Ok, Believe it or not I was looking on the net and discovered that all the 80-82 Fox body Ford inline sixes are blue. Mine is gray. I discovered during the valve stem seal job I did that the engine is a remanufactured engine. TAM Engineering in Tacoma, Wash. did it, applied a label with a serial number. I can't find them on the net. I was trying to figure out when it was built. Is the color a clue? When did Ford switch to gray? My 85 Cougar had a gray engine. My 92 is black. Does anyone know the story on this? The odometer shows 21,009 right know which I assume is 121,009. TAM Engineering remanufactured engines for Ford and NAPA Auto parts. I was just trying to age the engine as close as possible as it was literally spotless clean under the valve cover. And looking down inside everything within view was just pristine looking. The previous owner did not change the engine. He bought it in 1999.
if you give me the info off the engine i,ll call and see what i can find,,,,,the last place i worked (airline) we had some 300 sixes from them,,,(tam) 99% of all the ground equipment if it was gas powered was ford straight sixes and i do remember a long block or two that was gray ,, i dont recall the reason why the color difference from blue or gray but i didn,t think much about it at the time,,,,
I was talking to a guy that has worked at NAPA for over 20 years and he said that TAM went out of buisness about 10 years ago. I'm also figuring that the engine color is as original because it has a unpainted aluminum air cleaner and the valve cover and pan have obviously never been repainted. My car was built in June 82 and I think the switch to gray was earlier in 82. I don't care about originality I was just wondering. Thanks
its possible that the 'grey'..is just the colour they chose to identify "thier" engines...a local re-builder up here...does everything RED...unless otherwise requested.
