pulled the timing chain. The guides were cracked but not broken. the RH bank primary tensioner has an issue where it won't hold the oil in.

Looking at the piston, it appears there is a check valve in the base that holds the oil in, but this one does not work.

Anyway, on to the heads and sure enough the LH head gasket is blown. Interestingly 7 out of 8 cylinders had a similar failure mode of the gasket. In every case the metal ring is distorted inwards towards the piston, not what I would expect.



The cylinders look good, no obvious damage. I'm starting to price out parts now.

 

that's strange one, faulty gasket? what does the head look like where the faults are?

do a pulley upgrade, the later R runs a different idler tensioner bracket and belt, also see if you can match them for the accessory belt in metal. I'd be inclined to do a lower pulley upgrade for the s/c too while down. The more plastic replaced the better the engine gets.
If the head bolts have never been out (you'll know) you can reuse them or buy a cheap kit of Ford ones. I use Range Rover, but the discount doesn't apply in the USA (we have farmers that use RR's and don't pay £10 for a bolt, never mind x20!)
Some seals can be reused on the induction, but do yourself a favour and buy the later intercooler ring seals that fix to the top plate assembly, the early ones got sucked in. The metal crush gasket under the tb. Use oem cambox seals kit, aftermarket leak.
The $200 tool has other uses on these engines, it's not a one trick pony, but good work getting the pulley off with a cheapo tool, seen many such things bent/wrecked by that one bolt, by the way it needs a new one, massive torque loading so not worth gambling on a sheer into the crankshaft, although a 30 buck item.
A few things to consider and easy whilst out, not when in!

 

"later intercooler ring seals that fix to the top plate assembly"
I think the metal rings that use the later gasket have a groove machined for the extra lip on the seals, so you would need the new metal as well.