Well the good news is that it passed inspection with just ball joints, the bad news is,, it has a rod knock.


Could use some good mojo over here, just been taking in the possible demise of the rig all day and going over options and taking it all in.Me's thinking it is a rod crank bearing, but shop is thinking piston sleeve bearing?
Being a gambling man & 3 years in a machine shop is telling me to take a chance drop the pan and look for a bad crank rod bearing & hopefully it has not got to the crank shaft or the rod.

 

Update; after further inspection by some specialists, it tuns out to be #3 cylinder, wrist pin in the piston. There is just no good way at looking at this so far.

How to be decisive, here are the chooses, 6k replace the motor on a 98, or 20k for the identical animal of 2013 with 60k, then another 1k to swap suspension to get back to E450?

 

$6,000 on a 1998 vehicle repair? No way.

$21,000 to buy a 4year old vehicle? Meh.

I recommend you find something in between. Depending on your intended use.
What will you use it for? How many miles per year?

maybe get a used engine for the 1998. Maybe find a nice 2008-2009 (for way less than $20,000).

 

Drop the pan and replace the wrist pin?

 

Do you have access to a lift and tools? Im sure you can find a good motor much cheaper and find a few friends to help remove the body bolts and lift the whole body off the frame provided you have access to a garage with a lift. Makes the whole process much easier to get at the motor. If not, the motor will also slide out through the front. $6k seems pretty steep for this job.

 

How do you replace the wrist pin thru the pan???

 

you can't
you have to pull the head and the pan
pistons have to come out the top
if it was just a rod bearing you could.

 

Could somebody show me the firing order for a 1998 5.4 Triton #3 cylinder location? Vet is right, it has to come out the top...Deer??? Going through this in my head, and what if I drop the motor mounts & Trans mount and let the motor sink to the frame. I can take the head, and just as I say that to myself I look over to see.

https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/...NvWF4OQS9AwXqX

Really,,,,,, do you agree on that young buck, then he twitched his ear and continued eating acorns.

Put a Sharpie on the timing chain and gear and lift the head from the rear. Thinking about going after this poison pill, but still learning procedures.

Note, either the 5.4 changed firing order over different years, or identity of firing order changed in the posted specs and block stamps by year. That marriages with the firmware of the computers of each year.

 

Just out of curiosity, why can't the piston come out the bottom? A well known TSB for oil consumption on a Honda V6 involves the pan coming off and replacing the piston rings through the oil pan. Not saying you're wrong or anything, just curious.

 

Just got the rig back today, running,, but knocking, It can't come out the bottom, the shops I have talked to are too smart. The options are narrowing, the cost in labor is too much to pull and fix. The next is pull and replace with a Jasper engine with the same labor.

Then lets cross check to replace entire vehicle, this is basically what I have.
2014 Ford E350, La Mirada CA - 118947650 - CommercialTruckTrader.com

My 98 bought for 9k with 90k, it is basically a E350 with every option except E450 springs (which I have).
18K +1600 tax+$1000 to swap suspension, double the insurance from $636 annual to $1200 annual. For total of $21,200 with payments.

Or 7k, new motor $636 insurance no monthly payments and at least another 100K miles.

What I have so far, rig goes/went for about 34K new. Mine was $26,356 new in 98 still waiting Amazon to post invoice.

https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/...SLSPFVpupNtIiu

$26,000.00 in 1999 had the same buying power as $37,520.74 in 2016

Annual inflation over this period was about 2.18%

Another way to look, if 98 rig with new motor is totaled, insurance would top at 6K, if 21 K rig were totaled insurance would top out at 80%.

 

I think the type of piston and length of the rod matter. It also would depend on the design whether if will clear the crank and the block. I don't think they are designed to while the honda has room.

I know the flat motors and motorcycles they do come out the bottom of the cylinder. They are designed to come apart that way.

if you go to the 1 minute mark you can see the clearance issues. To me it doesn't look possible. Maybe Houdini can

 

Makes sense, thanks for the video. Not much room in there!

 

Sorry all for taking so much time to report, the motor has been replaced with all updates going on 5 months now. All I can say is wow, what a difference, finding time to do the whole write up. Short story life lesson, never be afraid to gut the E like a fish on things not even brought up in any owners manual.Best lesson learned from Dunkerly Construction, we fix anything if it makes coin as an efficient machine.