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instead of listening to me drone on and on about injectors and valve springs and turbo pedestals, much as I expected, she broke down after about 5 minutes and said, "fine, just go ahead and do it."
to which I said, "ok, if you insist."
:-)
That's a smart man, JP. Very smart indeed. You gotta keep momma happy, you know? That generally is more or less the route I take with my wife as well. When I bought this truck, I just explained to her how it would save us money in the long run (because it is a ZF5 truck) and how it would save me from having to spend all my time working on the old one (hahaha, little did she know.....). I'm hoping that she has forgotten that last part with all the time I am spending on this new truck, lol. I just tell her it's my hobby and at least it's a constructive one. When she complains about me spending too much time in the shop I just remind her that I'm right out back and not warming a bar stool somewhere or chasing skirts.
And for what it's worth, I think she kind of likes my trucks. I showed her a picture of a PRISTINE first gen Lightning the other day that was for sale and she said "Looks nice, but I like your truck better".
And for what it's worth, I think she kind of likes my trucks. I showed her a picture of a PRISTINE first gen Lightning the other day that was for sale and she said "Looks nice, but I like your truck better".
I agree completely. my wife now points out nice OBS trucks and says, "oh, that's a nice one, you should buy that one, too." she's not serious of course, but merely pointing out that she likes the appearance.
Originally Posted by DIYMechanic
That's a smart man, JP. Very smart indeed. You gotta keep momma happy, you know? That generally is more or less the route I take with my wife as well. When I bought this truck, I just explained to her how it would save us money in the long run (because it is a ZF5 truck) and how it would save me from having to spend all my time working on the old one (hahaha, little did she know.....). I'm hoping that she has forgotten that last part with all the time I am spending on this new truck, lol. I just tell her it's my hobby and at least it's a constructive one. When she complains about me spending too much time in the shop I just remind her that I'm right out back and not warming a bar stool somewhere or chasing skirts.
and I forgot, that I used that logic as well - sort of: lots of time and money into the truck now means much less time and money going forward. I think I actually threw out the timeframe of 10 years - in that, if I rebuild this engine, it should be good for another 10 years before it requires major additional time or money invested.
PLUS - since her main priority regarding the truck is appearance, I always throw in that once I get the mechanicals all taken care of, then I can start doing the body and paint work. "you can't polish a turd, honey, right? so, mechanicals first, then cosmetics - its the only smart way to spend our money :-)"
Hey guys - its been forever since I've made a post or meaningful contribution to the site here, but I'm done all my other over-the-winter (I know, its summer now!), around-the-house jobs so the wife is letting me do a fun project again. Plus, I just got some parts in the mail yesterday (glovemeister - your PM box is full, so here's your thanks :-), so I'm newly re-motivated again.
that said, this is probably one of the last posts on this thread as I believe I'm at the point of actually starting to reassembly my engine with all the new parts I'm about to order!
I spent about 2 hours last night picking and chipping at seized threads in the last exhaust manifold bolt hole I had to clean up. as a refresher, I had successfully extracted 15 of sixteen bolts using lots of PB blaster, some special bolt extractors and lots of swearing. before getting the procedure down just right, I had busted the first one clean off in the hole though and then busted the tip of an easy-out off in the busted bolt - DOH! well, with lots of patience and some cobalt drill bits, I was able to drill the bolt out progressively bigger until I could just see the threads in the resulting hole.
I had hoped at this point a tap would clean the last remnants of the bolt out, but who ever gets that lucky? Not me!
after completely destroying the first few threads, I resorted to picking the rest out one helical turn at a time. PB blaster, an awl and a small screwdriver (which is now also an awl) and a small hammer were the tools of choice. In the end, everything came out (even the tip of the busted easy-out), and I think I have plenty of thread left in there for putting her all back together. plus, I plan to use studs instead of bolts on the new manifolds, so I may even tack weld the stud in place before the manifolds go on.
this weekend will be some final clean up and sandblasting on the engine (with all holes plugged up tight as a drum), then next week should be a parts-ordering bonanza and the start of my rebuild thread :-)
now, to go through and read up on everyone else's current threads :-)
It's good to hear you're making some good progress JP. Good luck with the reassembly. Be sure and post a link to that new thread in here as well so we can connect the dots down the road.
