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Originally Posted by 69scout
Does anyone know what years of truck to look for to get a 345 and(or) the 345E. if you have a 345A can you just get the machine shop to put in hardened seats when you get a 3 angle valve job?
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If the "A" has valve rotators it should have hard seats too. I have a 1975 304A with rotators and suspect it has the hard seats since it has not eaten a valve yet and I am told that rotators will eat unprotected heads pretty fast. But this might be incorrect too.
As I understand it the A engines have no exhaust valve rotators, no hard seats, no cast iron top ring groove and the crank is quenched and tempered. Still better than a cast crank but not as wear resistant as the hardened journals found on the other engines. I can't think of any other changes for the 304/345A engines
Most of this is not very important in a Scout or light line truck. One reason they were dropped. The real trucks and other industrial applications got the "E" engine.
The E came out sometime about 68-69 and the A after 1970 SFAIK. The 392 was never made as an A and the 266 was not either being out of production by the time the As were made. You must look at the engine ID on the block. Engines get changed and having a early truck is not assurance you have a contour head engine or E engine rather than an A. For that matter if you swap on the proper heads you can run contour head pistons in any of them except the 392 IC.
Dan