Just Rebuilt A 4.6 ford With 323,012 Miles

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crazyoildude

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We have a 1998 ford truck in the shop with a 4.6 v8 getting a rebuild, this work truck got oil changes once a year using sears spectrum 5w30 and whatever oil filter they were using that day..It still runs ok but smokes too much, it has 343,010 miles on it..
No matter what you say this guy says oil is oil! And his engine was not to sludged up it was in pretty good condition for the miles except for the valve seals...He said he overheated it and it started smoking. Who makes sears spectrum anyway?
 
not sure who makes it, that engine could have gone further if he didnt over heat it, sad. Just shows you that any API spec oil that meets specs will be just fine for a engine.
 
Sears Spectrum was made by WPP (the same as Walmart ST) up until recently. Years ago (in the 80's) it was made by Sunoco.
Last summer or fall it changed to a new bottle design and it doesn't look like WPP makes it anymore.
I'd like to know myself?
 
Shows just how good the Ford 4.6 engine is. Other engines are scraped long before this with this OCI.
 
i was thinking the same thing...A while back we had an elderly women come in with an engine that had almost no power she had under 50,000 miles on it and she never changed the oil since new NEVER, the oil filter was original and she said she was 100% sure it was not ever changed, she did add oil when needed but thats it, this car was an old plymouth volare maybe 77 or 78 with the 225 slant 6
this engine had so much sludge in it that we were pulling it out in handfulls i could not believe this thing ran at all..After rebuilding it her grandson came into the shop saying
nothing was wrong with the engine that we ripped her off it only needed a tune up he said those engines lasted forever.. I showed him pictures of the inside of that engine and then he said we must have done that to it.. I think he was 15 or 16 at the time.. One of the guys soaked him with the hose and he went home.. A few years later he came in looking for a job after he graduated an automotive school..This kid at the time knew nothing had no clue how to work on a car! Fast foward this 25 or so years and he is now my shop manager.
 
I thought that Warren Performance Products out of Nebraska bottled the oil for Spectrum. If your interested in that Spectrum oil...it's on sale now at Kmart for $1.99 a quart.

If it was not for the overheating and if 2 OCI were done every year, instead of 1, it might have still been running.

Maybe Spectrum is bottling their own oil and making their own add packs for lubricants now.

http://www.spectrumcorporation.com/default.aspx


Looks like the same outfit.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: crazyoildude
We have a 1998 ford truck in the shop with a 4.6 v8 getting a rebuild, this work truck got oil changes once a year using sears spectrum 5w30 and whatever oil filter they were using that day..It still runs ok but smokes too much, it has 343,010 miles on it..
No matter what you say this guy says oil is oil! And his engine was not to sludged up it was in pretty good condition for the miles except for the valve seals...He said he overheated it and it started smoking. Who makes sears spectrum anyway?



I wish I knew more about it....but my mother lives on 80 acres and needed a PU to haul feed and hay to her cows and goats....so she found a $1,000 Ford PU with the 4.6. The truck was owned by a West Texas Oil and Gas company and when she purchased it, it had about 325,000 on the engine....original, no rebuild. She hasn't put many miles on it...in the two years she has owned it, but it doesn't burn any oil to our knowledge and runs smoothly.

I only get to visit her 2-3 times a year and do an oil change on the truck once a year, about every Thanksgiving. Since she has a bunch of HDEO sitting around....I have just been pouring in either Delo or Delvac.

But yeah....this engine must be darn good.

I can honestly see her keeping this old beater for another 10 years. I wish it were getting driven enough to reach the half million mark, but she only puts a couple thousand miles on it a year. I think it would make 500k.
 
The 4.6 modular is generally known to be easy on oil. Given that mine is 11 years old with 185k miles on it, I am still leery to go much over the recommended 3k OCI for severe service...but I bet I could go with once a year oil changes with Mobil 1 or some other good GrpIII synthetic and an FL-820S and probably go to half a million miles...once I get more money and the Crown Vic becomes a toy and not a daily driver, I might well do that...
 
Originally Posted By: ChuckBerry
The 4.6 modular is generally known to be easy on oil. Given that mine is 11 years old with 185k miles on it, I am still leery to go much over the recommended 3k OCI for severe service...but I bet I could go with once a year oil changes with Mobil 1 or some other good GrpIII synthetic and an FL-820S and probably go to half a million miles...once I get more money and the Crown Vic becomes a toy and not a daily driver, I might well do that...


I was doing 10K OCIs with my 96 Merc 4.6. It had 218K when I sold it and the engine was fine. M1 10-30.
 
That many miles lots of freeway driving. For any good running engine could achieve those miles on pretty much any oil.
 
I had a 98 f150, unfortunately the body started rotting out at around 75k miles, I had to get rid of it.

When I move to a non-salt area, I'll get another 4.6L truck for sure.
 
oil is oil, sludge is sludge...funny storys about the 4.6 and shop mgr...my dad had a 300 ford straight six and just added oil for most of time he owned it and engine ran for some reason
 
I can say this. I worked at some agencies that tracked mileage via fuelman and ensured the oil changes were performed under contract with the specified grade of oil (usually whatever the oil change placed used, anything from Castrol to a random house brand),and another agency that used 15w-40 HDEO Smittys in every vehicle in the fleet, from Crown Vics to 3/4 ton pickups, to the jail van, to Chevrolet Corsicas. I recall one engine failure in eight years of police work. It was a '99?? Crown Vic where the engine oil hadn't been changed in 11,000 miles of police use. The 4.6L Fords were/are VERY tough engines. I have heard stories about problems when not using 5w-30 or 5w-20 (depending on year)...never seen those issues myself. I put a 180 stat in my unit and changed the oil myself on many occasions when I couldn't get to the shop due to working details, etc. Never saw any issues in probably 300-500K miles of polic driving. (Except with transmissions on LT1 Caprices, the later model Fords were tough, especially 95-96 and up,some of the early 4.6s tended to smoke with high miles, kept runnning fine though).
 
Originally Posted By: tig1
Shows just how good the Ford 4.6 engine is.


This pic was taken 1 year ago around this time when i was their helping my brother change starter on it,it has another good 10k rounding 350k by know i'd say, uses LESS then a 1/4 qt in a 8+k OCI..lota good engines out there.








1994 Grand Am 3100 v6 runs like a top
Picture-3.jpg
 
Originally Posted By: crazyoildude
To take the engine out and rebuild it with a 2 year unlimited mileage warrantee i charged him $2,800 complete..


Good to know..I might rebuild mine if need be as there is not one car on the market I want right now.

Miami might be another Cuba as the cabbies will probably rebuild their 4.6 Crown Vics down here...Hopefully parts will plentiful for next 20 years.
 
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