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Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. Obviously, the brakes are one of the most important systems in your vehicle’s operation, which is why over the course of the next few videos, I’ll be doing a complete brake job on my ’85 F-150 using all the parts that you see here. If you’d like to watch me do that and learn how to change all the brakes and the front hubs and rotors and bearings, pads, shoes, the works on an ’85 F-150 or a Bullnose in general, stick around.

So you may be wondering why I’m bothering with replacing basically everything except for the brake lines and the master cylinder and the brake booster. Well, when I was at the tire store, I had to park on an incline, and so I put the parking brake on and took my foot off the regular brake, and the truck began to roll backwards even with the parking brake fully engaged. Now, obviously, that’s a problem. So I came home and began to try to diagnose it, and no matter what adjustments I made, I just couldn’t get the rear wheels to not roll backwards with the parking brake engaged. And so I figured maybe it was time to go through the system and see if I can’t get that figured out. I figured while I was doing that, I may as well replace everything because at least with everything replaced, I’m starting fresh. I know when the last time all this stuff was replaced because I replaced it myself all at the same time, say about the truck used. So there’s no way for me to know when the last time the brakes were serviced or the hubs and rotors were serviced or when the bearings were changed. So by doing all this myself right now, I know I’m starting from a good place.

In addition to that, brake components really aren’t that expensive individually. Now, when you go out and you buy them all at the same time like this, it can get pretty pricey, but generally, they’re not that bad individually. And this also gives me an opportunity to go through and clean things up, paint a few things so that they’ll last a little bit longer and look a little bit nicer. And hopefully, after all that’s said and done, I will have fixed my parking brake problem. And if I don’t fix my parking brake problem, then at least I know it’s not the parts; it’s just me being an idiot.

The first thing that I’m going to do is actually apply the parking brake and just do some testing. Normally, you would do this with a wheel on, but I’ve already got the wheels off, so I’ll do it this way. Now the parking brake is applied, so I shouldn’t be able to turn this at all, and by hand, I can’t. But if I put just a little bit of pressure on it, I can spin it backwards. Now I can’t do it forwards at all, so what that tells me is that if this truck were parked on a hill, it’d be able to roll backwards, and that’s a problem.

I’m also going to check the operation of the regular brakes. Now, I’m a one-man show, so I don’t have anyone to check the wheels for me while I press the brake or vice versa. So what I did was I built this little wedge out of a 2×4 and an old t-shirt and just a sponge right here, and that way I can wedge this end up against the brake and put this end up against the seat and not have to worry about ripping my seat. And that way, the brake will stay down while I can go around and check all the wheels. So just like with the parking brake, I can’t really turn this even if I apply pressure. I really can’t turn it, so that’s good, except that I can turn it a little bit backwards. So at least it’s consistent. This still needs to be changed.

Here we are in the front, and the calipers are fully engaged, and there is no way that I can turn this. I’m not even going to put a breaker bar on it because I know it won’t turn. I tried this earlier with the tires on, and I couldn’t turn even using the entire tire to try to turn it. So the front brakes on this vehicle are pretty good, but I’m still going to go ahead and replace them since I’m doing everything else anyway.

When you’re checking your brakes, there are several things that you need to be on the lookout for. One of those things is ridges in your rotors. Now, this vehicle has rotors in front and drums in the back, and you just run your thumb or finger along here, and you know, man, I really can, I can feel some ridges in there. So even though I said that these brakes are good because they don’t turn, it’s probably a good idea to replace these rotors anyway. Now, you can sometimes take these off and have them turned. I’m just going to replace them. The rotors and hubs that I bought aren’t that expensive, so it’s worth it for me just to replace the whole thing.

Another thing you’re going to want to look out for is just how much meat you have left on your brake pads. And to check that, I really recommend you go out and get one of these little digital calipers. They’re pretty cheap from Harbor Freight. This one works fantastic, and it just allows you to really sort of measure exactly how much meat there is left on your pads and on your shoes. So let’s take a look. I’m going to say this right around nine millimeters right there. Again, that’s just kind of an eyeball. So for front brake pads, you really want to have at the very minimum three and a half millimeters. Really, I recommend having more than 6.5 millimeters, and I’ve got nine, so I’ve got plenty of pad on there, and I really don’t need to replace them. But again, since pads are pretty cheap and I’m doing everything else anyway, I’m just gonna go ahead and put brand new pads on.

While you’re checking out your brake system, you’re also going to want to verify proper operation of your calipers and of your drum brake hardware. But if you’re alone like I am, it’s going to be really hard to push the brake pedal and watch the caliper work or watch the drum brake hardware work. So I’ve got a trick for you that should help you out. I apologize for any shaky cam issues. Normally, I would have a tripod, but I am using my tripod for something else. So what I’ve got here is I’ve got a pad on top of my tripod pointing at my caliper, which is in camera mode, and I actually have an app for this pad which broadcasts whatever’s on the screen to my computer, which shows up on my television. Now, you could use your phone or another pad instead of a TV and computer like this. All you’ve got to do is point it to the right IP address, and whatever is being broadcasted will show up on your device. And now I can come over here, watch my TV screen, press down on my brake pedal, and watch my caliper engage. Now I can do the same thing for my rear brake hardware. Oh, look at that. Now keep in mind there’s going to be a delay between what you do and what you see just because of the latency of the connection, but at least this way you can see things actually happen as you do them. And now for the passenger side, this lets me see the parking brake operation as well.

You want to check your brake shoes and your brake drum in the back just like you check your rotor and your pad to the front. So just like the rotor, you can run your finger or thumb inside this part of the drum here where the shoes touch and see if there are any ridges. There’s a couple, a little bit of ridging right there, but it’s not too bad. This drum is actually in pretty good shape. As far as these shoes go, you can check the thickness of the shoe the same way that you check the thickness of the pad to the front with a little digital caliper. Looks like I’m at right about five millimeters or so. Now for brake shoes, you want to be greater than three and definitely greater than one and a half. One and a half is probably the minimum. Some guys will tell you that as long as you’re not running into the rivets, if these are riveted, then you’re okay. But really, I would say anything less than three is probably about time to change them. They’re not hard to change; they’re not expensive. So I would definitely do it if they’re less than three. These are right about five, but just like the front, since I’m going through and changing everything, since these are pretty cheap, I might as well go ahead and change them as well.

I’m going to actually start my work on the parking brake. So the first thing I’m going to do is get under the truck, and you can see right there is all the parking brake linkages. The driver side parking brake has already been replaced with this cable. I did that about a year ago because I was having problems back then too, and so I decided to just go ahead and replace the other two cables as well, the front cable there and the cable to the passenger side. And since I’m doing all this cable replacement, I’m just going to go ahead and take this entire assembly apart so I can take it off and put some rust remover on there and try to get this stuff as cleaned up as I can. So now we’ll just get to taking this thing apart. Remove the spring. I’m not sure I got enough slack to actually do this. No, I don’t. So I gotta turn this nut here. So this is just a 5/16. It’s a little rusty, but it’s not too bad in my case, so it’s going to come off pretty easy. I’m going to take this entire bracket off so that I can get some rust remover on it and just kind of clean it up. Let’s see if I got enough slack now. Got enough slack for that one, and enough slack for that one. So there we go. Like I said before, this one here is basically brand new, so I got no need to replace this one. Yeah, it moves just fine. But this one here, yeah, I can move it, but it’s pretty tight, so we’re going to replace it. It’s just got this clip that goes on the end here. Now I should be able to pop this off with a screwdriver.

