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Not much progress made. Took some time off for the holidays, then life happened. Anyways..... I have the doubler, transmission & motor mounts back together again. Reinstalled tcase shifters & trans tunnel. Antiwrap bar back together. I also made a new tracbar for the front, since my old was was a bit short, and bent a little bit. I must have goofed on the lower tracbar mount location on the 'new' D60, presumably because of how hammered the old body was. Ended up that when the new body was 100% done, i had to extend my tracbar a good 1½", which left me with quite a good bit of the shafts from the heims sticking out. It looked like a failure waiting to happen. So i built a nice beefy (and slightly longer) one using parts i got from RuffStuff during their black friday sale.  Im hoping to get back out there tomorrow to see what else i can get done. Its january and there's snow in the forecast. Not a great update, but progress is progress. So, this happened:  Damn thing fought me every step of the way, but its in. Its the holidays, so we'll get back to this one in january. Happy new year everyone! Welp, the engine for the 88 is back, so lets get it assembled! Rotating assembly:  oil pump/pickup:  heads  ...and damn near everything else!  So with that all done, we're pretty much ready to drop the motor back in! And as long as the weather holds, that should be happening next week... The parts pile grows.   One complete set of leaf springs out of an Excursion! The front leafs are U-Code, and will be perfect for doing a leaf SAS on the '90. The rear leafs will go on the pile for now, as possible replacement springs for the rear of the '96 F250. So weve got this '97 10.25 with 4.10s thats been sitting around in the yard, so were going to use this for the rear axle.  Up front the plan was to do another 3/4 ton TTB using chevy parts, with a junkyard third since the '90 has 3.55 and we want 4.10. So we made a trip up to EZ Pull, and scored:  While we were there we also picked up a newer dome light, and a big trans cooler, both of which will be going in:  The icing on the cake though, is this:  All that work disassembling a 3/4 ton chevy D44, just so we could find a '96 D60 (w/ 4.10s) later! And for a price we couldnt pass up. So now these are sitting in the driveway:  So new plan. Chevy parts go on shelf for spares for the '96, and the '90 is getting a solid axle swap! So we're not ready to start the '90 Bronco build yet, but that doesnt mean we're not gathering parts for it! The current plan is to go 3/4 ton on 35s like the 96 is. And it just so happens we found a set of tires on Marketplace, brand new, for a price too good to pass up so we picked em up and brought em home. 
315/70/17. Brand new, still have the stickers on them. Load Range E, and they have the 3 peak snow rating. i think theyre gonna do pretty good. Time will tell! Well...here we go again! So we found a '90 on Marketplace thats been sitting around for several years. Needs a fuel pump plus a bunch of other minor things from sitting unused for years, but its in good shape, and the price was right, so we decided to pick it up!  Rear wheel arch is in good shape despite that rust-causing trim. Theres a hole in the bottom corner of the fender we'll have to deal with though  Just a little bit in this wheel well...  ...and its definitely going to need a tailgate  The gas tank is rotted and leaking, fuel pump doesnt work, and the brake system is dry. But its got good bones, so we're gonna give it a second lease on life! So the engine is now back at the machine shop again. We'll see what it needs soon enough. In the mean time, i decided to open up the Kaase oil pump. As expected, its ruined as well. All sorts of scoring on the gears, and the aluminum housing as well    So add that to the list of items that will be getting replaced as well. So the engine came out and went back onto the stand wednesday. Spent thursday & friday disassembling it to see just what went wrong. Heres what i found. I had pulled the oil drain plug the night before, so when i got home from work i could immediately drop the pan. This is what i found:  So we're not off to a good start. So i moved to the top end to remove the heads. I bought a cheap ($10) parts organizer from Harbor Freight and used it to organize the rockers + hardware, lifters and pushrods so i could keep track of where they came from
I found 3 pushrods with chips in the top. Coincidentally all exhaust valves  Heads off:  I can see slight scoring in the bores:  Rolled over, lets inspect the bottom end:  If its not clear in the pic, the oil pickup is absolutely covered in metal, to the point of it seeming like it was dipped in nevr-seize  Pulled the #2 crank bearing cap, and well....  Scored to all hell, including the crank journal. Pulled a rod bearing, and same thing:  This is typical of all rod bearings:  Crank is out. All bearings wiped, all journals scored. I hope i can salvage the crank.  Starting pulling lifters. #5 intake lifter is wrecked:
#7 intake lifter also damaged, altho not nearly as bad:  Cam lobe wiped out:  All piston skirts showing wear:  All cylinder bores scored:  And the bare block, waiting for its return trip to the machine shop next week:  You know what they say....any job worth doing, is worth doing twice. 466 on its way back out:  Slinging this thing by myself, without removing the hood, wasnt easy.  So here we are again, back on the stand. Now to see what went wrong.  |
