as in, thats what I did today,,, PIDDLE,,,

Ran the wires and installed the Backup camera. Have it ready to wire in on the forward side when I install the transmission. Installed my new horns,,, still not happy about the tone, but much happier that she doesn’t sound like a strangled Canadian Goose anymore. Re-arranged the main caps by the marks I finally found, and yes, they were completely ass backwards, front to back,,, I even refitted the busted cap, just to see,,, it dropped right in the #4 slot like it was made for it, (DUH!) Did this shit to meself,,, should have double and triple checked BEFORE pulling them, maybe even re-tagging them with my Stamps while in place before dropping bolts: Live and Learn.

While I haven’t torqued anything to spec (seeing how they will get pulled yet one more time,,, At least once more,,,) I did run them up two steps and checked my ability to turn the crank over each time,,, It was noticably different from the last time, still takes some oomph, but checking with my digital Torque wrench, about 20ft/lbs of pre-load. and thats with all 8 of the con-rods still attached. That might go as high as 30 when things are all torqued tight, and if it goes past that, I BACK THE F! UP and start looking for problems.

Parts ordered, but no word on arrival times yet as they have not sent word things have shipped. Alls good, impatiently being patient,,, the J.O.B. should kick back in the morrow, and I desperately need some FRN’s incoming. Just breathing seems like it costs these days.

Fun little convo with Da: I was monkeying with that Backup camera, and of course, he’s looking at my feet sticking out from under the ass-end of Bloo and asks ‘Whats back there that needs work?” So I showed him,,, I turned the truck on, and jumpered the wires at the transmission and showed him the camera view in the dash,,, “You’re gonna have 10 grand tied up in this truck yet,,,,”

Hate to tell him, but between the work i have done/am doing, the parts, the purchase, the insurance, and ALL OF THE TOOLS IN THE TRUCK,,,, Closer to 20 grand,,, And thats why I want this truck able to turn a dime soonest. I’ve been spending triple my income the last two months to get her on the road and working with me. She is MY INVESTMENT, IN ME.

and every day she sits, is money flying into other peoples hands. Kinda hurts my backside if you know what I mean.

soon little brother, soon,,,, Patience Grasshoppa, patience,,,, Like I said, Impatiently being patient. not much point in pointing out that I am locked into a waiting game again, but thats the exact point right now.

only been 2 weeks Dio,,, well, almost three now,,,

I know,,, doesn’t help my “Git-R-Dun” attitude,,,, S’far as I’m concerned, this should have been a done deal a week after the first knock,,, IS whut t’is.

mmore laters gonna chill and stare at my eyelids for a spell, let the stillness of my house seep into my soul for a bit. Try to regain that composure of “Patience”

L,L,L,L,L!

(, ‘)

I ordered the 4bolt Main caps last night,,, I know there is some machining involved to make them work, but that seems doable by the desciptions of the parts. Mostly machining the end-roots to match current issue. I WILL be anal retentive about this,,, I need this truck running, sooner than later,,, My paranoia levels with Buffalo are creeping well into the red zone. (Bloo isn’t helping any at all with this issue. the whole ‘what next?’ thing she has been dropping on me. since that rod started knocking. And I know, most of that has been my fuck ups,,, I’ll own it. hell, I AM owning it,,,)

But, What to do with a day off without choice???

I’m going to go play and figure the caps I DO have out, and get that crankshaft to spin freely,,, THAT will aleviate a lot of my stress for the new part,,, I will know where it belongs and orientation and make it ‘right’. The busted cap? I’m sticking it in my 20ton press to close those cracks up and measure every single detail about it!!! Not going to try welding on it unless thats ALL I have left to work with. THAT will be a temporary thing until I have better options: I wouldn’t trust it even if it came out perfect. Not because I don’t trust my welding, but because I know the material.