All right, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to give myself some slack. This bracket here is closer to the rear wheel. It’s what hangs the parking brake cables up to the frame, and this here is pretty tight, so I’m going to go ahead and take this bracket off so I can get a little bit more slack to get this off of the bracket off of the hanger up front, and I’m using a half-inch ratchet for this. There we go. It’s not too bad, but a little bit rusty, so I’ll probably go ahead and put some rust remover on this piece here too. Okay, now that I’ve got some slack here, let’s see if I can get this thing off of here. You need to bend these tabs in so you can pull it on out. Easy peasy. Now this piece here is loose. I can go ahead and disconnect it and get some rust remover on there and try to get it cleaned up. I’m not sure what this piece is called, but I know I’ve looked it up, but it’s pretty expensive, so it’s going to definitely be better to clean this up and reuse it than to try to find a replacement.

If we look inside the truck, you can see where the parking brake assembly is right here. I’ve already got it unhooked, so it’s really easy to move. I’m not going to worry about that, but this is the cable here that you’ve got to replace, and it hooks in right back behind, oops, right back behind this plate right here. There’s another one of those clips. Now that’s real hard to get to. Now I could spend a bunch of time fiddle farting around trying to get that out of there, but I think what I’d rather do is just remove this entire assembly because that way I can actually get to it and get the assembly out and maybe even clean it up a little bit, lube it, and make sure that it’s good. The problem is, I don’t know if you can see it or not, it’s way back in there, but the bolts that hold this in right there, the nut is actually on the other side. So I’ve got two of those. You can’t see the other one from where I’m at. Two of those to get out. You can kind of see it there. And plus this right here to take out, I think to take this entire assembly out. Now, in order to get to those, I have to do something about this shroud right here. And so I’ve already taken some of the screws out. That’s what I got down there, and I’m going to go ahead and finish to see if I can get this shroud out of the way so I can get to those bolts. These, by the way, are 5.5 millimeter. They’re pretty small, small heads anyway.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that right there is what I’m trying to get to, and I think I got enough room to get my hand up in there with a ratchet and take care of that. So it turns out that I’m actually an idiot, and both of these bolts are available to be ratcheted on from inside the hood, but you can’t really see it. It’s kind of dark, but yeah, there you go. So I actually didn’t have to take that shroud off at all, but live and learn. Look upon this bolt, ye mighty, and despair, for it is a 10 millimeter. Damn, is your nut back there? There it is. That’ll be fun. Well, I don’t know where it went. That’s what I get for mocking it, I suppose. There it is. Come here, you.

Okay, now this should pretty much just come out, I think. And make sure you disconnect any electrical connections. This is a pretty old truck, so just got the one right there. In my haste to remove the parking brake, I almost forgot that there is yet another clip down here, so I gotta get that out. There we go. Now I should be able to take it out from inside the cab. Okay, now let’s see if I can get this thing out of here. There it comes. So success! I don’t know if taking this entire assembly out of the truck just to get to this clip is easier than trying to get this clip off with this still installed in the truck or not, but I do know that taking this entire thing out gives me the opportunity to clean it up, to lube it up, and it also gives me the experience of taking it out of the truck. And every little thing that I can do to learn more about this truck by experience, yeah, I’ll go ahead and take that opportunity. So out it comes. Man, that is a whole lot easier to do it inside the truck, though, that’s for sure.

Okay, so there’s just a little that this goes in right inside here, so you just have to kind of manhandle it out of there. Wow, so I just learned something. If the parking brake is in the engaged position, taking this thing out is almost impossible because now I can’t get it out of there. It’s tucked underneath this bracket, but if I disengage the parking brake mechanism, oh, well, gee, easy peasy. Oh, and I’m spent.

I’ve got my station here all set up to clean and de-rust some of these parts if I can, and I’m going to start out by just kind of cleaning things off with some brake cleaner just to get started. The rust remover that I’m using is Rust-Oleum rust dissolver gel. I’ve never used it before; I have no idea how well it’ll work, but we’re going to give it a try. Now, the instructions say to get the parts wet and make sure they stay wet throughout the process, so I got a little bucket of water, and we’re going to follow the directions.

All right, so those guys are all soaked up. Now for the mechanism, I’m just going to go ahead and wet my rag and kind of dab it on here. Okay, now we let that sit for a little while and see how it works. So I sprayed the other side of my mechanism as well, and what I’ve discovered is that if you don’t mind putting in a little bit of extra elbow grease, this rust remover works pretty well. There you go, not too shabby. Here we are, rinsed off, dried off, and pretty much ready to put back in. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty impressed considering how rough it was before. Let’s see if I can get it to focus. Yeah, that’s not too bad.

So this piece right here is by far the worst piece under there. This is after one application of the rust remover. I think I’m gonna do one more, see if I can’t get the rest of this off of here, and then what I’ll probably do is paint this piece just to prevent it from rusting so much in the future. So to be honest, this was the piece that I was really concerned about in terms of rust, and here’s what I was going for: being able to just roll that nut on and off of this bolt without having to use a wrench and dealing with all that rust. Beautiful!

I’m also planning on painting my brake drums and calipers with just a high heat black spray paint, again just to keep the rust off and help them last a little bit longer. Before I do that, though, I’m going to hit them with some brake clean. They’re pretty clean, but they may still have some oil and gunk from the factory, so I just want to make sure they’re good and clean so that the paint would adhere. So obviously, before you paint brake parts, you have to make sure that you tape some areas off. So on the caliper, I want to make sure that I tape off around the piston. I don’t want to hit this boot, certainly. And then with the drums, obviously, you do not want to paint on top of the breaking surface, so I’ll just be taping all that stuff off with regular blue painter’s tape.

So here’s my first caliper all ready to go. Now, I’m not going to worry about this part here because I’m going to replace this with a speed bleeder, so the original fitting will actually act as a plug to make sure I don’t get any paint inside of here. This here is just a cap that comes right off, so I can paint over it, no problem. The hard part is the actual caliper itself with the gasket that goes around it because you definitely don’t want to paint any of that stuff there. But I’ve got a trick for you. All you’re going to need for this is a Ziploc bag and a, that’s called a rubber band. Dumbass. All you’re going to need for this is a Ziploc bag and a rubber band. You can probably see where this is going, but I’ll show you anyway.

Okay, now that you’ve got your couple of pieces of Ziploc film, we can go ahead and cover up that piston. Now, I will admit that this is a little tricky, and it takes some finagling to get this rubber band back behind in here because this gasket pretty much is right up against the caliper frame itself. So it does take a little bit of maneuvering to get it back there. You just want to be real careful when you’re doing this that you don’t pop a hole in this because then you’ll get paint on your gasket, and also that you don’t puncture your gasket using a screwdriver or anything else because then you’ll ruin the piston. And once you’ve got this all wrapped around here like this with your rubber band down inside of there, you can just go around the edge. This part here, I pull up like this, and the rest of it, you just kind of tuck in. Nobody’s ever going to see this. This is basically just for protection, so I’m not too worried about if it’s perfect or not, just as long as it’s protecting this gasket. So I’m pretty much ready for paint. I apologize for the bad lighting; it’s what you get when you shoot at five o’clock in the afternoon in November.

So I’m using two different kinds of primer. I’m using this self-etching primer for these parts that aren’t going to get warm. That’s basically the parking brake parts right there. And I’ll be using the high heat primer for the drums and the calipers because they’re going to get pretty warm, and you can’t use regular primer for that. And then for both parts, I’m just using this high heat paint; that’s because what I have. All right, let’s get to painting. I just got Q-tips in these nuts here so I don’t get paint down inside the threads.

My, so, so, so, here we are with the finished product. You can see my final coat of matte black has gone on to the drums and onto the calipers. You can see that the masking job that I did here around the piston worked out real well. There’s still a couple of little places, and especially like under the gasket, that’s not painted, but that’s okay because the gasket covers that up. You’re never going to see it, and the gas is going to protect that from most of the road grime and dirt and things that are going to cause rust and corrosion in the future. I remember my primary reason for painting these was to try to prevent rust for as long as possible on these surfaces. A secondary reason is for looks, but really, you’re not going to see much of these behind my rims anyway, and if you do see them, I want them to just sort of disappear. I don’t need really bright colors or glossy paint on these because these aren’t performance parts; they’re just basically OEM parts, and I don’t really want people to see my calipers. I just kind of want them to blend into the background, so that’s why I chose this matte black color.

