302 died - what to do while it's out of the car?

[brianbooth]

Just an update for everybody who chimed in and helped here: The van lives again and the 351w has a definite edge over the old 302. I wound up overhauling a junkyard engine with 60K miles and combining it with the heads off the 302 (which I also overhauled) to get everything running right. So new rings, bearings, oil pump, water pump, freeze plugs, thermostat, timing chain, injector seals, and serviced the injectors and lapped the valves. The only major problem here was after I got the thing in, it started showing 0 compression cylinder 7. Further investigation turned up that the the lifter was shot so off came all the top end stuff again so I could replace all the lifters. For anyone thinking about overhauling your engine, don't make the same mistake I did and replace them while you're rebuilding it instead of after. The biggest improvement came from getting the tranny worked over. One of my co-workers used to run a transmission shop so I got him to take a look at it and low-and-behold that 3 speed tranny I was complaining about was actually an AOD that was skipping 2nd gear. He pulled it apart, found a piece of a bearing in the pan along with some other junk, and we agreed that he may as well put it back together with new parts instead of old ones so a new stall converter, planetary, clutches, bands, and a variety of other bits along with a transgo junior shift kit got the thing running like an absolute dream. I really can't recommend the shift kit enough - combining that with some fine tuning and dialing in the throttle linkage just right was a night-and-day improvement. The only persevering issue it has is a funky idle where it will idle smoothly and then suddenly drop off and sputter before coming back up and then repeating every 5 - 10 seconds when its cold. When hot, it idles too high but doesn't do the sputtering thing. I've replaced the TPS and IAC motor so I'm thinking there's got to be a vacuum leak in there somewhere that I missed. The coollant temperature sensor is another possibility. Anyway, the van is downright spunky now so thanks for everyone's help

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