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engine recon. costs

4K views 25 replies 9 participants last post by  EvilChief 
#1 ·
Hi Everyone

EA 3.9 MPI recon. who supplies and/or fits engines that are value for money
in the Adelaide metro area?

Anyone have stories either good or bad from personal experience,

I have had two quotes over the phone, on from a well known local establishment
who has the attitude "do everything just because it's better" the costs being
$2500 engine
$800 labour for 10 to 11 hours ( $72 per hour?)
$200 incidentals
Total $3500

The second from an establishment recomended by several in the taxi industry,
who suggests doing a "leak down" test on the rings rather than seperating the
engine just on spec. he also notes that replacing the timing cover with one from
an ED fixes the timing cover oil leak problem permantly.
Costs approx for bearing shells, new timing chain etc. rear seal and ancillarys
including labour as $2000

Anyone have thoughts on this ?

Regards Prof. Rabbit
 
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#3 ·
for the minimum cost of 2k as you mentioned i would be heading to the auctions and getting a EB/D with a 4.0 and using that instead. you can easily get one thats been hit in the side or the arse for far less than 2k.
think about it...you can buy EAs for less than 2k....is it really worth it spending all this money when you can just do a full engine replacement for far less and take all the smoochie bits off the wreck and sell the rest to recover costs?
thats what id be doing.
 
#9 ·
Just bought the EA (Fairmont Ghia 3.9mpi) came with full new suspension (king springs + sensatracks) lpg less than 3years old, new rad. & hoses, rust free, good interior, all electrics work etc. motor good (no leaks) but 257,000


EvilChief said:
2nd hand EL 4l engine with all accesoried around 600 bucks ...

Wreakers?

EvilChief said:
spare weekend,

plenty of them ( I'm on a Carers pension, wife blind, 3 small kids)

EvilChief said:
1 mate,

mates yes, mechanically minded no.

EvilChief said:
carton of beer,

local grog shop, no probs.

EvilChief said:
tools

some, prob. not enough,

[other]
dry area to work in N/A,
knowledge, PC's no probs, cars before 85 yep, after 85 prob. enuf to get myself
into poo.

EvilChief said:
RESULT: EA with new engine
sounds nearly good..........sigh

Anyone willing to do the work for PC parts?

Regards Prof. Rabbit
 
#10 ·
prabbit said:
Just bought the EA (Fairmont Ghia 3.9mpi) came with full new suspension (king springs + sensatracks) lpg less than 3years old, new rad. & hoses, rust free, good interior, all electrics work etc. motor good (no leaks) but 257,000




sounds nearly good..........sigh

Anyone willing to do the work for PC parts?

Regards Prof. Rabbit

i would do it ... done it plenty of times before, but you are a tad too far away ...

i got a mate in adelaide, but i dont belive he would be much help with an engine conversion ... but i can ask him

oth than taht the only thing you really nee to keep you eye out on is the timing of the cam (and if u never opne the engine up that porblem is solved) and ignition timing ... everything else is bolt on

the most troubl ei had with my last engine conversion was aligning the engine mounts as i had a gearbox hanging off it behind it ... stupid move

othe than that piece of piss ... passed RWC with golden colours
 
#12 ·
Could you please list what parts I will need to source, and if possible a basic rundown of the changeover process, (any tricks, tips or traps would be appreciated)

Regards Prof. Rabbit



EvilChief said:
i would do it ... done it plenty of times before, but you are a tad too far away ...

i got a mate in adelaide, but i dont belive he would be much help with an engine conversion ... but i can ask him

oth than taht the only thing you really nee to keep you eye out on is the timing of the cam (and if u never opne the engine up that porblem is solved) and ignition timing ... everything else is bolt on

the most troubl ei had with my last engine conversion was aligning the engine mounts as i had a gearbox hanging off it behind it ... stupid move

othe than that piece of piss ... passed RWC with golden colours
 
#13 ·
ok basically the last one i did was putting an EL engine with about 80th km on it into an EF with 800thou km and blown head gasket


the EL engine without accessories but intake manifold cost 600 buck

basically oterh than that we didnt need any other parts as we could use ALL accessories from the EF engine

we swapped over: alternator, PS, waterpump, balancer (due to coild>crank angle sensor), aircon unit and tensioner

no hypothetically you buy and EL engine you will need the following attached:

alternator, PS, waterpump, blancer, aircon uniy (except your EA doesnt have one) and tensioner.

