My uncle has a Mercury 429 big block sitting in a ford camper that's rusting on his proprety and he's selling it for $500. The engine needs an overhaul as it is sitting since 5 years. Can it fit? Is there too much butchering to do?

 

sounds like a huge waste of money. Then motor mounts would have to be fabricated, you need a Ford transmisison ect.

Stick with GM engines.

 

I obviously would use something GM if i had one at hand or the money to buy one, that's a no-brainer.

I have a transmission already, the one from the camper. But how hard is it to make motor mounts?

 

but you have the money ($500) to buy the engine, recondition/rebuild and get all the custom mounts made?

350's are dime a dozen...you can get them anywhere

Physically I bet the engine would fit fine...
Perhaps I totally misunderstood your post

 

Not really, it's just that i wondered if it was possible. I got the urge to do something with my car, and with limited resources, it hurts.

 

buy it, sell the eng. to a ford guy and use the extra gained money for your gm swap

 

Jesus that's brilliant, why didin't i think of that? Thanks Alot.

 

Heres your sign!

 

i thought you put chevy motors in fords...... seems all the ford hot rods do it for some reason

 

Yeah they fit better

 

eww....ford........eww big block heavy bastard...for the gain in displacment, you would lose the benenfits to the heavy *** big block....plus its a ford and for the cost to build a stock ford moter....you could build a nice mild 350....around 320-350 horses

 

Stole this from another post, but its fitting.
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"check this out" by hung4wheeler
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Seems some here are taking some offense to this. Huh, there's a 5.0 Mustang owner as a member of TGO...who woulda thunk it... God bless him!
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Yeah, sell that drivetrain on Ebay or in your local car trader paper or even see if a local boneyard will take it in trade for a good 350ci. If you sell it, put that money into buying a complete small block Chevy. Later you can buy a fresh set of Chevy Vortec heads for it, add an Edelbrock intake, plus some decent headers, and enjoy! Decent affordable power. You should be able to find a complete & useable 350ci at your local boneyard for less than $400. Before you fork over any cash, pull the heads and check the cyls for damage and be careful not to get crud inside the engine. Also, pull off the oil pan to see if its full of metal shavings, water, or rust. Make sure they give you a free 30+ day replacement warrantee in writting. If they don't offer it or think your dumb for asking for that, don't buy it 'cuz its probably junk. Good luck.

 

I agree with everyone above in selling the 429 and getting a chevrolet 350 to go in.If you want to know how much of a tight fit a 429 is look under the hood of a '70-'71 Mustang(or how a 428 fits in a '68-'70).They are tight and i can only imagine how it would be in a 3rd gen not to mention fabricating mounts for it and the trans with a mount for the torque arm.Yes it would definitly be different but if you just have to have a big block go with a Chevrolet 396-454.But you'd be much happier with a 350 IMHO.

 

Mercury doesn't make engines. Frod just puts that brand on the valve cover of some of theirs.

It's a Frod 429. A good motor; basically Frod must have looked at a big block Chevy, and decided "hey this is cool, let's screw it up bad enough so we can put it in OUR cars!!" So they did wonderful things like, gave it the typical stupid Frod non-adjustable rocker setup, and put their own bolt pattern on the back of it, and called it good.

It's so much like a BBC it isn't funny. In fact, you can even fix the stupid Frod valve train problem by just putting BBC rockers on it.

But it's NOT a BBC; so EVERY DETAIL of how it bolts into the car is different. Every mount, every BH bolt, every dimension, every accessory, is DIFFERENT. Meaning, even though you're getting the motor for "free", it will cost you more to adapt it into your car than it will cost you to go BUY a motor that actually fits; and you'll be fighting a million little pesky details that will keep the car off the road, for no telling how long; like trying to find a PS pump that won't hit the gear, or making some exhaust fit it, or stuff like that. The things that are enough to drive a saint to strong drink.

Now if this was something COOL and FAST and POWERFUL, it might be worth doing; but no. It's a MOTOR HOME MOTOR. Those are ALWAYS the worst possible choice for a "performance" application, as they sit; because they're basically set up like a dump truck or a school bus motor or something. Go drive a school bus, and if that's what you want your car to act like, then that's the motor for you.

As said, sell it to a Frod guy, and buy a motor that fits. You'll be money AND PERFORMANCE ahead if you do it that way.