All this stuff over here has been painted. The only thing that I didn’t paint, of course, was the spring because you’ll want to paint that, and then, of course, the nuts and the bolts on the threads. I didn’t paint those. Everything else put a few coats on, and I’m happy with how it turned out. I want to make sure I don’t forget before I put this back in the truck to grease all this stuff up. I’m just using some white lithium grease to grease in all the metal-to-metal contact parts. So I just wanted to note here that I took a little rag and rubbed some of the extra grease that I had on some of these parts into a little bit of this metal plating just to put a little bit of a layer on there to help prevent rust in the future. I’m not sure if it’ll do a whole lot, but I used quite a bit of grease and had some extra laying around, so I’m just using a rag to rub some of that in.

So right there is where this all goes. I’m going to start by feeding my cable down into this hole. There we go, and I can get my fully lubricated assembly in here and hook it in. Oh, you know what? Don’t forget this has got to go through here, and then there we go. And then this piece here goes into there just like that. Okay, now I got to put in that bolt right there to hold it in place while I go to the front of the truck and fix the other two bolts in. And this one’s gonna be a pain in the because I got a nut that goes on top, and I got fat hands. My dumb ass thought another under the wrong one. All right, once that’s done.

So interestingly, this aftermarket cable here is a little bit different right here, this sleeve, because the original had one big long sleeve that threaded down through inside there. This is the original cable. The aftermarket cable that I bought has two different sleeve pieces that are both about the same size as this. Now, the original sleeve went actually down into the hole in the bottom here and sort of sealed it off. I’m not entirely sure why this is a two-piece. Both of them are exactly the same; there’s this piece here and then another rubber piece just like it. I’m assuming that one of those rubber pieces sort of has to go halfway through that hole to seal it off. I’m not sure if it should be the bottom piece or the top piece, but I’m going to go into the truck and see if I can’t get the bottom piece up through there.

This is a really weird angle, but at least here you can see what I’m talking about. You see how there’s two different sleeve pieces, this bottom piece and then the top piece? So just stick it up into the truck, and what I like to do is to get one of those two pieces actually inside this hole nice and snug to prevent any kind of stuff from the outside going through the inside. And so because I’d rather not have this piece hanging down underneath and be able to slide down, I’d rather push this piece here up into the truck and then use this piece as the sealing piece. So that’s what I’m going to do. I suppose probably should say that’s what I’m going to attempt to do.

Oh, look at that! It’s not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, it’s not easy; that’s not that bad. Good! So my next job is going to be snaking that cable through these holes here in the body mount. Should be simple enough. There we go. One thing you’ll notice about me if you continue watching my channel for anything at the time is that I get sidetracked really easy. So I have not yet forgot about completing the mount of the parking brake mechanism in the front of the truck, but since I had to put this cable in, I’m just going to go ahead and get it hooked up back here. So this piece here goes on like this, and then this piece here goes on like this, and then we’ve got the nut that goes on like this. Let’s see, like this. Now, there we go. All right, so now I just have to… there’s the spring. Real quick, oh, let’s do this. Start first. There we go. The long side of the spring goes toward the front. Not that I don’t think it really matters, but that’s how it came off.

All right, now the other thing I’ve got left to do is to finish mounting the mechanism in the front and replace this passenger side brake cable. Man, I tell you this, if I go through to get usable video around here, you know, guys, as an aside, I have no idea what all this crap is. Like, there’s all this stuff in here that I don’t know. Like, the truck runs fine, right? I’m not a mechanic, so I have no idea what any of this is. It’s like all tied up or taped off or something like this. There’s a set of wires that doesn’t even go anywhere; they’re just cut off, and they go up into the cab. I mean, that’s really one of the things that I’ve gotta go through this truck with and figure out all this electrical stuff because I have no idea what the people that had this truck before me even did to it.

I almost forgot to reconnect my parking brake light, which is being stubborn. There it goes. Part one of the Bullnose Garage brake job special is officially a wrap. Now, I know it doesn’t seem like I did that much other than get my hands a little bit dirty, but I did take some things apart, worked on the parking brake, got the parking brake assembly out of the front of the truck, got it all cleaned up and lubed up, changed the front parking brake cable, got some of the hardware out, got it painted, painted my brake drums, painted my calipers, started putting in the parking brake cable for the other side, and ran into the issue where you’ve got to take this apart if you want to put the parking brake cable in there. So that’s gonna be next time.

Part two of the brake job special is gonna be me going through all these rear brakes, changing the shoes, of course, the drum, taking out all this hardware, replacing it with all new stuff. I’m gonna be going through all and replacing the wheels, wheel cylinders, of course, and going through and cleaning up these hubs. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen, but there’s still a fair bit of rust on here. So I got this hub wheel hub resurfacing kit from Amazon, and we’re going to try that out and see how it works. Once that’s all nice and clean, we’re going to go through and paint this up the same way I painted my drums, again just to prevent rust and corrosion for as long as possible, and put them all back together and hopefully test it out and make sure that it works.

Of course, the episode after that, we’re going to go to the front. I’m going to do rotors, hubs, wheel bearings, calipers, pads, the whole nine yards up there. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Guys, if you enjoyed this video, if you learned something new, if you’d like to support the channel, make sure you give me a like. That really helps me out. And hey, you know, if you want to make sure that you catch the rebuilding of all this stuff here, the rear brakes and the front brakes, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell so you know when I put out new videos. I’ll be doing a bunch of stuff like this. I’ve got at least two more brake videos coming out. I may have another one depending on how things go that’s sort of an offshoot of actually doing the brakes themselves. But yeah, make sure you stay tuned for that stuff. There’s a lot of stuff coming up, so looking forward to that. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again for watching, guys, and we’ll see you next time in part two.

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. Do you like the look of white letters on tires? Well, too bad because you just can’t get them like this anymore, which means that if you want white letters like this on tires like this, you have to do it yourself with stuff like this.

Painting the letters on your tires white is pretty simple, but it does take some time and some supplies. So what I’ll do is I’ll go through the supplies that I used and how I used them to get the result that I got.

So you want to start out definitely with some good cleaner. Now this is that way is totally awesome. I got it from Dollar General for just a couple of bucks, but you could use any cleaner, degreaser, Mean Green, Simple Green, anything like that to clean around and inside these letters really, really well. You need to make sure that all the tire oil and any road oil, if they’re older tires, brake dust, that kind of stuff gets off the tire so the paint sticks real easy.

To do that, you can use a simple household sponge. Make sure it’s something you don’t care about because it’s gonna get disgusting and you’re gonna throw it away when you’re done. And then I also used just a simple rag and a small screwdriver to wrap around like this and help me get inside some of these tiny little nooks and crannies in there.

Once you’ve got it good and clean and dry and ready for paint, then you’re going to want to use an oil-based white or whatever color you want to do, but I use white, an oil-based paint pen, and this is from Sharpie. You can get these at any big box store or any art store. I got a couple of different sizes because I have wide areas and thin areas, so I found that the really wide tip worked good for the wide areas and the outline, and the thin Sharpie worked really good for inside the thinner areas.

You’re also going to want to have on hand some isopropyl alcohol, probably some Q-tips, and then this screwdriver and rag doubles also for cleanup. In case you get white somewhere you don’t want, you can put some isopropyl alcohol on a rag or a Q-tip and it’ll wipe right up, so no problem there.

