Carried over from the Valve cover baffle design thread. Dave brought up something I thought may be interesting.







That's certainly not dumb. I don't think airflow through the engine has been discussed in detail. It may not be an area that needs improvement. Slightly more modern engines, such as the 305 in my Firebird, don't appear to have any kind of baffling to direct air flow in any particular way. I'm interested in hearing about it if there is anything important to know.



One thing, if your observations indicate that it's blowing up through the timing cover and into the valley, it must be drawing air from somewhere. The only source I can think of is through the distributor hole. I will guess that the hot crankcase gasses rise to the top of the engine where they can be drawn out and the cooler air will make its way to the crankcase. I guess that would be convection.



There have been at least 3 different arrangements for crankcase evacuation. It will be interesting, if not pointless, to know how they actually compare. My shop manual has a diagram showing how it should flow for the trucks original setup. I'll dig that out.


Lawrenceville, GA

Do you have any idea about the mileage of that engine? When I tore down mine after 10 or 11K miles, I found no buildup whatsoever and everything had oil on it. I wonder if modern oils might have something to do with it as well. The only thing I had changed in the timing chain area is the modification to the cam retaining plate mentioned in the Eickman book. I don't think that would have any effect on oiling the chain, eccentric, and etc.


Lawrenceville, GA

Charlie, I know nothing about this engine except it came from Massachusetts.  I didn't even want it.  My recent purchase, a '59 Galaxie, has a three speed stick.  My wife likes automatics.  Within two weeks after buying my car locally, I found a guy on eBay who was selling '59 Galaxie parts.

He said he was going to restore his, but after driving it onto the rack, and putting it in the air, he noticed extensive frame rot and decided to part-out the car and recoup his money.  I asked him for the tranny, linkage, brake pedal support, steering column, and drive shaft.  He said the engine and tranny were together but he gave me a real good price for the whole bang.

You can see the engine is on a tire, and the whole thing is on a pallet.  That's how it came off the truck, and this is how I laid eyes on it for the first time.  I don't know the previous owner.

Turns out, the heads are 113's, the crank and cam look beautiful with NO wear, but the cylinders were worn, rings shot, rocker shafts shot, and three spark plugs had 'extenders' on them to save from oil-fouling.  My machine shop magnafluxed the block, took .060" off the cyl's, and skinned the decks and heads for straightness.  If you go to my site, click on the 'Engine Section' to see what I've done so far.

My intention is to have the engine and transmission totally rebuilt, assembled, and ready to drop in my Galaxie right after Woodward Dream Cruise in August.  I also have power disk brakes and a rack & pinion setup to install at the same time.  This weekend, I'm rebuilding the three-speed Cruise-o-matic.

I have never worked on an engine as dirty as this 292.  But one good thing, the history of this engine tells a story.  All I have to do is read it correctly.  I can't do that with a clean engine.

- Dave

Royal Oak, Michigan (Four miles north of Detroit, and 12 miles NORTH of Windsor, Canada).  That's right, we're north of Canada.

Ford 292 Y-Block major overhaul by simplyconnected

Dave- I'm a neighbor to the north of you (Freeland, MI) I know a fella in Howell who has quite a hoard of Y-block motors and parts, (I recently bought all the valve stem splash shields I was missing for $1.00 ea) He's very knowledgeable , to boot- If you'd like, I could scare up his Tx# for you. Just PM me and let me know... /Duck

BOO- YA!!!