What not to do to an idi...

My 87 dually decided to start making a tapping sound (you may have heard the vid in another thread) and had done so for 1500 miles or so. So now before I make another long trip with the truck my plan is to swap in a known good motor i acquired with the purchase of a parts truck.

The parts truck was bought specifically for the 5spd but just so happened to have a well maintained good running 7.3 w/ 211k on it. It had new injectors and a pump installed right before it was parked in a field for 5 years. I got it running and even with the old fuel it sounded great.

fast forward to last week.... I decide to pull the engine out of my roller ext cab frame and put it on the stand to freshen it up and to install my banks sidewinder kit from my old ext cab. While removing it by myself with an engine hoist thats a bit too small for these engines i managed to pop the dipstick out its hole and seen this!



Mostly that's not oil.....thats WATER!!!! ARGH....

Don't ever let one of these engines sit uncovered...I can only assume the valley pan acted like a funnel. as it was pure water....no anti freeze. I had this engine running and it didnt smoke or anyting or even run funny so I'm doubting its a head gasket or cavitation.

anyway I drained with no exaggeration almost 5 gallons of water out of it. after that I got scared...

this is all i found...







Im going to pull the rockers and pushrods and clean them up but the engine bars over just fine in both directions.... im going to clean it up and run it!

Honestly I would replace the rockers and pushrods. Here is a new set of pushrods and the price can't be beat..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/130887107138?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_245wt_971
The block heater has a look to it like oil is seaping out of it. Might just be from someone installing a new heater and used some grease to seat it.. Don't know from this side of the screen. The engine looks ok internally but the oil pump will have lots of oil in it. I sure would remove the pan and open up the oil pump just to make sure its not ruined from water. This will rid any water thats trapped in the pump too. Remember oil floats on water so any water is at the bottom of the pan. That much water will have forced the oil up into the cylinders and as seen into the lifter area of the block. Sorry to see this kind of trouble too but it sounds like the engine is saveable because it turns over by hand easily.

Oh come on Gary....

Run it like ya stole it n hope for the best!

Al.. For shame.. All that rust that falls off will go thru the oil pump before anything else. Then the filter hopefully will catch most of it but.. Its already done damage to the oil pump gears. Once its worn out its done. No or low oil pressure is no engine. If 5 gallons of water came out where was the 8 gallons of oil if in fact there was that much of both fluids in the engine. I feel this would have been a differant story had the engine been fired up without at least checking the oil level. Pushing that much water thru and engine and the damage it would do tothe rod and main bearings is a horrible vision. Actually the engine may have started but probably would have hydrolocked from the oil pan side of things. Pistons can't move that much oil out of their way when they are driving down into the mess. What a milk shake that would have made. Probably would have blown out the front and rear crank seals.

icanfixall said:

Al.. For shame.. All that rust that falls off will go thru the oil pump before anything else. Then the filter hopefully will catch most of it but.. Its already done damage to the oil pump gears. Once its worn out its done. No or low oil pressure is no engine. If 5 gallons of water came out where was the 8 gallons of oil if in fact there was that much of both fluids in the engine. I feel this would have been a differant story had the engine been fired up without at least checking the oil level. Pushing that much water thru and engine and the damage it would do tothe rod and main bearings is a horrible vision. Actually the engine may have started but probably would have hydrolocked from the oil pan side of things. Pistons can't move that much oil out of their way when they are driving down into the mess. What a milk shake that would have made. Probably would have blown out the front and rear crank seals.

Click to expand...

HOOK.....


LINE......


And SINKER.....

I'm with Icanfixitall.

You always regret MOST the things you don't do.

When I want to gamble, I go to Vegas.

My time is actually worth something, to me and others, so not fully checking out something that is already have 2/3s apart. Especially when it has some bad mojo showing seems. Putting the blinders on and hoping for the best seems foolish to me when you consider how much more work it will be to have to redo it all later... probably at a more inconvenient time and place. There's nothing quite like standing on the side of the road to Sambamtoconga, with your **** in your hand, watching the smoke rising from a dead engine and wish you'd just gone that extra little bit when you had the chance.

I see a lot of little things that would make me want to tear farther into that engine and do some cleanup at least.

Um... I'm pretty sure that riot was joking. I don't see him as the type of guy who would ACTUALLY give that kind of advice to anyone. I've regretted NOT doing lots of stuff when it comes to engines. You live and learn and destroy stuff when you take a gamble. Or at least I do.

So we can all agree that the consensus right now is to tear the rest of the engine apart and get'r'done.

PwrSmoke said:

There's nothing quite like standing on the side of the road to Sambamtoconga, with your **** in your hand, watching the smoke rising from a dead engine and wish you'd just gone that extra little bit when you had the chance.

Click to expand...

Oh, somebody has got to use this quote! It's a keeper!

I know Al was teaseing but some may not have gotten that. What I post is not what a person should do but what a person is being told is mearly a suggestion. follow suggestions or not. Its up the that person asking for help if they think the suggestion is worth salt. Knuckledragger and I had dinner with the originater of this post and wife. They were out here on the west coast on bisuness. Jason is no newbie to these trucks or engines so I know he will do what works for him. If it was life or death and I found my crankcase with 5 gallons of water I sure as hell would drain off the water and drive the engine till I was safely to my place.. This is dependant of life or death. Anybody would do the same thing knowing the probable damage being done but safety and a persons life means way more than an engine.. At least I think so.

ok well i got the engine rotated enough to look underneath... no pics but the cam and the bottom of the cylinders are as clean as a truck with 211k can be (no rust anywhere). so i swapped over the rockers and push rods from another engine i have and buttoned up the valve train. ill be doing a flush with some cheap oil for the first few minutes of run time and flushing out the coolant as well. pulled out all the lifters and they all looked ok. came right out...all the rollers spin free... didn't realize these engines have roller lifters...

hoping to finish getting it cleaned up and get the oil cooler rebuilt and maybe start swapping engines this weekend

Well thats all great news. Not only does this engine have a roller bearing lifter it shares them with most all psd and chevy diesel engines. At one time these were a roller lifter but it had a bushing bearing instead of the needle roller bearing. Those are known to stick and then the cam goes flat.. Not a good thing. I have a new set of those museum pieces. They actually have more surface area to spread out the pressure than a needle bearing does.

If you didnt' have extra rockers and pushrods, I would of seriously considered wire brushing the loose rust off the rockers and push rods and ran them. Glad to hear the lower end looks good.

the rockers i will do just that and they will get installed in my other motor i just took the clean ones out of... the pushrods....nope...i got another set coming hopefully to put back in that as well. these engines are kinda known for bending pushrods...last thing i want to do is use a compromised one...