Now it’s gonna take probably two, at least probably three coats of this Sharpie paint pen to get a result that you’re going to be happy with. And you can stop there, and if you want to drive the vehicle pretty much right away within 24 hours, then that’s where you’re going to want to stop. Me, I decided that I wanted to go one step further and hopefully make the job last a little bit longer and pop just a little bit more. So what I did was I went out and I bought some titanium white oil-based paint from an art store, and I went out and got this brush set, and I did one final top coat over each and every letter on all four tires using this.

One thing to note is that oil-based paint from an art store will take forever to dry. If you’re going to buy oil-based paint, make sure you get some that’s got linseed oil base because linseed oil dries one of the fastest of any of the oil-based art paints. But here we are, I’m going on two weeks that these tires have been sitting here like this after the top coat, and I can still run my finger across the top and bring up just a little bit of white paint. So it’s not a big deal for me. The truck is going to be sitting for a while. I’m doing some brake work on it, so it’s not going to be leaving the garage for probably another two weeks at least. I’m not going to be driving on it a whole lot, so it’s going to have plenty of time to dry. But if it’s a vehicle that you’re going to be driving pretty quickly or you can’t afford to have sitting around for a while, then this last step probably isn’t for you. Like I said, I did it just to get that little bit extra pop and maybe a little bit extra durability, but we’ll see how that goes.

All right, so obviously I’m already done. I’ve got it taken care of, but we’re gonna go to past Ed, who’s gonna show you how I did it. Take it away, past Ed.

The first thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to jack up the back of the truck so that I can spin this tire freely and make it a little bit easier on me without having to get all the way down to the floor. And then we’ll hit this with the cleaner degreaser and use my sponge and give it a really thorough cleaning. You probably already know this, but whenever you jack up a vehicle like this, you always want to use jack stands under the axles rather than just relying on the jack itself. It’s just safer that way.

There we go. Now we can spin the tires. Just so you know, I’ve also chalked the truck in the front to make sure it doesn’t roll on me while it’s up. I’m not too worried about it, but it’s always better safe than sorry. So let’s get to cleaning. Obviously, the part that I’m worried about the most is inside the letters and those little grooves of tiny parts there. And as you can see, even straight from the tire store, it’s pretty gross, so cleaning is really important. I mean, look at that sponge. That’s just this part right here. It looks like I’m probably going to be using three sizes: fine point for getting inside these little ridges, medium point for some of the touch-up stuff in the larger areas, and then this bold point fits right inside these great big fat areas and was probably what I’ll also use to go around the top just to make these white letters here stand out a little bit more.

First thing you’ve got to do is get all these opened up, and of course, there’s no paint in the tips yet, so you’ve got to have something to push this against to get the paint out. And I’ve found that having a flat surface to do that with that you can paint down on and get some gravity flowing really helps a lot.

So, so, so, two weeks later, them white letters must give me at least 20 horsepower. You do have a couple other options besides just painting your tires like that. You could go out and get tire stickers. There’s a couple of companies that make those. They’re just rubber stickers that go right over top of the tire, and they can say whatever you want. You can also try to find tires that already have white lettering like that, but they’re pretty few and far between.

So what I chose to do was go ahead and paint them. After taking the truck out and about and bringing it back, I noticed that a lot of the paint, especially my top coat, is already starting to flake off, and I think that’s due to the tire compression. So when the truck is riding on the ground, obviously the tire compresses a little bit, and as it rolls, the bottom that touches the ground compresses and squishes a little bit. And I think that probably pops some of that paint off.

So when I painted these, the truck was up off the ground so I could spin the tire more easily to get to all the letters, and I think that’s probably what’s going on. If you look at it, you can’t really tell looking at it from this distance, so I’m kind of okay with that. We’re gonna see how long this lasts. Someday I may go ahead and get the tire stickers to put on it. If I like this look, I may decide that I don’t like it. You know, we’ll find out. But if I don’t like it, I can always take it back to the tire store and have them flip the tires around and put the black walls out and then do whatever I want. If I want the tire stickers on there, I can put tire stickers, so I don’t have to. So I got a lot of options. I don’t feel like I wasted my time. I learned a lot, and I do think it looks really nice. I’m really happy with how it turned out. We’re just gonna have to wait and see how long it lasts.

So, there you go. You have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again for watching, guys, and we’ll see you next time.

Howdy folks, Ed here from Bullnose Garage. I’m getting new wheels and tires, and that makes me pretty happy. Um, here we are. As you can see, I’m back from the wheel and tire store. Got my brand new wheels and tires. These wheels are Vision Soft Eight wheels. I presume they’re called Soft Eight because they got eight holes around the center. They’re made by Vision, but actually, these particular wheels are branded by a whole bunch of different places. You can get them from, uh, Krager, Vision, Blackrock, Pacer, even Jegs has a version of these that’s under the Jegs brand. My guess is that some place manufactures them, and then other places rebrand them and sell them as their own. Whatever the case, Vision was the cheapest for me, so Vision is the brand that I got. I just love the look of these old-school black rims with the chrome center caps. These are actually trailer center caps, but they work pretty nice. And then, of course, I got my bullet lug nuts on there. The tires are Cooper Evolution HT tires, so those are highway tires. And I got highway tires because this truck is never going to see any kind of off-road work other than my driveway, and I want it to be a little bit more sporty than off-road looking. It’s a two-wheel drive, so it doesn’t need to have big knobby crazy tires on it, but I didn’t want something so sporty that it didn’t look like a truck anymore. So that’s why I chose a highway truck tire. The Coopers just happen to have fantastic reviews and were the right price. And another big thing about them that I like is that the, uh, Cooper Evolution lettering is white outlined when you have it facing out. And I’m actually going to take a white Sharpie oil-based pen, paint pen, and color that in so it pops a little bit more. I’m going to have a separate video on how I’m going to do that. Should be really interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing how that turns out. So, God, it’s a lot. Just love that old school look with the white wall or the white letter tires and the black rims and the beauty rings. I can’t wait to get my beauty rings on. So, uh, let’s go ahead and do that now.

I said before that I really like the look of a classic black steel wheel, especially on an old school project. So I got the Soft Eight because that’s exactly what it is, and it allows me to sort of customize the way that it looks. What I’ve got here is some of the stuff that I’m using to do that customization. We’ll start with the center cap. This is just a four and a quarter inch push-through center cap. It’s like five bucks from Amazon. There’s not much to it. Generally, these are actually used for trailer wheels, but they’ll work perfectly for what I’m trying to do here. And they have a removable center so that you can grease your hubs. And what I’m going to use this for is I’m going to go find a 50 millimeter Ford sticker that I can put right there to make it look a little bit nicer. You got several center cap options. You can do something, a push-through cap like one of these. You can get a branded push-through cap for different wheel manufacturers. You could also get the sort of OEM look, uh, Ford center caps, or you can go out and get a real fancy sort of old school spider center cap that has the lug nuts kind of coming off from the bullet center. All of those are expensive. These are like five dollars a piece, and they look really nice. But the nice thing is that if I decide later on that I don’t want these or I want to do something different, I can just take them off and put something else on. I chose these bullet lug nuts because I thought they’d look neat, and it’s actually cheaper to go online to get these from Amazon than it would be to have, say, Discount Tire, who is who I’m having put the tires and wheels on, uh, to buy their lug nut kit. It’s like 45 bucks. These on Amazon were like 25 bucks. So, and they’re kind of neat. Uh, for my particular truck, these are one half by 20. So always make sure you get the right size.