i would suggest you keep using the ea manifold and not use the BTM unit, oterhwise u will also need wiring loom and ecu

when i got the engine i cleaned it up, painted it with rust kill, cleaned teh head, timing cover, cleaned all the accessories while they were off, pained teh rocker cover (lol), etc and reassembled everything on the engine stand ... made life so easy



steps taken:

REMOVE BONNET!

engine in car:
1. take exhaust and intake manifold off and tie it to strut tower securely
2. name all wires attached to engine and remove them.
3. drain cooling system and remove all piping form engine, including heater hose
4. remove aircon unit if available, i am pretty sure you will need to replace it with the later model one as they have only one fanbelt (be careful with aircon gas)
5. remove rediator for convinience
6. remove tranmission, doesnt not need to be removed from car
if auto:
remove all 4 bolst that hold torque converter on flex plate
if manual:
push back transmission as far as possible, so input shaft slips out of clutch
7. reattach engine crane mounts
8 attach engien crane - i have found that using the adjustabel straps with which u normally tie down load are very handy, as u can adjust the lnegth of them as you remove the engine. especially engine needs to be removed in 45 degree angel or steeper. just make sure u use straps rated at 300kg+ ea, i actually use 600kG straps

now check which engine mounts are in better condition and swap accordingly
time to put new engine back in

the trickiest part i have found was to align engine mounts, a big poll gave quite a bit of leaverage which helped a lot

1. align engine mounts and bolt engine back down
2. bolt transmission bac up
3. attach ALL sensors
4. adjust dizzy as need be, depening on ig you swapped it over from old motor or not, just check which ones i better (not EF and AU engines will have coilpack and will require to be swapped ober to dizzy, also not ethat you will have to modify teh sump if you use and AU engine)
5. all teh belts etc shoudl have been attached on engine stand
6. reattach aircon pipes and get an aircon place to check it for ya and regas it later
7. put radiator back in
8 .reattach all raditor hoses and heater hose (commonly forgotton)
9. here is teh fun part reattach intake manifold and exhaust manifold
10 double check if all wires are there and attached
11. check oil
12 GO FOR GOLD

i forgot to mention small bits and pieces like spar plugs and leads etc ... just make sure you got all leads in teh right order ...

and she shoul be good to go

gregory manual will be a big help with removing certain items and reattaching some bit such as transmission or sensors ...
 
#14 ·
oh yea and dont forget to put teh bonnet back on :p ... cops would love you with no bonnet ;)

tahst roughly what i can all think off, basically half teh work will already be done for ya iff all accesories are still attached, only real hard bit you would need to check out si teh dizzy but tahsta piece of cake too

BTW it took me 2.5 days including recon new motor and replacing all accesories and painting and all teh fancy stuff
 
#16 ·
Perhaps we can tie this together and keep it as a "how too", seems a lot of people
want to keep their cars but update to a better engine.

So how much of the EF do you need if you keep it simple and retain the existing
manifold, and/or which bits should be changed to improve overall performance
without excessive costs.?

Regards Prof. Rabbit


EvilChief said:
PS ignore my spelling .. already had a few rums fixing something else
 
#18 ·
prabbit said:
So how much of the EF do you need if you keep it simple and retain the existing manifold, and/or which bits should be changed to improve overall performance
without excessive costs.?
EL/AU INTO EF
ok fitting an EL/AU engine "BLOCK" into an EF you can retain the following parts:
- PowerSteering pump
- Alternator
- Aircon
- tensioner
- coilpacks
- engine mounts
- manifolds and fuel rails

all these parts bolt straight up

If you fit an EL engine into an EF you have to swap over the balancer and sensor! as the EL engine is dizzy but EF is coilpack.
If using an AU engine in an EF you can keep the balancer and sensor, however you need to shave one of the rips on the sump of the AU to clear the crossmember. Also i would suggest to use AU coilpacks instead of EF ones due to failure issues.

AU INTO EL
in this case you need to convert the AU engine back to dizzy and use the EL engine mount (at least the passanger side one, all other accesories as above can be reused. also again one of the rips on the AU sump needs to be shaved to clear the crossmember.

EF/EL/AU INTO EA/EB/ED
to fit an EF/EL/AU block into an EA/B/D you can only reuse the manifolds (if EF or AU engine resuse dizzy and engine mounts!)
all front end accessories have to be retained as EF/EL/AU uses single fan belt.
again with AU engine shave the sump to clear the crossmember.

