Rebuild Question

[Shroudedinlies]

Hey guys, new to the forum and have a few questions. Just bought a sweet 93 4x4 Explorer from a friend of mine with a bunch of recent maintenance but it just hit 213,000 miles so I am anticipating needing a new engine/rebuild soon.

I was wondering if my best bet is purchasing a junkyard motor with the lowest miles possible and just doing a full rebuild is my best bet? If so, what year motor should I look for to get longevity out of it? I was hoping to find a good rebuild kit and just doing all the seals/rods/belts etc.. Would you recommend I send it out for machine work or as long as it seems solid just do the kit? And if this is the right route, are there any good quality kits out there? I have a friend who is a certified mechanic (not a Ford one unfortunately) so if I dropped an engine in his garage he would be happy to rebuild it for a reasonable price.

Or what would a factory reman. engine cost from a dealership? More than 2 grand? Perhaps I should wait for tax returns and just do that..I don't know that is why I am asking you guys lol.

Anyways thanks for reading, I hope to hear some feedback.

Here she is! (temporary wheels on until I can grab some bigger ones)

 

[Anime]

Just because it's at 213,000 miles doesn't mean it's in need of a rebuild.

Modern engines are very capable of going to 300,000, 400,000, even 500,000 miles and beyond without rebuilding the entire motor. Plenty of members on here have rebuilt their OHV V6 only to find the block still has the machining marks on the piston hole walls.

If you want to throw money at it, you can do the less-common maintenance updates that the OHV V6 needs, like new rocker arms/rocker arm assemblies to fix the valve clatter issue, new upper and lower intake manifold gaskets and new valve cover gaskets, and maybe even spend a little money on performance mods like a cat-back exhaust or even throw a few hundred dollars at getting brand new aftermarket heads.

If, for whatever reason, you wanted to do a rebuild anyway, and you don't have any experience working on vehicles and you don't want to spend the time working on it or the money on the tools to do it, your best bet might be to have your friend with a garage do it. Various rebuild kits are available at auto parts stores and places like rockauto.com, but you can usually do better just buying the gaskets, seals, and components you need individually, or your friend might have a shop discount through whatever parts places he uses.

You can get remanufactured short and long blocks from engine rebuilders (not the dealership), though they will cost you in the $2000-4000 range and you will need to be super duper sure you get the RIGHT engine for the 93 since some 93's came with engines that are more like those from a 92 and others came with engines that are more like a 94. This is why it's sometimes just better and easier to rebuild the one you have unless there's some reason not to.

 

[Shroudedinlies]

Thanks for the info, I will look into all the parts he replaced already and compare what you mentioned and go from there. Looking forward to the explorer life

 

[4x4junkie]

Buddy of mine has 200K on his Ranger 4.0L... Could easily mistake that motor for one with one less zero on it.

If it runs good (has good compression), doesn't burn oil, and doesn't make any racket, leave it alone.

 

[cloaked_chaos]

If you are so inclined, I am parting out a 1993 X with a running motor with ~160k miles on it. It would be a great candidate for a rebuild (or could be installed as-is).

Based on your picture, you live nowhere close to me and shipping would be expensive.

Backstory: I bought it as a running, driving vehicle from a guy whose kid rolled it while offroading (body damage only). The transmission and manual transfer case are currently installed in my DD (as of last weekend).