And finally, I am a sucker for chrome beauty rings. So that’s what I have here is a, actually, it’s a metal 16 inch chrome beauty ring. And because the Soft Eight is your basic steel wheel, this should just pop right on. Just, uh, blings things up a little bit for me. If I’ve got a black tire on a black rim, they kind of blend into each other. I like having that nice separation there that makes it very clear where the rim ends and the tire begins. Personal preference. I got these beauty rings or trim rings from Amazon, and they’re kind of generic. I’m not entirely sure they’re going to fit on this rim. Everything that I’ve read in the research that I’ve done says that beauty trim rings should fit right onto these old school steel wheels, even if they’re aftermarket. But I’ve never done it before, so it’s moment of truth. Wish me luck. It’s pretty tight, but… and there we go, trim ring installed. Now, like I just said, it’s pretty tight, but it does go on there, and I guess that’s good. It means it’s not going to come off while I’m driving down the road. Keep in mind that if you do this, you’re really going to scratch up this black paint because that’s all it is. It’s just black paint on these rims, and I’m not too worried about that because these beauty rings are going to cover that up, and I’m planning on always having beauty rings on here. And worst case, you can always repaint them if you have to.

Here’s the back rim. I thought I’d give you a little bit more close-up view of what I’m doing. These trim rings are just real simple. All there are some clips. Make sure you get your valve stem through the right spot right here, and just bang them on. Like I said, they’re tight. And there we go. So, of course, you can’t put on new wheels and tires without adding custom valve stem caps, which is what I have here. Let me see if you can see that or not. There we go. Yep. So probably nobody’s ever gonna see it, but they’re neat, and they were a gift, so I’m gonna put them on right now. Here we go. Nice. These tires are 245/75/16. Now, the stock tires that came on this truck were 15 inch tires, and these are, of course, 16 inch rims with 16 inch tires. I went with 16s because, of course, bigger rims are a little bit sportier, and I also knew that I was going to be having this big trim ring around the outside, which is going to sort of enhance the apparent size of the rim. So I went with 16s. I could have went with something a little bit wider or even a little bit taller to fill out the wheel well more, but again, it’s supposed to be more of a sporty truck. I don’t want to lift it. I don’t want to make it, you know, a big monster or anything. At some point, I may lower it a little bit, but probably not. I think I’m just going to keep it stock height. And so these tires, I think, fill these wheel wells appropriately. I think they’re the right size. They’re a little thinner than I could have gone, but again, that’s more for the sportier nature of the truck, and they’re a highway tire, so they don’t really need to be really wide or weird looking. Down here in the Southwest, you get a lot of vehicles that have really, really wide tires or tires that stick out really far from the wheel fenders, and I just like that look. So I wanted something more or less stock that was just a little bit sportier. That’s why I went with that size.

While I was going around changing all my wheels and tires, I figured I probably ought to do the spare too, so I went ahead and got a 15 inch spare tire. It’s about as cheap of a tire as I could find, but it’s still a full-size tire. So if something ever happens, I should just be able to pop that rim and tire wherever I need to pop it on and drive it for pretty much as long as I need to. So that was important because all of the tires on this truck, especially the spare, were very old. Now, the tires that were on the truck were at least 10 years old. I have no idea how old the spare was, but it’s probably a good time to talk about that fact that those tires were 10 years old, and I drove this truck for a couple of years with tires that old. And just recently found out that tires older than 10 years are really pretty dangerous. As a matter of fact, I went to the same place I got these wheels and tires and tried to have them patch one of my old tires, and they refused and said, ‘No, that’s too old. Company policy says we can’t patch a tire that old.’ And after giving them a little bit of a sob story, they went ahead and patched it for me just so I can get back on the road again. But that really sort of tripped me into getting these new wheels and tires because I think it was time. And, uh, of course, being a father of two now, I need to be responsible for my own health. So blowing out on the highway probably wasn’t a good idea. So if your tires are over 10 years old, change your tires because even if the tread is good, I learned this, even if the tread is good, the tire rubber itself starts to go bad, and it’ll dry out, it’ll crack, it won’t be as, uh, elastic anymore. You won’t be able to take those bumps, and, um, it won’t be as able to absorb things on the road. They’re easier to blow. Um, yeah, it’s just bad news all around. So make sure if your tires are older than 10 years that you take care of that.

One thing you want to make sure of when you’re buying an aftermarket rim is that you get the correct width and the correct offset and backspacing. Offset and backspacing are kind of the same thing. They’re different numbers, but they relate to each other, and that’s how far the rim sticks out side to side. And that’s going to affect you, especially in the front where you’re turning the tire, turning the rim, whether or not that’s going to impact inside your fender well, if it’s going to rub or bump anything up in here. As a matter of fact, if you get it too shallow, it could even interact with some of the steering components, uh, brake components up in the front of your vehicle. So you want to make sure that you get that not too shallow and not sticking too far out because you get it sticking too far to look funny. Another thing that you want to do is make sure that you get the correct width rim for the tire that you’re going to fit. So tire sizes like this one is 245/75/16. The 245/75 is a ratio of width to height, and the 16, of course, is the rim size. So the wider the tire, the bigger that first number is going to be. So 245 for a truck is not that wide. If I got something like 275, 285, 305, then I might actually start running into problems with this rubbing the fender wells, or especially in the front where you’re steering, it could, you know, hit the fenders or some of the, uh, this, the plastic stuff up in here. Actually, it’s metal back here. Well, who knew? So anyway, yeah, that’s something you want to, uh, definitely pay attention to. And if you’re getting extra wide tires, you want to make sure that you get a rim that has the correct width because if you don’t, then the tire, if it’s just too thin of a rim, the tire could actually bulge out, and then you’ve got uneven wear. And if it’s too thick of a rim, then the tire will actually come out and create like a little V-shape, uh, which is not good for the tread and tire wear and safety either. So for 245, this is an eight inch wide rim. It’s perfect. And just make sure when you’re getting your tires and wheels together that if you’re doing it on your own and you’re doing your own research and you’re finding your own stuff that you appropriately match the tire width to the rim width.

When I went looking online for how wheels and tires like this set here would look on my older truck, I found it really hard to find examples of how these particular wheels would look. All these wheel and tire stores online have these visualizers, you know, these fancy web programs that let you see what the wheels look like on your vehicle, but none of them go back to ’85. So the only option that I had was to go online and try to find someone who had not only put wheels and tires like this on their truck, but also had taken pictures of it and posted those pictures online for everyone to see in a way where I could search for it and find it and take a look. I just didn’t see much, so these wheels and tires were kind of a shot in the dark, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. And that’s one of the reasons that I made this video was so that anybody else who’s got an older truck like this ’85 F-150 could see what wheels and tires with this kind of a look would look like on that truck or a truck about that same year, and then also what kind of options you had in terms of your, uh, push-through center caps, lug nuts, beauty rings, that kind of stuff.

Now, I know a lot of guys would tell me that I shouldn’t have strayed away from the OEM look, that these old Ford hubcaps are classic and, uh, that they really just make the truck look nice, and that if you’re going to do a truck restoration or a registration of any kind, that you really should just stay with OE stuff and not add all this fancy bling-bling stuff. And to those guys, I say, well, you’re entitled to your opinion, but it’s my truck, and I’m going to do things the way that I want to do them. And I really, really like the way that these turned out. By the way, you may notice that these tires look a little bit different than they did earlier in the video, and that’s because I’ve gone ahead and colored in the letters to make them pop more, make it even more of a kind of white wall old school look that you just can’t get from tire stores anymore. So you have to paint that, and I’ve got a video coming up that’s going to show you exactly how I did this and, you know, talk about what materials I used and how long it took because it took forever. But I do like the way that it turned out. I think it looks really cool. I look super cool on the truck, but you’re gonna have to wait for that video to come out to see just how all four tires with the new white lettering looks on the truck going down the road. I’m super excited to shoot that and get that out.

Guys, if you found this video helpful to see what wheels and tires like this might look like on a truck like that, or if I entertained you in any way, shape, or form, go ahead and give me a thumbs up for the video. That really helps me out. And hey, you know, if you, uh, if you’re interested in seeing where I go with this truck, what kind of stuff I do to it in the future, all the big plans that I’ve got for it. I know I’ve got a brake overhaul coming up. I’m doing front and rear brakes completely overhauled. Um, I’m probably going to end up redoing the suspension, and obviously I’ll be doing the engine and all kinds of interior updates, maybe stereo, all kinds of stuff. If you’re interested in seeing any of that, keeping up with what I do, make sure you subscribe to the channel. I’ll be posting videos, uh, as much as I can to get this information out there. I really enjoy doing it, and I hope you guys enjoy watching it. So, as always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again for watching, guys. We’ll see you next time.

