Well suppose it's time for an update. You guys have learned by now this project has slowed to a crawl
The previous 4BT out of the donor ram 1500 got pulled. I spent the money for a soda blaster from Eastwood since I wanted to clean this engine up and paint it.
I then bought a small greenhouse to contain the dust the soda would make. Rigged up air movement, and needed to filter the hazed air leaving the containment so built some duct work with those fancy outdoor water minsters installed in it.
Worked like a charm.
I stripped the engine down, pulled the head to inspect the Pistons and cylinder walls. All looked pretty stinkin good.
Masked everything off, plugged all the holes and got to blasting.
The black spray paint previous owner painted with came off easy, but the original tan from cummins was proving to be a chore.
It also had a solo layer of oil in some spots but the blaster made quick work of that.
I get down to the side of the block and come across some sort of sealant smeared all the way across the very bottom of the block above the pan rail.
As soon as I hit it, I knew what I was dealing with.
Soda wasn't touching it so broke the chisel and hoped for the best.
Started scraping and uncovered gold metal............weld filler.
Crap!
Turns out the block had a crack from front to back above the pan rail. Of course I was not told this.
I reached out to the seller, which I suspected wouldn't return calls, but he did.
He said he knew nothing of the crack as he bought the engine as is and tossed it in the truck and called it good.
I verified this by his build thread on other forums which depicted the truck getting the swap and the engine was already painted black and oil covered.
He said he talked to the farmer ache bought it from and he said on of his laborers had run into the engine with a fork lift and cracked it. He took it somewhere that "fixed" it. He used it for a couple years before deciding to sell it.
Well, anyone who knows welding knows engine blocks are tough to properly repair, and grinding a chamfer and welding up a bead just doesn't cut it.
This was made apparent by the signs of the cracks propagating outside of the filler metal now.
Honestly, I'm surprised the block lasted this long. It obviously had leaks indicated from the silicone smeared all over it.
My plans were to juice the engine up a but with injection pump tuning, injectors and compound turbos. With that plan ahead, I didn't feel comfortable using this engine.
Yep, another roadblock.
So now I have a fancy iron paperweight in the shop I don't know what to do with. I COULD buy a new block, but the engine serial number for the engine shows this engine came from Case equipment, and cummins sells the rights to all their engines that goes into case equipment.
Talking to Case, they can't identify what exact engine this is off the provided ESN. Stuck again.
There are hundreds of variants of these engines all built for different applications and rather then rolling the dice on the parts hoping they would work, I decided to out this one aside for now.
I've been searching ebay and Craigslist for quite sometime for a 4BT with little luck.
There is a seller on eBay that sells these religiously, but my research online about him was disheartening and I choose not to work with him.
So the search was still on.
Finally I stumbled across a single line add, with no pictures. Didn't seem promising, but made the call anyways.
Talked to the guy and he sounded legit so decided to take the hour trip up north to look at it.
He had pulled this one out of a Grumman bread truck to use for a 4x4 project. This is great because these particular engines come with the coveted p-pump injection pump. They a re rated for higher factory horsepower (120) and are much more tunable for higher power levels. My reads indicate this factory pimp with the proper mods can fuel enough to support 500hp on the top end.
Great news!
So I decide to pull the trigger on ANOTHER FREAKIN ENGINE.
I ask him how we can load it, and he says he has a skid steer on the farm.
He leaves and roll up about 20 minutes later with a skid with 1 broken bead wheel and hay tines on the front
Needless to say, it took us almost 2 hours to remove said engine from the pickup bed he had it stored in, and into my truck (with a brand new $3k topper).
It was quite sketchy to say the least. I wish I had video of it cause it HAD to be entertaining to anyone watching.
So now this thing is in the truck and home. Now to figure out how to unload it.
This thing is 800lbs dry, and kinda sorta strapped to a half failing wood pallet, and not at all stable in the back of the truck.
So I enlisted the neighbor to come help unload.
http://youtu.be/S6bjppEYmjk
After all that fun, I mounted the engine on the engine stand, rigged up the battery and fuel and am now working on getting it to fire.
These trucks are a nightmare to bleed the fuel system out if you get air in it. I've gotten it to pop a few times, but not totally light.
So anyways, there you have it. I'm nearly done on the mortorcycle project for my buddy so I can get cracking on this again.
I've actually told him his bike needs GONE ASAP! I'm itching BAD to get back to work.