Will do, Nate. I hope to have one big top-level truck rebuild thread, and different project threads for the details. we'll see how that works out, though...
and yea, I'm not completely committed to the welding, but I'm afraid that if I don't, that hole with the missing threads (maybe 20-25% of the threads are gone) might let me torque it to spec, but then pop once everything heats up and expands.
my plan would be to chamfer the hole about 1/8-3/16" of an inch, which is about the depth of the missing threads, run the stud in and just tack it on 2 sides, then grind the weld back flush (or below) the planar surface of the head.
to your (and my) commitment issues, if I ever break or bugger that stud in the future, yes, I would be stuck, but short of that as long as the nut on the stud never seizes, I'd be ok...
ok, i'm getting into that grey area of finishing my tear down and beginning the build up. on one hand, i'm getting ready to repaint the engine which i'd call part of the rebuild. on the other hand, i haven't bought any new parts yet and i'm still removing stuff (albeit, just old paint and rust at this point :-))
anyway, not as much progress as i'd have liked this weekend, but i did spend alot of time organizing the barn, so hopefully that'll save time in the future.
i got one side of the engine scraped and blasted, though.
turns out what i thought was real bad flaking rust was just the old engine paint peeling off...
it actually scraped off quite easily, but i still blasted it to try for the best adhesionn possible. might as well do it right, right?
on a related note, can anyone help me identifiy what all the different plugs are for on the side of the engine? i'm thinking i'm going to leave them all in place as nothing is currently leaking and they all seam to be pipe plugs (i.e. no o-rings to go bad). i would like to know which ones go back into the oil pan though as i plan on putting a bypass filter on the rebuild engine. i figure the lowest ones (highest in this picture) are going back into the oil pan... should be easy enough to confirm once i take the oil pan off again...
and here's the side of the engine after blasting. i put the old oil pan back on with weatherstrip as a gasket, and then used corks, plugs and caps to fill every other hole in the engine i could find. that little hand-held blaster really did a heck of a job, though - and my pancake compressor plumbed through an old 100 lb propane tank was just able to keep up at about 80 psi continuously. i stopped when i started getting condensation through the blaster, figuring the humidity of the day finally caught up with the lines. turned out that my water trap bowl was just full, though...
i plan to finish up the blasting tonight, hopefully, then scuff the remaining good factory paint, wipe down the whole thing with solvent a few times, then spray it with some eastwood engine enamel. ...and start ordering some parts in the meantime! i hope to have the block painted and be putting parts on it within 2 weeks. ...we'll see.
oh, and check this out. Why to NOT use RTV on your themostat/waterpump!
well, got the rest of the engine blasted last night. ...that "speed blaster" (SpeedBlaster Media Blaster - Zendex Tool Corporation) sure does work great - as long as your air is dry! like an idiot, I filled my water separator bowl again last night, pulled off the blaster nozzle and hit the trigger to try and clear it out. the little steel insert shot clear across the barn and I spent about 30 mins looking for a dime-sized black cylinder among all the dirt and clutter! DOH!
anyway, the engine is all clean - bare on the undersides, good paint to be scuffed on the top still. so I guess its time to start buying stuff - like paint, oil pump, water pump, etc! the wife and I are going away next week, though, so anything I order now, won't show up till when we're away. its going to be killing me thinking of whats sitting on the porch!
i'll post link to the engine rebuild thread once I start it!
oh, can anyone weight in with what all the different plugs are on the side of the engine. part of it is just curiosity, but like I said, I want to do a bypass filter and figure the return will need to back into one of them... i'll make fill-in the blanks (and some guesses) here if someone can chime in:
blue circles = oil plugs?
red circles = coolant plugs?
purple square = oil plug (even I know that, but is that I good spot for the input to the bypass filter?)
yellow squares (ignore the erroneous one in the top right) = ??? (these look like little bb's stuck the heads. are these the casting injection points?
Hey guys - just a quick check in. still trying to close this thread up, but additional diassembly stuff still keeps popping up. i did get my injectors out and sent to Jim (though still have to call him with payment tomorrow :-)). my HPOP, is at Terminator now (through Clay), and my S366 and school-bus water pump showed up this past week! the wallet is hurting, but i'm trying to get moving on this rebuild! guess i should start that rebuild thread.
first though
- a pressure test revealed that my driver side intake plenum was leaking at 20psi (maybe even less - i could never build more than 10psi on this engine...), so off they came and i'll fab up some SD-style ones.
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