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. The 351 Windsor Ford small block engine is one of the most venerable engines that Ford Motor Company has ever produced. Today on Bullnose Garage, I’d like to introduce you to mine and talk a little bit about this engine and why I chose it for my build.

So let’s start this video off right by introducing you to the donor. The donor was originally a 1994 F-150 with an E4OD automatic transmission, two-wheel drive, and of course, the 351 Windsor. What follows is most of the research I’ve done on the 351 Windsor in preparation for swapping it into my truck. Keep in mind that I gathered almost all of this information from places on the internet, and none of it is personal experience because I don’t have any. That said, I’ve tried very hard to fact check and verify my information as best I can. I hope that this information, put together in one place, is useful for anyone looking for more details or thinking about swapping or building this small block Ford engine.

So what is a 351 Windsor? The 351 Windsor, or 351W for short, is the largest of the Ford small block engine family. Ford Motor Company built them between 1969 and 1996. It’s a 90-degree V8 with an overhead valve train. The 351 corresponds to the number of cubic inches displaced by the stroke of all eight cylinders during normal operation. It’s also commonly referred to as the 5.8 liter for the same reason. The name Windsor comes from where the engine was produced in Ford’s Windsor, Ontario casting plant. Similar in size and shape to the very common 302, the 351 is a taller block. This allows for more piston travel in the cylinder, increasing the cubic inches to accommodate the increased displacement and increased power. The 351 block castings are beefier in almost every respect.

The Windsor is one of three engines offered by Ford in the 351 displacement. There was also the 351 Cleveland and the 351M, often called the modified. The Windsor engine is by far the most common and had the highest production numbers. Ford produced about 8.6 million units at the Windsor plant. It also tends to be the easiest to find aftermarket parts for due to its sharing many parts with a 302 small block.

So let’s go over some stats and measurements. The 351 Windsor has a displacement of 351 cubic inches, or 5.8 liters. The stock stroke of the engine is 3.5 inches, and the stock cylinder bore is 4 inches. It has a distinct firing order from the other Ford small blocks: 1-3-7-2-6-5-4-8 versus 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8. Cast out of iron, the bare block weighs in at between 150 and 200 pounds, depending on the year. Blocks older than 1974 are heftier by 25 to 30 pounds due to having more metal in the casting. Prior to 1971, the deck height reached 9.48 inches, and after ’71, it changed to 9.503 inches. Something to make note of if you’re rebuilding one of these engines, since the deck height will affect the compression ratio and the valve piston head clearance.

The stock engine uses two bolts to secure the main bearing cap to the saddle, known as two-bolt mains. Stock, the compression ratio was around 11 to 1 in 1969. Emissions restrictions caused the ratio to move as low as 8.8 to 1 in later years. Early 351W engines produced a maximum of 300 horsepower and found their way into Mustangs, Galaxies, Cougars, Country Squires, station wagons, Fairlanes, and Torinos. Later years were also installed into trucks, vans, and marine applications. Later engines had lower horsepower numbers and higher torque numbers as a result of vehicle requirements and emissions.

So the 351 Windsor’s got an interesting history. Ford began casting the Windsor in 1969 and produced them up until 1996. Prior to ’75, blocks were cast using green sand molds and pneumatic packers or vacuum pressure. These methods worked well but caused some issues with mold core shifting. This meant that Ford required more material in the block to meet minimum specifications. After ’74, Ford used better molding techniques, eliminating the need for the extra material. While it’s true that newer blocks are weaker than older blocks because of this material deficit, 351 blocks are still the strongest small block available and should be able to handle any streetable horsepower numbers. Still, for this reason, builders sometimes covet 351 Windsor blocks from ’69 to ’74 if they’re looking for very high horsepower torque members.

In 1971, Ford extended the deck height from 9.48 inches to 9.503 inches to lower the compression ratio. In ’74, they added a boss in the right front of the engine for an air injection pump. Also in ’74, the oil dipstick moved from the timing case to under the left cylinder bank. Until ’76, the block used 16 bolt holes for the intake manifold, but Ford changed it to 12 bolts from ’77 onward. It should be noted that the 351 has larger head bolt holes than the 302. This means that the same heads will fit, but a 302 head will need to be drilled out to accommodate this if it’s being used on 351. A popular example of this is the GT40 head used on higher performance 302 engines being swapped into a 351 for higher flow numbers.

In 1983, Ford modified the rear main seal from the old two-piece design to a more modern one-piece rear main seal. Very late in the engine’s production, in 1994, the design changed again to accommodate roller lifters and camshafts rather than flat tappet lifters and camshafts. This change, only available in the final two years of production, makes these blocks highly sought after. Often these are just called F4 blocks due to the casting number or simply referred to as roller blocks.

So here’s a quick chart that I put together so that I could see exactly what gears which blocks had which features. That way, when I’m looking to go pull a Windsor out of a junkyard or another vehicle, I know exactly what years to look for for the features that I want. The second chart is one that I made to reference which vehicles these blocks go in. That way, when I’m looking on Facebook or Craigslist or even at a junkyard, I know what kind of a block that I’m going to get out of which vehicle in which year.

Ultimately, the best way to identify a 351 Windsor block is by using the Ford casting number. We can break down the beginning of Ford’s casting numbers into decade, year, vehicle or vehicle type, and engineering division. A casting that starts with C90E was built in 1979 because the C signifies the ’70s, and the 9 is for the last year of that decade. The 0 signifies that it was built for a Torino, and the E stands for engine. Castings that start with D are built in the ’70s, E in the ’80s, and F in the ’90s. My block is an F4TE, which means it’s a 1994 truck engine block. As I said before, F4 blocks are known as the roller blocks. That casting identifies them as having been built after 1994 when Ford switched to roller cam capable blocks. Note that Ford didn’t install roller cams in all roller blocks from the factory; many still utilize the old style flat tappet cams even though they are roller capable.

Ford produced two or three, depending on who you ask, different 351 engines during the same time period: the 351 Windsor and the 351 Cleveland. Every now and then, you’ll also hear about the 351M, also called modified, or might even hear about the 351 HO, or high output. What gives with all these different motors with the same displacement? Well, the Cleveland and the modified are both based on the same engine, which is entirely different from the Windsor. They called it Cleveland because Ford cast them in their Cleveland, Ohio plant. The Cleveland is part of the 335 big block engine family and was designed for more performance with better flowing heads and a stronger crank. Physical differences include a recessed timing chain and 8-bolt valve covers versus the Windsor’s 6-bolt covers. The bolt covers are the easiest way to tell if you’re looking at a Windsor or a Cleveland.

The 351M is closer to the Cleveland than the Windsor but is basically a de-stroke version of the big block 400, a different block altogether with a taller deck height than either the Windsor or the Cleveland at 10.297. The M also shares a bell housing pattern with other members of the 335 big block engine family, while the Windsor and the Cleveland both use a small block bell housing pattern. The 351 HO is just a Windsor engine with higher performance parts. It came with a four-barrel carburetor and a larger cam. Ford put HO engines in some trucks in the mid-’80s.

