Really look forward to visiting here and learning about the y-block. Will also need to start trolling the classifieds, we are going to need (so far) rear main bearing cap, pushrods and lifters.

Thanks!

Again, welcome to our site, and good luck on your project.

Welcome aboard we will be very interested to comment and help with your project.

Before starting on rebuilding any old Y block that may be available check to see what you have. Most commonly the motors are 292 cid displacement.  Check on the web site Ford-Y-Block.com for a complete listing of casting numbers for heads blocks cranks etc.  The best performance heads have casting marks ECZ-G or ????-113 cast under the water outlet of the heads. But for a lightweight T bucket huge amounts of power aren't mandatory to have a thrilling ride so obsessing on the "Best" could hurt your project.  The last of these engines was built by Ford in USA in 1964 and there is a real good chance that what you have is a mixture of parts. 

If it's a truck motor should have some sort of mount accross the front, but side mounts can be used also. 

Dan what part of the country are you in.  Gerry

*sorry for the poor grammar and typing, am typing ine handed due to an accident...

Welcome to the site, its an odd experience but when I started reading your post I thought you may be in my neck of the woods because the local high school had a Y block for their shop motor back in the 60's and 70's, my brother always tried to buy it off them because it had never been run, it was only disassembled and reassembled as a class project each year. (I wonder if they still have it? maybe I should stop by some time). By the way it was in Maine

I wonder how many schools used Y blocks for their classes?, did ford have a program to donate the engines to the schools as a sponsorship or something?

As far as the lifters you found. Be aware! There were some after market ones that did not meet the hardness specs and ruined some cams and lifters before the problem was found. make sure the ones you found are up to spec, Mummert checks all his for hardness or won't sell them.

I have original FOMOCO sets that could be reground if you need and many other parts also.

Good luck with the project!

Bill

By "rear main cap", do you mean the cap for the main bearing, or the cap that holds the rear oil seal?  They are separate pieces on a Y, unlike many other engines.  The cap for the seal is aluminum.

John in Selma, IN

does a shop manual (or somewhere?) have specs for the lifters so I can measure them and see if they are useable?

we found this enine in our storage shed, looks like an abandoned project-

according to what little research I've done I think these are the 1:5 ratio rockers as they have the numbers cast into the end where the adjuster goes-

thanks for the help and info!

The shaft diameter of the lifter sounds okay but wear in this particular area is typically not a problem whereas wear on the lifter face itself is.  Putting a straight edge on the lifter face and insuring that it is higher in the middle than the outside edges is a rudimentary method for checking for lifter wear.  If the lifter is flat or is actually lower in the middle than the edges, then lifter wear is evident and at this point should be replaced.

As a general rule when using used lifters, always keep the lifters associated with the same lobes of the camshaft when reusing them.  It’s risky and not recommended in using used lifters on other camshafts or switching them around in an engine on lobes they were not originally broke in on.

How about lifters that appear to be new from a fresh rebuild that went wrong on a connecting rod, and using those lifters with a new cam shaft???

The reason I am asking is that a motor I picked up and tore apart had all new parts in it but one connecting rod must not have gotten torqued and the nuts where at the end of the bolts and the cap was history. Would those lifters be usable with a new cam?

I have a grinding attachment to go on my lathe and have the ability to reface them also but was just wondering if there were any issues with using slightly used ones with a new cam. I know many people who have changed cams without ever bothering with lifters so I can't see why there should be an issue.

For a customers engine, the risk is simply too high to take a chance with using used lifters on a new camshaft.  For myself I could potentially gamble a bit on my own engine with a used lifter but on a customers engine where there’s the remotest chance of failure, I’ll stick with the rule of always putting new lifters on a new camshaft.  If an engine has run at least twenty minutes, then the lifters and lobes have technically been mated to each other at which point even moving the lifters to other lobes would not even be considered.  With this reasoning, the lifters are not suitable for another camshaft without a given amount of additional risk being attached to them.  It's simply boils down to how much risk you are willing to accept.

But to reinforce how critical camshaft and lifter mating is, I recently dealt with someone who had insisted on using their old camshaft and even with new lifters, this engine experienced a lobe failure within the first hour of running.  In this case, the camshaft had been moved from one block to another and was glad I was not the one who had to warranty and subsequently fix the engine.  All it takes is for the lifter bores to be located just slightly different from one block to another to make swapping used cams and/or lifters from engine to engine very risky business.  Not every case in doing this is a failure which is why people are still doing it.  Although new lifters are not a guarantee against a lifter and/or lobe failure, it does reduce the risk providing the lifters are of a known quality to begin with.  Offshore lifters are another topic altogether.

Unless you can put the proper radius for the crown on the bottom of the lifter, then a simple resurfacing of the lifter face will not be adequate.  Don’t recall the exact spec for the crown for a Y lifter but seems like it’s in the 50” radius range.  Excuse the long post as I got carried away on this one.