This weekend's a 3 day weekend here for us Canucks. True to form, I think I've worked, or had a project on the go for every summer long weekend for about 10 years now.

This one's no different, plan is to strip down the old dually for it's parts, and also the one F250 that's here, with a seized motor. (May or may not tear the motor down to see how bad it is inside.

There may or may not be another forum member here, will have to wait and see, it's fun keeping you guys in suspense.

Pictures may or may not happen, depends how incriminating they are.

 

Well, the front clip came off two trucks today. The one that I thought was a '91, turns out is an '88 with a 6.9 in it. As it is, with about 60K miles, and a seized engine, it's still a parts truck. I will tear the engine down, and see if the block will make a good core for a future rebuild, or if it's scrap. The rust on it is soooo bad, there are holes right through the exhaust manifolds.

The valve covers and rockers were pulled, but they are somewhat rusty too, but I think will clean up. The engine/underhood wiring harness, one of the things we were hoping to save, was corroded beyond salvage. The interior harness under the dash etc though was ok, and is headed elsewhere for a project. So the doors, dash, entire front clip, and some engine parts were pulled off of it today.

The dually, which met it's match on a job site this winter, drove to it's now final resting spot. The front clip was pulled, the inner fenders, and underhood harness (motor harness left in place) all pulled. Then the cab connections (throttle, AC, tranny linkage etc) were all disconnected, a chain through the door ways (after pulling the doors, as they are rust free still) and a tug with the excavator and the cab was off it. The drive shaft pulled, and then the C6 undone and pulled out, along with the mount and cross member for it. Tomorrow we'll finish pulling the engine, and see if we can maybe drop it into the 'runaway'. I still have to pull the fuel tank, and the subframe/flatbed dump off it, as I think I'm going to move the bed onto the 'runaway' sometime in the near future.

My parts collection is growing rapidly, as of now I have 4 spare grills alone, though one is cracked after a deer collision a couple years ago. I've been laying the spare parts all out to sort through them, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow. After that, they get to go into the storage trailer until they are needed. Looks like after this weekend I'll be down to three diesels, and hopefully, they will all be up and going again within the next few weeks.

I've had the 'runaway' for two years, and never heard it run, it's been about three years since it last ran from my understanding. It got it's nickname as it ran away twice. Claimed the IP was fine, that it had been rebuilt. I suspect that the fuel shutoff was played with, and never put together right. So, since I have extra engines now, I'll drop a good one in it, and it can be torn down for parts. If the block looks good, I'll oil it up, and put it into storage for a future rebuild project perhaps.

So, in total, between mine, and a visiting IDI lover, there's 6 of them in the driveway tonight.

 

Hell of a good way to spend May run!

 

It's been a good weekend, we ended up pulling the entire drivetrain out of the dually except the rear axle. The engine was pulled out of the runaway, looked pretty decent on the outside, in under the valve covers was a totally different story. Oil was a nasty sludge, and looks almost like there's been steam in it the way the rust pattern was on the rockers.

The E4OD tranny in it however, is clean outside, and has a shiny blue torque converter in it, so, hopefully, as I was told, it is a recent rebuild. I think the dually engine was the greasiest, dirtiest engine I've worked on, and it went into the runaway about the same way. I'll get it up and running first, so I can start figuring out what the truck does or doesn't need, then later it'll get a degreasing and I can figure out where the worst leaks are at. I suspect mostly the valve covers, but that will be determined later.

So, two front clips off, 3 out of 4 doors off, one tranny and engine pulled out of the dually, a cab removed, one engine pulled out of the runaway, and the dually engine dropped in and bolted up. Not bad for three guys and two days of wrenching huh?

 

Well guess it's my turn for some pics and updates eh?


Was pretty easy finding the place...


The 2 stripped trucks (stripped of usable parts anyways)


The blue truck that's been sitting for 10 years, rusty as hell engine, the belts were wedged in the pulleys by rust.


Cab coming off the dually!




Takes an Excavator owner to Git R done eh?


And final project, pulling the "runaway" out of it's original nesting place


....and this is what we found upon pulling the valve covers on that runaway....


The top half of the rockers, and all the pushrods were covered in metal shavings, witch had rusted on the pushrods and rockers.

And the valve covers... well the pic says it all. The engine oil poured out the block by the lift pump while moving with the excavator (pump removed) and that's what came out of the block as well, ugly slimy thick black gold!





That's about it, was a pretty interesting weekend, I think we all learned a few new things, did some parts swapping + some labor got us some good parts we needed to complete the gas to diesel swap in the '89 F150.

 

Oohhh... don't need a pic to cringe at that... but BTW, can't see any of the pics! Was keen to see some fellow Canadian wrenching.

 

Haha... my bad, I can see the photos from home, even the one in my previous post that I couldn't see when I posted it!

 

Yep, we had a good couple of days of grease, rust, and wrenching. I'll likely be a week here and there cleaning up the aftermath, sorting through parts, putting them away in the storage trailer etc. I had a bunch of parts already in a couple places, so I'm trying to pull them all out and then I can keep the good stuff, and scrap the junk.