The Ford 302, or 5.0 liter small block, is in the same family as the 351, and it can often be hard to distinguish the two. The 351 has a taller deck height and subsequently longer stroke, which accounts for the difference in displacement. The 351 is also a heavier casting with more material, making it a stronger block overall. The crank and rod journals are also larger in the 351, adding to crankshaft durability. Many of the parts for a 302 are interchangeable to the 351. This includes heads, cam, lifters, water pump, engine mounts, timing chain, timing cover, and many other parts. As stated before, it should be noted that 302 heads have smaller bolt holes, so they’ll only fit a 351 if the holes are drilled out. Earlier versions of the 351, until ’76, incorporated heads with more bolt holes and larger intake ports than the 302, though the exhaust ports always remain the same size. The bell housing bolts to both engines are also the same. This means that a transmission that pulls up to a 302 will also bolt up to a 351. The firing order between the two engines is different, as is the oil pan intake due to the deck height harmonic balancer, except pre-’81 302s which share the internal balance of 351W and distributor.

There are several ways to tell the difference between a 351 and a 302 by visual inspection. The easiest I found is to look at the distributor mount height. The mount will be near flush to the top of the block on a 302, while the 351 has the distributor mount sunk below the top of the block by around an inch.

So does the Windsor make a good high-performance engine? Well, 351 Windsor blocks upgrade easily. A huge number of aftermarket parts exist for both the 351 and the 302. Popular upgrades are the heads since the stock 351 heads are mediocre at best, and other standard upgrade parts like the intake, cam, headers, and fuel delivery system. While the latest generation of 351 Windsors typically generated about 180 to 220 horsepower from the factory, adding a new set of heads, a larger cam, and some other aftermarket parts can get a Windsor with a stock stroke to around 350 to 400 horsepower easily. Stroking the engine by changing the crank and piston rods can increase the displacement to 383, 393, 408, 418, or 427. Doing so makes horsepower numbers as high as 500 to 600 easily attainable. Even higher numbers are possible with the correct aftermarket parts or power adders. The maximum horsepower attainable through a stock 351 Windsor is a matter of debate. Most agree that 500 to 600 is easily and safely attainable without risking damage to even the later standard strength blocks. Earlier high-strength blocks regularly reach 800 to 1000 horsepower without damage. When it comes to cracking an engine block, though, often it’s not the horsepower numbers but the sturdiness and quality of the parts and build that’s most important.

So can a junkyard 351W make a good performance engine? Well, in my opinion, the junkyard OEM block is a fine base to use for a 351 Windsor build, provided you’re not planning on putting out more than 600 horsepower and redlining RPMs all the time. Much more than that wouldn’t be streetable anyway. If you really want to race the block and send massive amounts of power through it, then it might be worth your time to hunt down a pre-’74 block for the higher strength. But there’s always the option of purchasing an aftermarket block. Purchasing an aftermarket 351 block can help you attain higher numbers without the worry of block failure. 1200 plus horsepower is not uncommon for an aftermarket 351 Windsor. Several reputable companies make aftermarket 351 blocks.

So why did I choose the 351? Well, my ’85 Bullnose houses a 306 from the factory, but a small block engine option existed for my truck. Because of this, I know the small block form factor will fit without an issue, unlike a big one. I wanted an engine that would bolt right into my Bullnose just to keep things easier for my first swap. The 306 shares the same bell housing bolt pattern as the small block engines as well, so I have the option to keep my transmission. Engine mounting points between the 300 and small blocks are also similar, with only the need to pull the mounts and purchase from the donor and bolt them into the Bullnose. I chose the 351 over the 302 because there’s no replacement for displacement. I’ve also read that the 302 is far easier to crack when running high horsepower numbers. I’m not planning on getting numbers that high in my first build, but who knows where I’ll be down the road. It’s also easier to get more horsepower for less money out of a 351, all else being equal, simply due to the larger displacement to start with. Finally, the Ford small block platform in general has a vast array of parts and aftermarket support, meaning I can build the engine just about any way I want to, and I plan on it.

Why did I get this particular vehicle as a donor? Well, obviously, it’s got the 351, which is the engine that I was looking for, and it was a fantastic deal. I managed to get this chassis with the engine, transmission, and pretty much everything you see here for right around 500 bucks. Now, the people that had it before were going to use it for some kind of a hot rod project, but it turns out that the frame is bent right here. Now, I don’t care about the frame; I’m getting it for the engine, so that works out good for me. And the fact that it’s a ’94 means that it’s a roller block. Now, a roller block means that I don’t have to go out and get link bar lifters or some kind of retrofit kit if I want to get a roller cam. It’s not that big of a deal; it’s only a few hundred dollars, but it does save you that money.

This chassis has been pretty much sitting here ever since I bought it. I’ve done a couple of things to it. I pulled the gas tanks off and sold those. I fogged the engine, which I’ve got a video about how to do that, and I sold the steering column because when I bought it, I also got the steering column and a complete wiring harness with ECU and everything. So I’ll probably end up selling that too because I’m going to convert this from EFI to carbureted, so I don’t need that stuff. That’s just more money that I can put in my pocket to go out and buy cool stuff for the engine.

The best way to determine what the internals of an engine look like without actually tearing it apart is using something like this borescope camera. Now I’ve got it hooked up to my laptop up there, but you can use a tablet or usually even a cell phone to do this if you’re sort of out and about and don’t have access to a big old laptop like I do. So we’re just going to go ahead and stick this inside and take a look and see what the cylinders look like. Oh, I’ll sit down. Hello! All right, here we go. It’s actually really hard to see with the reflection in there. Let’s try a different cylinder here. So you can still see some of the cross hatching on the cylinder walls. Let’s take a look at another one. It’s kind of hard to get an idea of what you’re seeing here sometimes, but obviously that’s the top of the piston. Looks like it’s in pretty good shape there. There we go. Now it’s really hard to see out here in the daylight. I’ll take a better look at this once I get inside and look at it on the computer, but everything looks pretty good from this angle here. Well, there we go. Ah, there we go! Yeah, see, I’m not a mechanic, but to me that looks pretty good for a used engine, so I’m pretty happy with that.

One of the problems with using a borescope like this during the daytime is that it can be really hard to see on a screen like a laptop screen or your phone screen. I mean, unless you see some really egregious damage, which shows up right away, and then you know what you’re looking at, some of the stuff that you’re looking for can be kind of subtle. So just keep that in mind if you ever take a borescope out to the field.

Well, there you go. That’s the donor and the 351 Windsor insider. I hope you guys enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed making it. I did a lot of research on these engines, and I just love digging into the history and all the information about them. I was super stoked when I managed to get a hold of this one. I just can’t wait to tear it apart, see how it looks on the inside, and get it rebuilt and into the old truck and see how it runs. Man, there’s just so much to look forward to with this, and I can’t wait to get my hands dirty on it. Hopefully, I can do a good job and not blow it up or have any major issues, but you know, that’s part of the adventure too, so we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, you guys will be along for the ride, and I can’t wait to get out more videos about it and see where this takes me. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again so much for watching, guys. We’ll see you next time.

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. If you’ve got an engine that you’re going to have stored for a long time, such as this 351 Windsor that I’ve got here behind me, then one of the things that you need to worry about is the top end getting moisture inside and causing rust, corrosion, or potentially even seizure of the engine.

One of the best ways to prevent that is called fogging the engine, and that’s what we’re going to talk about here today on this Bullnose Garage quick tip. Fogging your engine is a very simple procedure that simply involves taking some oil, typically it’s called fogging oil, and coating the top end components to make sure that water doesn’t get in there and touch those metal parts and cause rust, corrosion, and maybe even seizing of the engine.

If you have a carbureted engine that runs, fogging it is actually really simple. All you’ve got to do is start the engine up, take off the air cleaner, spray some of this down inside for 10 to 20 seconds, or until you see smoke start to come out the exhaust. That’s actually where the term fogging the engine came from, is the smoke that comes out of the exhaust when you do it this way, and that’s going to let you know that this stuff has gone through the entire engine, it’s starting to burn off, and you can shut the engine down at that point so you don’t burn all this off, and you’re pretty much done at that point.