EF/EL/AU INTO EA/EB/ED with BTM
as above, but BTM manifolds, fuel rail, fuel pump, wiring loom and ecu have also to be transplanted (there are some write ups on that conversion somewhere). I heard it is possible to use a shift light to trigger the electronic controled BTM units and bypass the ECU which then doesn't require the new wiring loom or ecu ...

hope that sorta makes sense
 
#19 ·
Whoa! hold on, turn off the nitro! -

Lets keep this in model groups, remember the original thread -

EA upgrade to better engine.......

Also remember, one guy on a Carer pension with a blind wife and 3 small screamers does not a lot of cash have! I'm serious here people, we blew the entire savings getting the car ($2000)

Now the Govt. is going to throw cash our way hoping to bribe their way into the next election (Family Payment Update) . And that is some of the money that will
go into making this car reliable LONG TERM transport, we would like to have some left if possible!

Our old XF can go into the mix (lpg, straight body, no rust, engine leaks 3l of oil
a week, trans leaks too, door handles stuffed, air con u/s, heater u/s, radiator leaks) if anyone is looking for parts ?

or maybe take the XF to cover the labour costs ?

Any help would be appreciated, but guys, don't strand us OK?

Thanks
Prof Rabbit



EvilChief said:
EL/AU INTO EF
ok fitting an EL/AU engine "BLOCK" into an EF you can retain the following parts:
- PowerSteering pump
- Alternator
- Aircon
- tensioner
- coilpacks
- engine mounts
- manifolds and fuel rails
 
#20 ·
Mate Im sure if you posted a pls help thread for a hand from anyone in Adelaide . someone would help you.
Mate for a sandwhich , good conversation & afew laughs Id be on your doorstep offering my time to help you out..If you were in Perth that was give it ago..
 
#21 ·
Ok, if you think it's worth a go I'll cut and paste a new thread line, thanks.
Prof. Rabbit

svo347 said:
Mate Im sure if you posted a pls help thread for a hand from anyone in Adelaide . someone would help you.
Mate for a sandwhich , good conversation & afew laughs Id be on your doorstep offering my time to help you out..If you were in Perth that was give it ago..
 
#23 ·
ok ... bottom line what i was trying to point out .. for the quotes you got from mechnaics you could get a new engine.

frpom what you described there seems nothing majorly wrong with your engine, timing chain noise is nothing too unusual ...
if it aint leaking its good and high klms is nothing too unusual on these engines either. as i said i had an engine hear which did the 2nd head gasket after 800thou ... well teh engine was buggered after 800thou, but that still over 500 diff to yours. If you are seriously worried about reliability of that engine get a mechanical minded freind of yours to check it out (i mean someone who has some experience with falcon engines and go from there.

if you wouldlive in NQ somewhere, i would have been able to rebuild you a new EA engine for less than 500 bucks, reringed bottom end, freshened up top end, all ported, all galleries blasted out etc ... and all you front end accessoried would bolt straight onto that too.

Mic
 
#24 ·
No probs, and your ideas have been really helpful, it's difficult in Adelaide, you
take a car for a checkover to somewhere and they will find anything, real and
imaginary, just to suck some money out of you.

Maybe there is a forum member in Adelaide that's willing to check out the engine
for a 6 pack or something. I just want to be sure that the car is going to be reliable and I've never been happy with the "drive till it breaks" idea.

Thanks for the assist.
Prof Rabbit

EvilChief said:
ok ... bottom line what i was trying to point out .. for the quotes you got from mechnaics you could get a new engine.

frpom what you described there seems nothing majorly wrong with your engine, timing chain noise is nothing too unusual ...
if it aint leaking its good and high klms is nothing too unusual on these engines either. as i said i had an engine hear which did the 2nd head gasket after 800thou ... well teh engine was buggered after 800thou, but that still over 500 diff to yours. If you are seriously worried about reliability of that engine get a mechanical minded freind of yours to check it out (i mean someone who has some experience with falcon engines and go from there.

if you wouldlive in NQ somewhere, i would have been able to rebuild you a new EA engine for less than 500 bucks, reringed bottom end, freshened up top end, all ported, all galleries blasted out etc ... and all you front end accessoried would bolt straight onto that too.

Mic
 
#25 ·
Just a quick one..

There is a bolt hole two thirds up the rocker cover towards the firewall, I guess something was removed when the gas was put in, someone forgot to plug it up,
I put a short bolt in which smoothed the idle, but what normally hangs off that
point?

Regards
Prof. Rabbit
 
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