blue1978fordbronco: joined 8-27-12

[blue1978fordbronco]

Hi everyone, my name is Jeff and I am from Swartz Creek.  I have a 78 Bronco that I bought back in 94.  Started out as a clean unmolested custom.  I made a lot of upgrades to it over the years, it was a street truck for most of the time I've had it until I put the boggers on and the 466 in.  This bronco is the main reason I know anything at all about what's under the hood of a vehicle.  I've made so many dumb errors over the years I'm amazed it's still in one piece.  The original engine was a 351M.  With a performer intake and an Edelbrock 650 carb it did okay.....until the 35" tires were burried in thick goo, then the power turned to mush.  Still, the bronco went further in a lot of pits than much bigger rigs due to the tires, gearing and the front locker (i'm giving myself no credit for my driving skill).  The 71 lincoln 460 fell into my lap over 5 years ago.....completely disassembled.  I had never built an engine before but was itching at the chance.  Well, I took the block, heads and crank to a machine shop, they bored the cylinders out and gave me a couple of hints before shoving me out the door after I paid my money.  I bolted it together trying to be as careful as humanly possible.  I enlisted the help of a couple guys and in one weekend we pulled the M out and plopped the 466 in.  We didn't have it all hooked up but it was in there.  Well I fiddled with it and got everything hooked up enough for the moment of truth.  Again this is my first crack at this and my confidence was a bit shaken.  Heck, there was a time when I broke a spark plug off down in the cylinder head so for me to tackle this kind of project you could see why I would be a bit nervous.  Well, she fired up, it took a while and the timing was way off but it fired.  I got it on a trailer and took it to an exhaust shop to hook the headers up to the exhaust.  Once they did and I could hear the motor I realized I was right about one thing......I didn't get the valves lashed correctly just like I thought.  Well, I took an old valve cover, cut the top off and hot lashed the valves on both sides.  Voila, it worked but I need to learn how to do it correctly.  I'm surprised I didn't wipe the cam actually, I never did break it in correctly, I think I got lucky....and I used lot's of assembly lube.....LOTS of lube.  Well, over the years I messed with it here and there but lately I've gotten serious about it again.  Rebuilt the Edelbrock 850, set the timing correctly (it was a bit off), got a new high torque starter on so it will turn over every time the key is turned, Installed a true 460 sized radiator, topped off all the fluids and drove it around the backyard.  She seems to be running great but running it around the backyard and running it through thick goo are two totally different things. 
I think that will pretty much tell you guys all you need to know about me, I'm a talker if you couldn't tell.  Hope to see y'all soon at some event.

[78man]

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