Battling entropy

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" - from the sonnet 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Entropy (outside of Thermodynamics) is the tendency of everything to fall apart into disorganized component atoms.  It feels as if I am constantly at war with Entropy sometimes - both at work and at home.

The beer is clarifying nicely, so at least there's that.  I may need to transfer it one more time, as quite a bit of dregs were stirred up on the previous transfer and settled in the clarifier.  I have a second clarifier available.  This is a wheat beer, so there will be a certain amount of cloudiness, even when the yeast has completely settled. I'll give it a few days, just in case the yeast are not entirely dormant yet.

I'm also considering brewing a batch of hard cider, since it's harvest time.  Debating whether to purchase an apple press or just buy a few gallons of apple juice.  It's a lot easier to make than beer.

I had mentioned in a previous post that the window glass doesn't seem to be a correct fit.  The angles are not cut quite right compared to the old glass.  The two pieces are aligned left and bottom (the new glass is still wrapped), but they don't match at the top and right.  I'll need to have a flat piece of automotive glass cut to match the old one, looks like.

I chose today's quote, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair", whilst I was poking around on the  F100 yesterday.  I have no idea why the other side of the family considered my wife's uncle to be a genius mechanic and skilled hot-rodder.  He had the ingenuity to swap out the old wheezy 6 cylinder for a modern-ish V8.  However... that old F100 truck is sketchy, and it's mostly just a rusty old shell with a vintage repaint.  I've been looking on the works, and despairing.

I attempted locate the casting number on the engine block - to see if I could glean information on its origins - to no avail.  The casting number is well-hidden by Ford, behind the starter.  I wasn't up to disconnecting the battery, then grubbing around under the oily engine to remove the starter - at least not on a day when I had to get ready for a 12 hour night shift.  

This weekend I'll pull the starter off, and get the casting information from the engine.  But in the meantime, some pictures...

I stuck my phone camera up under the truck, and attempted to get an image of the casting number on the engine block.  However, I simply ended up with pictures of oily grime, rust and cobwebs.

After getting dirty while squirming around under the truck, I decided to look elsewhere on the engine, to see if there were any other clues.  What I found is that there's just so much wrong...  ...Like a chopped off wire touching the inside metal of the fender...

 Or a loose connector hanging down near the starter...

And of course the battery acid that ate up the valve cover, the exhaust manifold, and the piece of steel that is being used as an "engine mount".

Below:  This is the water pump at the top.  There is a rubber cap where a hose would normally go to the heater core in the cab of the truck.  Not sure yet if the heater core and fan have been deleted - if they have, it will surely be fun to chase down a replacement.  Down near the bottom is what appears to be a hole for a crank position sensor - which is missing.

Below:  When manufactured, this vehicle had a manual transmission with a hydraulic clutch.  The clutch foot pedal is still in place, as is the actuator and hydraulic line.  I'll have to remove all those, and patch the hole.  At the left I suspect is where the heater hose once entered the cab of the truck.

Below is the power steering pump, with the discharge connected directly to the suction.  It's not powering any steering.  I'll either need to install a power steering system or this pump can be removed and the belt shortened.

Below:  "Engine mount"

Below:  I found a clue on the intake manifold.  E3AE.  Now of course the intake manifold could have come from a different vehicle, but it's just as likely this is original to the engine.

The data below is for engine block castings, not intake manifold castings, so this still may not be useful.

So we are potentially looking at a mid-1980's 351W (5.8 liter) Ford Small Block, possibly out of a truck.  But it could also be - and likely is - a 302W (5.0 liter).  I'll figure it out in a couple of days.