Reasons for my stress have been discussed, not necessarily here, but those of you’n’s that have my email and converse there regular are in the know. I will leave it at that. Yes, I am stressed over this truck, and its hogging up space at my Da’s. Good note though,,, Having been in his basement a week, and his NOT smelling fuel or fumes,, he broke down yesterday and built a fire to keep the house warm. THAT relieves ONE of my stressors,,,

But by no means all of them.

And you probably already figured out the ‘no work today’ thing is one of the bigger ones,,,

Yes,,, will not deny it.

and for now, “IS what it is”,,, I am doing what I can, how I can. Life ain’t easy, and I would worry if it were,,, usually means some one is about to put a shiv in your ribs or drop an 81mm mortar on your dumb ass. Just my opinion mind you,, YMMV and if so, I applaud you. That ain’t my life,,,

Maybe its mindset,,, usually is, right? Well, I’m working on that as well as my current situation leaves my mindset in tatters more than I care for. Twuck ain’t helpin’ none currently, but as I have stated and others have told me, ONCE she is reliable again, shes FRICKIN’ GOLD on wheels. She can be anything I want her to be, and depending on the tools within, CAPABLE more than I currently am. As I have stated, ALL of the tools I have used (with the exception of that space heater) came from her tool boxes. ALL OF THEM,,, And I have more at the ready as needed. THAT, is a powerful amount of leverage into ‘doing my own thing’. I can’t let that go because of frustraion. Hard choices, easy life,. Easy Choices, hard life.

Maybe I took too many easy choices in me past,,, (some weren’t ‘easy’ by any means, but SURVIVAL at its core,,, Leave a relationship or bury some one, likely ME.for example.) Nuff about that shit though. I have stuff to do, likely won’t take all day, but IF I DON’T, I will be behind the curve when I need to be on it,,, and gather information as much as I can gather because this little side trip requires it.

and paying frellin’ attention to details,,, of which I did not and how I ended up here… All on me,,,

L,L,L,L,L!

(, ‘)

Fun fact: Hydraulic fluid doesn’t really like to flow below 10F,,, Went to press the busted cap and my press ain’t moving. Too thick to flow into the pump part. Days warming, so I ain’t out of the game yet. (and no, its not a POS issue, I used this press just last week and it worked fine, ABOVE 30F,,, There is a post from way back on this blog when I built the daggum thing, using Roadside gaurdrail I-beams for the frame.)

that jack is an 8 ton and I upgraded to a 20 ton about a week later. This thing is a beast.(note, campstoves make GREAT portable tool heater-uppers,,,)

What happened?

Looks like a series of unfortunate events, all induced by me. ONE: I was in a quite awkward position, with limited visuals. Had I been doing this correctly, engine out of the chassis, on a stand, standing in an upright position with good lighting, I would have seen that ‘doesn’t quite fit’ cap. TWO: I should have noted the lack of Numbering and alignment (I did note it, just was confident that I could keep things in order, NO, Doesn’t work like that.) and I had the tools to make marks of my own, and failed,,,, That failure is evident now, ain’t it? THREE: Don’t get in a dag-blamed rush!!! My desire to get this twuck on the road and doing me service has done me a DISSERVICE, as well as a potential TOTAL FAILURE. I do not know that I can find an adequete replacement cap. Looking online, NO ONE sells them. I have an option in Donor Truck, maybe, IF I’M FRELLIN’ BLESSED IN THIS LIFETIME,,, Yes, the dimensions are the same: does NOT mean the bores are identical, (updated: sis find online and no donortruck parts wont work, not in this case. Maybe for Buffalo ,,,)

And I need to get the parts out to compare them and you can believe I am going to be comparing them with MEASURING TOOLS from my machining stuff. NO GUESS WORK HERE, NOT THIS TIME.

FWIW: I pulled the cap off #4 and suddenly, the whole thing spun FREE,,, It was not prior, though it was moving. So, my issue was swapped out #2 and #4 main caps,,, And the fact that that cap is busted like it is,,, It likely was cracking when I torqued it, but still things were still moving sorta freely at that point. When the crack let loose, was when everything clamped tight.

