Engine life
 

This might sound like a dump questions but does anyone know what is the lifespan of a 305e v6 engine?
My truck has about 289,000 on the odometer and the truck runs fine it does smoke a little out of the right side blue smoke! I got this truck as a gift from my grandfather in-law when he got the tuck it had about 117,000 on the oddometer he mainly used it to haul food for our local church once a week for about 12 years and now it was given to me. I have plans to get it painted and have replaced the carpet, seat cover, door panels gauges, steering wheel, rear bumper and have done a complete tune up. My main concern is the high mileage on the motor parts are hard to find and expensive my machine shop quoted me 4k for a rebuild a bit to steep for my budget.

Re: Engine life
 

I've mentioned on this forum before about a member of our local Chevy/GMC truck club who has about 600,000 miles on his '65 GMC panel with the 305E. It has never been rebuilt. The two most important things for a long life for your V6 are to never over-rev the engine, and always use good quality engine oil changed regularly. So your engine should last you a long time before needing a rebuild.

Re: Engine life
 

The smoke is probably a little oil seeping through the valve guide. I'd do a compression test just to make sure all the numbers are even. If they are and are not to low....no less than 105 PSI. Then I'd run a higher viscosity oil that's good quality and keep driving it. I will be running 20w-50 and Power Punch additive in my 305e when the weather gets hot.

Re: Engine life
 

I know this might be a controversial thing to ask, but have any of y'all run Lucas Oil additive? If so, did it seem to make a difference? Specifically for an engine that might be a bit tired.....

Re: Engine life
 

I run Power Punch...that stuff works....you won't Notice a difference(like in power or compression)...but if your engine burns a bit of oil the power punch helps that for sure and it'll help create just that much more cushion. I like it. Lucas is good to....but in my opinion the power punch is better.

Re: Engine life
 

The Good and Bad part of this is these old engines were built and run most of their lives in the dark ages of understanding about what made engines live long lives. Detergent oil was just becoming common, oil and air filtration were just starting to be understood.

And just for the record, oil bath air cleaners barely deserve the name air cleaner. Good luck finding an oil bath air cleaner Mfg that will print a cleaning efficiency number, but 90-95% is as good as you will find. A dry pleated paper element is 99-99.5+%.. Full flow oil filtration makes all oil lubed parts last much longer. The old bypass systems always let dirty oil back into the oil pan.

With today's oil and filtration technology I bet these old V-6's would have all been half million to million mile engines. A lot of engineering went into making the engines survive both short cycle and extended cycle operation. The engineers did a great job of managing heat. And truck engines run HOT, you literally can melt them down. The night I got my mid-1970's IH Loadstar with 478 V-8 I ran my normal 375-400 mile route. Truck ran like poop at first then kept running better and better. It had sat for months on the dealers lot. About 100 miles into my first half of my run I pulled off the road and stopped and walked past the right front tire. The exhaust manifold was still glowing orange & red hot, even when I walked by it again a minute later it was still red hot.
That truck got about three miles per gallon, ran 60-62 mph, so that tiny 1/4 inch fuel line moved 20 gallons of gas per hour! The BIG V-6's burned gas just as fast, the 637 V-8 & 702 V-12 even faster. The cost of feeding that old Binder finally caught up with the little company.

For comparison, the Ford F-700 I drove before the Binder with the 8.2L Detroit Fuel Pincher got about 7-8 mpg of cheaper diesel fuel back in those days. The Binder carried 100 gallons of gas, so effective range was less than 300 mIles. Ford carried 40 gallons of fuel and range was 280-300 miles. But less than $40 to fill up the Ford vs over $100 to gas up the Binder. The 8.2L was a TERRIBLE engine, but it did stretch a Dollar worth of fuel a long ways.

The cost of operation would eventually catch up with gasoline truck engines but with the life span of these big V-6's they would stay on the road way beyond their expiration dates.