[blackie9]

Well it's finally time to get started on the ole V 12 ser. # 1292. I think it was probably around the early '70,s when I spotted this monster in my favorite junk yard. I didn't know much but I new I had to to have it. I have always loved machines and engines from a very early age. It was in a wrecked simi tractor at the yard so I got started getting her free to take it home.
The story was that the truck had run into the engine of a train at a remote country location. The driver was killed and some how the engineer was also killed when the rock that truck was hauling went shooting thru the air from the impact and into the cab of the locomotive. Somewhere I have a copy of the newspaper article which I will post when I find it.
So, home it went and the disassembly began. All the usual mouse nests and standing water where there (it was sitting uncovered and a carb was broken off). Got most of the pistons free except three that are still in there. The walls of the bores even with standing water seemed to still be OK (that good metal they used) and the crank looked perfect.
After some research, I don't know how I did that back then without the internet, I found that the many of the 351 parts would be the same and it looked like I would have to break those up to get them out because they would have to come out the top, so there was a school bus in the yard with a 351 so I grabbed it too. If I remember right I ran that 351 when I got it home.
Well that was then and it got set aside (35 years) for a time because of an uncontrollable problem with collecting and restoring Minneapolis Moline tractors. Well I sold the farm and I'm selling the tractors so guess what I found. So I got the 351 down off the rack to start taking it apart and found, Thanks to this great site, that is a 351M. So I said I can't tear a perfectly good Magnum apart and it just so happened there was a 351 on Craigslist St. Louis for sale (some of you saw it I'm sure) so I got that one and started taking it apart. So far it looks pretty good.