Can that cap be repaired? Yes and no. Yes, it could be, but would it ever be right again? Hard call that. I could press it to close the cracks, open the edges of the cracks up with a diegrinder, and TIG them. BUT, there is a lot heat involved and steel SHRINKS when exposed to that sort of heat. SO, the question at that point, would it shrink enough to tighten that journal more and need to be rebored? Likely. VERY likely actually. I haven’t the means to rebore a crank tunnel. And the whole engine would need to be pulled to do so.

You see where all of this is going don’t you? Shoulda paid attention, not just to my actions, but to the words of those wiser than myself.

Learn from my pain.

Live

Learn

Laugh

LOVE

LOAD!

(side note: none of the bearings show any adverse wear from this little snafu. All clean and polished as if new. That Pre-lube did something right. Also, none of the bearings, with the exception of #2, had any of that crap on them when I pulled things apart. Even the Rod-ends were clean of it, so the oil drive DID clean it out. )

is a problem.

looks like Bloo sits even longer.

how? Is my question,,, I’m miking everything now.

no need to Mike it out, did it to meself.

not payin attention, cap in wrong slot even though I thought I had kept shit in order,,,,

Things were goin’ SOOooo good. Crankshaft torqued to spec, still cranked over by hand and starter, go ahead and put oil pump and splatter plate in, still cranked over,,,

Put on oil pan, fully installed the flywheel (had only three bolts on it for checking crankover, and had to be removed to install the pan and rearmain seal,

NO CRANKS,,,

W! T! E! L! F!!!!

WElllssss,,,,,,

It was warming up outside and Dad wanted to air the basement out a bit. That outside temp is15-20 cooler than in,,,

and the block got cold. I was actually enjoying the drop in temp as I was working up a sweat inside. BUT, I hadn’t contemplated how that drop would effect the block: more specifically, that Assembly lube I used,,, That shit thickened up and while the engine is NOT LOCKED UP, I can turn it, with an incredible amount of OOOMPPHHHH!! I even pulled some out of the tube between fingers,,, its REALLY thickened up even there.

And we verified this by draining out the oil I had put in, trying to lube the block with fresh and push that lube out. (Had an old Distributor that I sacrificed to make a drive link to the oil pump. That little endeavor took about an hour to pull it apart and chuck in the lathe to cut the gears off.) That seemed to ease up the preload some. Then drain it, put in an old soup pot and heat over dads Propane stove he uses for melting beeswax. Got the oil to around 250, poured it back in and ran the oil pump again. ( could hear the lifters fill up and engage,,, kinda cool) Did that for about 5 minutes and yes, the preload eased off even more, only to be right back on, as the oil was cooled by that cold block.

Called it at that… Went to the J.O.B. shop, grabbed up my little space heater that I use to keep my hood from fogging up on cold days, came back and set that up blowing on that flywheel,,,, Heat the flywheel, heat the cranshaft, and MAYBE warm that GOOP up some and can flush it clear with the oil pump in the AM.

Yes, it was a hot battery, yes, I have the battery on a charger even as I write this. And MOST DEFINITELY do I have my fingers crossed that my thinking is correct,, ‘Cause I really DO NOT WANT TO PULL ALL THAT SHIT BACK APART TO CLEAR OFF THE GOOP.

BUT, For my future reference, I will NOT be using assembly lube anymore,,, I think straight 10w30 or Autotrans fluid would have sufficed and not bound my shit up.