You may want to go ahead and take out the spark plugs and spray some of this down into the spark plug holes for two or three seconds per cylinder, and then at that point you should be good to go.

If you’ve got an engine that’s not running or is fuel injected, then you can’t fog the engine this way. Of course, if it’s not running, you can’t do it that way because it’s not running. If it’s fuel injected, you shouldn’t fog it that way because this stuff can foul up the injectors or cause some sensor issues. So if you have an engine that’s in either one of those situations, the way you’ve got to do it is manually, and I’m going to show you how to do that.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is go and take out all of your spark plugs. So once all the spark plugs are out, then you can go cylinder by cylinder and spray a shot of fogging oil into each cylinder for about three or four seconds.

Now that we’ve taken all the spark plugs out and I’ve sprayed fogging oil down all the cylinders, if I had access to the intake, I’d probably go ahead and spray some down to the intake for two or three seconds to get that part good and coated, and I’d do the same thing for the exhaust if I had access to the exhaust ports. Now, I don’t have access to either one of those in this engine. I’m certainly not going to be taking off the exhaust manifolds or the intake out here, certainly not this evening anyway, so we’re not going to worry about that. The important point is to get this stuff down into the cylinders.

Once you’ve got everything fogged up, you’re going to want to go ahead and turn the engine over manually a few times with a ratchet or a breaker bar to get that stuff in there really circulated around into the pistons, piston rings, the cylinder walls, make sure it’s good and coated. Now, in a Windsor 351, it’s going to be a 15/16 socket, but it could be different depending on your engine. Now, I’m just using a regular ratchet because this engine turns over real easy.

So is fogging your engine really worth the time and trouble to do it? I’ve heard both sides. I’ve heard some folks say that unless the engine is going to sit for years and years and years, it’s really kind of a waste of time. They’ve never seen an engine be rusted out or seized just over a couple of seasons. And other folks say that it’s so easy and simple and cheap to do, why would you not do it? It’s just cheap insurance. Now, I gotta tell you, I’m all for cheap insurance.

Now down here in the southwest, it’s probably not that important because it doesn’t get that humid down here, although during the fall and the spring, there are some pretty big temperature gradients that can cause condensation. But it still wouldn’t be nearly as important as it would be in a more humid area like the coast or down in the south, southeast of the country. The bottom line is that fogging your engine is easy, quick, and cheap, and I am all for easy, quick, and cheap ways to sleep better at night.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks again for watching, and we’ll see you next time.

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. Organization is hard, especially for me. How am I gonna make sense of all this stuff? My first task was to lay out all my tools and miscellaneous equipment so I could see what I had. Some of this stuff has sat in my toolbox for years. As a matter of fact, I found several things I didn’t even know I had.

Oh, once I got everything set out and sorted, I could work on putting it all away in the right places. I needed to do just a little shadowing on my toolbox, which you’ll see in a minute. But otherwise, it was pretty straightforward and boring, which is why I won’t subject you to it. I’ve just started putting things away, and I’ve discovered a problem already, which I’m sure is a problem for a lot of folks. I got a real nice socket set here and a nice socket set here, and they’ve got nice holders. But then I got all this junk over here: ratchets, some more sockets, some loose impact sockets here, and some of this weird stuff and extensions, and it’s all just kind of hanging out. So I really want to get this organized.

And I’m going to take a cue from the Air Force, and I’m going to do—I’m going to shadow my tools. But I don’t really feel like buying the shadow foam because it’s really expensive, and I actually happen to have something here that I can use that’s just been laying around. I’ve got this flooring, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for, you know, probably for cushioning on the floor. Got it from Sam’s not too long ago for a really good price; they had it on sale. But I looked at it and figured, you know, this would be perfect stuff for shadowing my toolbox. I’m not going to shadow everything; I don’t need that crazy level of inventory or detail. But it is really going to help to contain some of those loose items that are rolling around in there.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to cut all the little puzzle pieces off the edges of this, measure it out, cut it to fit, and then start cutting slots for my tools. Let’s see what I got here. It’s about, say, ten and three quarters by sixteen and a half. I’ve decided that I’m going to consider this piece a practice piece, and here’s why. I didn’t lay all this out before; I just started cutting it. And what I’ve discovered is these tools take up a whole lot more room when you shadow them like this than they normally would in your toolbox. So I thought I had plenty of room for all of this stuff, plus even some other sockets, and that’s just not the case.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to move some of this stuff to a different drawer and decrease the spacing between these pieces so that I get a little bit more in this one piece. The other thing that I’ve noticed is that it’s actually really hard to cut a straight line, even with a real nice precision knife set. So you just have to take your time and be careful and go through. Now this stuff is flooring; it’s not made for this, but it does cut okay with this knife. So we’re going to redo this and hopefully get a better result.

And here we are, my first time ever shadowing my toolbox. The cuts are pretty gross, and it was a lot harder and took a lot longer than I expected, but it does the job. And there you go. Hindsight being what it is, I probably would have moved this stuff up a little bit closer to the front so that I could reach back here. But I can still get to this stuff, so it’s not that big a deal. 75 years later, that took longer than I expected. But at least the garage is organized, and I got some cool stuff left over that I was able to use to make up some very useful things.

So let’s take a look. I got this rolling cart a few years ago from my in-laws for Christmas, and it’s pretty cool and was a great gift, but I never really had any use for it until now. With some of the leftover tools that I found and stuff that wouldn’t go anywhere else, I was able to make up a little go box for going to the pickup parts. So I can put any kind of tools in here that I would need to use to pull bits and pieces off of trucks in the field. And now all I gotta do is load this box up in the truck and go. Typically, little boxes like this are used to store medical supplies, but I’m using it as a go box for electrical supplies. So if I have to do any electrical work out in the field or just do a real quick electrical joint, I’ve got all my cutters and snips and fuses. And on the other side of this thing here, I’ve got all my connectors and butt connectors and that kind of stuff. So if I got to do electrical repair out in the field, this could come in handy.

One item that will not be going out in the field with me ever is this toolbox. This toolbox belonged to my grandfather, and now I can use it for simple around-the-house repairs and hanging pictures on the wall. One of the huge problems that I had was having nuts and bolts and washers and screws scattered here, there, and yonder all over the place. So what I decided to do was to go out and get some of these little compartmentalized boxes. Now these here are from Jackson Palmer, actually, and they’re not sponsoring this video or anything. I actually went and bought this with my own money. They actually already come with metric, SAE, and metal and wood screws in the boxes, but I also got an extra one that was empty so that I could put my own stuff in it.

What I managed to do was go through all of these screws that I already had laying around and find in these compartments where the ones that I already had matched what came in these boxes and then fill these compartments up even more with the stuff that I already had. And then anything that was weird or didn’t match, I could put inside of this empty container. And then I also have some spots over here that are sort of random compartmentalized boxes I had laying around for weird things that don’t really fit anywhere else. And all of this stuff goes in my storage unit over there.

I said this before in my garage video that I got these storage units from Public Surplus. Again, not being sponsored; I just love Public Surplus. It is a fantastic place to go to get really cheap stuff. All of these black cabinets, this gray cabinet over here, and the gray cabinet back over here came from Public Surplus, and I think I got each of them for like 15. They came from a university, and they were file storage cabinets, so they work perfect for storing tools and bits and pieces that don’t fit in my toolboxes to help me keep things organized.

I went onto Amazon and bought some of these little dry erase strips that are magnetic that I can just stick right onto my shelving and know exactly what’s inside of there. And all you got to do is just take a dry erase marker, write what you want on there, and stick it on. And if you ever want to change anything, you can just wipe it off. Easy peasy. These are really cool.

Well, there you go. What was probably a pretty short video for you was a week-long adventure for me. But at least now everything’s organized. It’ll be up to me to keep it that way. I don’t have a great history of that, but we shall see. As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. Thanks for watching, folks. We’ll see you next time.