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Making good progress on engine. But sometimes things get forgotten. Like this plug. Thought something bolted there, but I was mistaken. This is how I always do oil pans with RTV silicone. Let me know your thoughts. Almost complete. Here you can see the homemade dipstick tube I made out of...

Thanks! Hopefully we'll get on an actual adventure soon...

Machine work done, engine assembly continues. Torqued, lashed, seated, and lubed. Hopefully no problems. We loosely installed all the covers and painted everything as it stands, trying not to get paint in where we don't want it. While paint dries, we should probably deal with this silly...

Spending a lot of time indoors cleaning and painting. Finally got around to cleaning the oil pan that has been thrown into the corner of the garage. Lots of metal chunks down there. One of the reasons we're doing a full rebuild, who knows where all that metal has gotten to. Did an easy clean...

Plenty still to do. Found a good spot to install a pyrometer. Keeping track of exhaust temperature is a great idea to make sure nothing bad is happening. The exhaust manifold is pretty thick. So much easier to do this with the engine out of the vehicle and the manifold in a vise.

Things tend to fall of trucks around these parts...

Oh boy, almost forgot to show everyone this one bolt we had to reach. It was at a crazy funny angle to loosen... Always make sure to carry a swivel or two. Don't forget a few extensions in your toolbox. Oh yes and wobblehead extensions are great to have too. Dang that thing was a pain in...

We've lost the garage! There are tools and parts everywhere! Still have plenty to do while we wait for some engine block and head machining to be done. The torque wrench is sitting in the drawer waiting patiently for reassembly...

We all seem to share the same hopes and dreams. 2020 was terrible, but gee willy was it good to have time for builds.

Been very busy breaking down rest of engine and cleaning things. Only broke two bolts during the entire teardown process. One just happened to break flush in the head where the exhaust manifold bolts to. Drilled a hole to get an extractor in there, but then the drill bit snapped just as it...

After opening up the engine, tearing it completely down, we've come up with the conclusion that yes, it was very low on oil. Enough to maybe have enough pressure to get oil to the main bearings, but not enough to get up to the rod bearings, reason why the mains were fine but the rods were...

Haha, ya darn tootin we'd be on the packages! JB Weld working on keeping 10's of thousands of explosions per minute acting on it would be a feat for sure. Yea, we're gonna get a new crank and bearings and do it right.

Oh geez, ya'll are really putting the pressure on us! Now I'm not sure if the repair will hold. I guess maybe we can get a new crankshaft... ?

Crankshaft was a pain to line up straight and set right with the JB Weld. We'll let it set up for a few days. In the meantime, we're gonna need some new bearings. It looks like with the low level of oil, the main bearings were getting some oil, but not enough volume to get oil to the rod...

The 4BT does vibrate more than the 6BT. Broken cranks aren't common, but they do happen. This isn't my first one. It does say made in Brazil on it, not sure if that has anything to do with it. This engine just had a normal crank pulley on it. We'll be sure to get a proper harmonic balancer on it...

Dug deeper into our mess... Went looking for a killer dowel pin. And taking suggestions from others to fix the crankshaft, we're gonna give it a whirl. At this point, anything is worth a shot.

Got the engine in the garage. Time to tear this down and see what the issue is. Took off the clutch and flywheel. Started a "part to keep" pile. Showing off our confidence that we know what we're doing. Diamonds, no wait, turbochargers are a girls best friend! Flipping things over and...

Engine out of the van, time to dig into this mess and make something go right. It looks so lonely in there...

The engine ran perfect! Even started down to 14 degrees f with no grid heater or glow plugs. But, it was low on oil, so I think we're going to blame that. The dipstick read good on the oil level, but when the oil was drained, only 5qts came out. This engine is supposed to have 10qts. We think it...

Worst Christmas gift ever... JB weld and duct tape can't fix everything. Gave up trying to fix it in the parking lot. Getting towed. We ran out of food and clean underwear living in this parking lot anyway.