9 hours today,,, and 6 of them have been trying to get that engine loosened back up to where it was this morning after I torqued things tight. NOTE, AFTER I torqued things tight,,, It was still able to be turned over by hand and starter at that stage. I can’t see how putting on a flywheel would “Bind her up”,,, I just can not see how putting on that oil pan bound anything up,,, It doesn’t bolt to the bearings,,, The only place it does meet up is at the timing cover and the housing of the rear main seal. I also didn’t see any interference betweent the flywheel and the block (and it DOES move smoothly, but only under incredible amounts of force.)

time for shower and make me a dinner,,, let the overnight with the space heater warm the whole damned block up to above ambient and ‘Will see’. If’n I gotta, I will pull it all back apart and clean all that crap off and use oil instead.

just don’t wanna,,, Hates doin’ shit twice, especially that torque sequence ‘in vehicle’,,, that sorta sucked,,, ok, not Sorta,, It DID suck,,, But I did it and don’t wanna again,,,

more laters, like tomorrow: hopefully with better news of PROGRESS,,,

I do have the transmission on the jack, (under twuck, in tunnel.) and I was going to install it today; Until I realized the engine felt locked up,,, Assuming that I can get things free tomorrow, getting the rest should be ‘easy’ compared to todays trials.

L,L,L,L,L!

(, ‘)

(and b4 asks, no, I did NOT put the sparkplugs back in yet. This is NOT a compression issue.)

(note: the few times I have done engine rebuilds, I used Lubriplate 105. I couldn’t find any locally, so bought something else.)

on the J.O.B. chasin’ FRN’s,,,

Needed it. AND, It’s gone!!! I had two bills run due this week, and usually I can space them out, but this time, Nope,, BOTH in line and no alternative, and that with it being another weak week.

All good, they are paid, and I can breath some, and PRAY that next week is a FULL week (kinda doubt it looking at the weather liars predictions.)

Anywhoos,,, Nothing done on Twuck due to my not being anywhere NEAR Twuck today. (other than stoppin’ in and checkin’ on Da,,,)

Tomorrow on the other hand,,,, I get bizzy,,, With the Crankshaft in, I am on the downhill slide of this repair job. Yeah, I still have to install the clutch, but thats all part of the ‘puttin’ her back together’ aspects. And with that Trans-jack, that should be near painless. NEAR, Heavy gearboxes are NEVER painless. At least I won’t have to wiggle my ass under the thing to do bench presses to get it in place. Thats usually the worst part of it.

After that,, its just a matter of lining up bolts and feeling for the ‘ClunK! as everything lines up and slides into place.

Gonna call in an early evening again, so I can get an early start and have more day to do,,,,

Da may not appreciate the early wake up call, but I do know that he will appreciate Twuck being out of his basement. I’d like that to be before dusk tomorrow. And WILL make the effort to ‘make it so’.

Y’all take care, I’ll be back here as soon as able and with something to say, hopefully.

Live

Learn

Love

Laugh

LOAD!

UPDATE: Hopin like hell that I can complete this tomorrow. The next 48 look HORRID

Snow storm blowin in last night, Contacted Brudda B about where the front was as he was in direct line to it between m’self and weather front. That was around 7pm.

He contacted me back at 8:30,,,

I was sawin’ logs, watchin’ the movies play on the inside of me eyelids,,,,

I did not wake up till wee early hours due to hydraulic pressures,,, Somewheres around 3aye-em. then right back into the depths of Lucidity.

Its rollin’ onto 6:30 here and I am getting mine arse prepared for the J.O.B., but fully prepared to recieve that “no work today” text as well. Not that its a shit ton of snow that we picked up, but that snow traverses the state and our work site is half way to the other side. A few hours worth of driving, and I’ma bettin’ Son of Bossman calls it. Safety First, right?

that last would be my usual day,,,,

Rather surprised that poppin’ that crankshaft in dropped me like it did. Maybe it was just the sudden relaxation of ‘its all downhill now’ that knocked me over. Dunno. Just know I was down for the count and had 4 sets of eyeballs looking at me longingly this morn when I did rise. Daddy sorta forgot the foodbowls needed attention. Oops. The little beggers ain’t starvin, but you’d swear by the reactions this morning, they hadn’t eaten in MONTHS,,, ROFL

nudder cuppa and watch the time,,, Will know my heading here shortly, or at least enough that I will know if its an income day or self productive.

more laters.

L.L.L.L.L!

(, ‘)