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Original Message
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| Most likely it's a 360/390/410 block |
| By Dave Shoe - 06/20/2004 1:44:13 PM; IP 216.243.176.34 |
This old post thoughtfully critiques the book you are referencing:
http://www.jcoconsulting.com/ForumFE/reply.aspx?ID=6226&Reply=6127
In your case, George apes a mistake made in many FE reference books. You've got to do the "drill bit test" to verify you've got the 361/391/428 cylinder jackets stuffed into that block.
C6ME (or any CxME-x marking from 1966-on), is basically a generic marking. It indicates you've got a topoiler block for the FE/FT family, but it does not indicate which sand cores were stuffed into the mold. It may be a 330FT block, a 352 block, a 360/390/410 block, a 361FT/391FT block, a 428 standard block, or a 428PI/CJ block. All are identical on the outside. You can determine which cores were stuffed into the mold by running a few tests, such as the "drill bit test", but you've got to run the whole drill bit test, not just a single cylinder sampling at mid-cylinder.
As mentioned earlier, C6ME on a block simply indicates it's a topoiler FE cast from model year 1966 through about 1972 or so. A sideoiler FE casting of similar markings would have gotten C6AE-A. Note that I'm aware of sideoiler blocks cast with C5AE-G, C5AE-H, C6AE-A, C7AE-A, and C8AE-A. Natch, some later sideoilers have no marks of this type, since the foundry smartly abandoned the practice, since the numbers came to mean approximately nothing sometime before 1966. Blank (unmarked) blocks started showing up at DIF and CF around 1968, but the meaningless DxTE-x markings resurfaced when MCC took over 360/361/390/391 casting duties. DIF never seems to have handed over 427/428 casting duties to MCC, so you'll find the late 427/428 industrial castings were maintained at DIF and were not saddled with the markings. Since FE and FT truck block castings were all machined at Clifford Manufacturing in Clifford Michigan since 1973, it appears Ford did not make contractual arrangements with either MCC or Clifford to handle the larger displacement FEs.
(DIF is Ford's Dearborn Iron Foundry, CF is Ford's Cleveland Foundry, MCC is Ford's brand spanking new Michigan Casting Center)
The "drill bit test" is a work in progress. I'm trying to determine what cylinder jacket sand cores got stuffed into the various FE and FT blocks over the years, and I'm basing my study on a statistical evaluation of the size of the coolant gap found between each cylinder. For gauging, I've selected a cheap set of drillbits which must be incremented in 1/64th steps (commonly available) to achieve the step resolutions I seek. Since I'm fractionally illiterate, I am only capable of comparing drillbit numbers in mistake-free manner when they are converted to the 64th denominator. This means a 1/8" drill bit is called an 8/64" bit, all because I'm sorta dense.
I typically speak of the "drill bit test" numbers in "numerator slang", where "7" means 7-64", "13" means 13/64", and "16" means 16/64".
Note that when probing inside the six core plug holes, I seek to learn the widest reachable gap that a drill bit shank will fit into. Generally, due to "draft angles" and "parting line" issues, the largest gap can be found close to the top of the cylinder (or low in the cylinder if of a certain type of 427 jacket), so you must not simply poke the shank of the bit straight in, but must probe high and low into the core plug for the greatest gap between all eight cylinders. There are more sophisticated ways to statistically correlate cylinder jackets, but this "biggest gap on the block" way is simplest. I simply look for the single largest single gap on a block, not a statistical averaging of all the gaps, or some such alternative.
Note also: One weakness in my method is I collect info on the largest drill bit shank which slips between the cylinders, but it's not exactly intuitive and some imported data may actually arrive in the form of the smallest bit which does NOT fit at any spot between any cylinders on a particular block. This 1/64" discrepancy is recognized as a transitional vagarity which is allowed, but not as likely to occur as the "bit that fits".
I suppose it might help to offer typical cylinder gaps found in various FE blocks.
While you will likely find these numbers using the forum search function with the string "bit test" (use the quotes), this is a summary of how the evaluation sits right now:
The 330FT, 332, 352, 361Edsel, 360, 390, 410 blocks can typically slip a 17 (17/64") drill bit at the largest gap in a block. Variances of 16 and 18 are normal for the largest gap, and I believe 19 and maybe 20 have been noted. This does indicate that the 330FT and 352 blocks make fine 390 blocks, core shift permitting. Obviously, rust plays a factor in the gap size, but I've found fewer than expected numbers of blocks with cylinder rust issues.
I don't know what type of cylinder jacket gaps are found in the 352HP and 390HP castings.
The 361FT, 391FT, 428standard, 428PI/CJ, and some 406 blocks can typically slip a 13 (13/64"), with 12 and 14 also being common.
Some 406 and some 427 blocks seem to be able to slip an 8 (8/64") drill bit shank between the largest gap on the block. This includes cloverleafed cylinders. Unremoved threaded core plugs make this test a difficult one to find samples on.
Some types of 427 blocks seem to fit a remarkable 5 (5/64") shank between the cylinders at the largest gap, but not all cylinders were checked when these samples were taken. This includes cloverleafed cylinders (squared-off corner reinforcements).
When I go to the salvage yard, I carry a 15/64" drill bit, as it'll give me a clear idea what block I'm looking at, without having to precisely determine the gap. The crill bit test is a crude test, and it is incapable of checking for core shift. A sonic mapping of the cylinders will verify core shift issues, but too many sonic maps are not accurate (done by an amateur), so you'll want to cross check the drill-bit test with the sonic map to verify all is sensible.
JMO,
Sho |
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This thread, so far...
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