14 years with a broken head bolt
 

I parked my truck 2 years ago because it was overheating a lot and I didn't have time to mess with it. My son helped my tackle the project last spring as the snow was melting. We found a broken head bolt, and it had been broken for a very long time. I got the truck 14 years earlier, and was told it was scrap. It would occasionally overheat and used a little coolant, but it worked so I kept driving it...until it finally puked coolant...and then it sat over winter because it was -20 outside. The guy I got it from must have tried to fix the head gasket (we found 3 layers of gasket material) and broke a head bolt when putting it together. That's why he told me it was scrap.

We got the broken bolt out , lapped the valves, lightly ported the head, and cleaned up the combustion chambers. It runs like a top and no more temperature problems. We built a flatbed for it and scrapped the old bed.

I still have the 4.10 gears, and I am VERY happy with the mpg.:D

No wonder I often see some folks saying the 300 Truck Six is better than the 302 Windsor V8...

I love it. We (my brothers) have all had 300's, and we joke about them being the gas version of the cummins. It's not really a joke though, because they are workhorses. My brother hauled in a scrap trailer with his f150 w/300 and grossed at 17k. He said the only gear it wouldn't speed up in was 5th.:D I load my truck full of firewood and often gross around 10k, plus or minus, on a very regular basis. It has no trouble taking off, driving down the road, cornering, or slowing down. You would never guess there was anything back there if you were riding in it and didn't know it was loaded.:thumbup:

Some folks complain about bad mileage, but you have to drive them like a diesel. They don't like to rev way out like a v8. I keep my revs low and shift as soon as I am in the power band for the next gear, which isn't very high. They pull from idle up through 3,000.

Here's the new flatbed...
Attachment 35050

I'm sure the 300 was overshadowed in my country by the prevalence of Diesel engines in the class, even though the Brazilian models resorted to different engines from their USDM counterparts. And it took longer for this engine to become available in Brazil, as it was only fitted to the F-1000 (a shortbed F-250 equivalent) in the mid to late '90s as a replacement to the Argentinian 221 Thriftpower Six, while the F-4000 (a local F-350 derivative) relied on the outsourced MWM Diesel engine.

Diesel is more common in many countries. The problem here is the cold temps (-30°F or colder) in winter. The fuel gels up and the batteries get weak. My brothers have diesel engines, and they have to treat the fuel like crazy to keep it from gelling and they have to plug in their engine heaters. Those issues together with the added weight, the smell (it gives me a huge headache), and costs when something does go bad are what keep me from going to diesel.

Some people in Argentina used to prefer gassers further to the South because of that very same reason, yet nowadays some Argentinian-made trucks no longer have a gasser version.