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This is my first engine rebuild, a 302 from a 1980 Ford F-100. Today, I took off the rocker arms, rods, and lifters.
Everything looked fine until I noticed this mysterious black hole behind the distributor opening. I say mysterious because the hole looks jagged, like it doesn’t belong there.
Question – what is that hole?
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I’m trying to decide if that would be in a water jacket or not. Did you hear the engine run? Was there coolant in the valley when you pulled the intake? I would DEFINITELY clean the block up and have it magnafluxed or otherwise tested for cracks before I spent any money on it.
That is very very odd indeed.
I have never seen anything like that. Im pondering whether or not that motor has been apart before and that hole was intentionally placed there for some type of aftermarket oiling system. Still, that hole looks too jagged though.
If you think it is damage, it might not be a bad idea to have the short block checked out by a machine shop. They can use a block dye or a magna flux process to check for cracks and so forth.
Very baffling indeed. The last 302 block i stripped down for one of my Mustangs was a 87 E7 setup and that hole was not present on my short block.
Wow, Yes that is very odd.
Is this a factory ford block?
Maybe it was there for casting or something.I:|That should not be there. looks like a defect in the casting of the block. appears to be 2 stress fractures running away from that hole at the 1 o’clock position and the 7 o’clock position. have you pulled the oil pan yet ? any chunks of metal that match that hole in the pan ? since you are doing a rebuild let the machine shop check it out. perhaps it can be repaired. a quality machine shop will advise you on the best route.
I will check for metal pieces in the oil pan as recommended by 619DioFan.
My brother also looked it over and suggested it might have been an oil hole “gone bad”. At any rate, my plan is to take the block to a machine shop for inspection and possible cleaning, boring, etc. IF it is salvageable.
Thanks for the help on this.
It’s ‘sort of’ a bad casting but it’s not in a critical location as it does not go into a critical area in fact you could think of it as an oil return. I say this because I’ve seen things like this before on small block Fords but they were never considered a ‘problem’ to the people I asked. Just in case I’m wrong why not phone up the local machine shop and see what they have to say about it.
Thanks, I have a local machine shop that has been recommended to me and that will be the next stop after final disassembly.
It just looks bad, but I wouldn’t worry about it – My 302 has “jagged” edge holes just like that in the lifter valley. Imperfect castings, unless you find more evidence to the contrary (metal fragments etc)
check out http://www.sbftech.com – best site out there for small block ford info.
it looks like an oil hole gone wrong. I think somebody tried to do an oil mod. was this engine ever raced? unless something broke at one time
and put that hole there. I would do some research on this one.try talking to some local machine shops.They should know if thats a normal hole
or not. good luck and keep us posted on what you find.
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