How to tell what six it is?

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of getting a 66 Mustang and was wondering how to tell what kind of six it is. The owner thinks its a 170 or 200 cid. It runs good after warmup, but I was worried about how much oil was showing on the dipstick. The dipstick is on the driver's side and is under the plug wires. It looks like the stick really goes deep into the oil pan. My question is that the oil went almost top the top of the stick. Is this right? I didn't have a rag handy to check anything, but I could see some letters under the oil. The car never got hot, smoked, or anything like that while it was running. But when you turned the switch over it was next to the H until you turned it on and let it run. Are these things normal?

 

[CobraSix]

First off...welcome!

as far as which engine, it should be a 200 in the 66. Easy way to tell, look at the picture below. Look at the freeze plugs (the 5 big circles on the side of the block). If it has 5, it's a 200. If it has 3, then it's a 170.

Oil shouldn't be at the top of the stick. There should be a full line on the stick. If you check the oil after the engine was running, it's very likely you got oil up the stick. You should always check the oil before starting.

For the temp, If he started the car after it had been warmed up, then yes, many times the temp gauge will go to the hot side because there is no coolant being circulated anymore when the engine is off. That makes the temp rise. The only exceptions are if the coolant has frozen some, then the temp can skyrocket at first (hopefully you notice this, but this only on REALLY cold days). The other exception is if the coolant level is low. Sometimes if the coolant level is low, it can actually cause the temperature to go up really fast at first, and then cool down some.

Slade

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Kev, welcome to the forums. A 66 mustang would originally have a 200. Chances are that is what is in your car unless someone dropped in a 170.
It is not normal to have oil all the way up the stick, but it could just be dirty. The dipstick is fairly long, and sits way down into the pan. I'm wondering if he just added a bunch of oil and overfilled? How did the oil look? What color was it? There are lines at the end of the dipstick and the letters you saw indicate where the oil should be.
These sixes tend to have some overheating issues after they are close to 40 years old. My old motor woud get extremely hot when turned off but then would cool when it was running. With my rebuilt motor, it really doesn't do this anymore......just a little bit which I expect. I suspect your cooling system could use some checking as well. Maybe start with checking the coolant level (don't open radiator cap when car is hot!!) Could be as simple as that......beyond that, you can diagnose overheating problems without to much trouble.

Good Luck.....welcome again and keep asking questions. The people here have so much knowledge and go out of thier way to help
Ryan

Cobra...you beat me to it....hey, at least I was on the same page as you!

 

[Anonymous]

The oil is nasty in the car. Well within the changing color. I sort of figured that about the cooling system. I do know about engines in general, just not old 6 cylinders. I mostly do imports. The engine itself is fairly clean and everything looks good in the running gear. Main problem next is the tranny. Its got a three speed and the first gear jumps out sometimes and gets hard to shift when the car has sit for some time. As far as the oil dipstick goes, I couldn't tell if the letters were referring to a "fill line" or maybe just a part number or something. The motor didn't have any blow by or tick or knock.