Brown Truck Under the Knife Project - Engine

Haha, not a permanent lift but yea I had to unbolt the cab because I couldn't separate the up pipe of the turbo which required ALLOT of clearance to get it down past the transmission.
At this point there looks to be absolutely ZILCH for clearance on both sides of the engine at the firewall. Both valve covers are sitting up against the firewall. I'm not very happy about that right now because it WILL work one way or another. But its hard telling right now because the cab is so out of whack being 6" higher than its normal mounting point, it has slid an easy 3" to the passenger side, it almost fell off the blocks last night shoving it around trying to get the turbo past the firewall. But the turbo is on and thats what counts right now.
I guess I never thought anything about the IP feed line being open.

I'mna be in the same boat as You this winter. I need to pull My motor and the Turbo down pipe looks like a PITA to get seperated.

I needa do the heads, and a return hole in the oil pan for the Walker AirSep.

Boy let me tell you all, I am SICK of incompetent people. I KNEW something wouldn't go right with this custom drive shaft. I didn't when I went in there but after the 80 year old guy at the counter got **** snotty with me when I started telling him what I wanted and he came back with "WELL, do you have ANY MEASUREMENTS?" that's when I could tell something wasn't gonna turn out right. I told him no that I did not have any measurements and asked nicely if he could just look up the correct length for a single cab F350 in his book (this shop is BIG on making replacement drive shafts and they have books listing the proper OEM drive shaft lengths and configurations) he yet again got ****** with me and said "well I'd have to dig the book out on that and for that old of a vehicle that book would be in the office somewhere." Ok I said, and then asked if he'd go measure the drive shaft in my brothers truck and take an educated guess on how much longer the F350 one would be from that one. I should have known to not even be giving him that much slack but did like an idiot. Anyway when I asked him to go outside he gave me this look like I'd just asked him to give me his right arm and said "I'm not going out there it's windy and cold." At that point I got a little pissed and came back with "well do you have a F#%^*@& tape measure I could use?" He handed me this tiny little POS and I proceeded to go outside and get the measurements. I came back and told him the universals on that shaft were 50" apart, and then said MY truck is the height of an F350 though so it will be longer than 50" he gave me yet another ****** look and wrote down something on his note paper and told me they wouldn't get to it until the next week. I told him I wanted the leftover pieces of my old drive shafts and you guessed it another ****** look and another grumbling note in his book.
SO now for the good part. I go to put the drive shaft in today and guess what? TOO SHORT! After its tied to the rear axle the slip yoke is only about 1.5" onto the splines of the transfer case. I couldn't believe it, and pretty much knew it wasn't going to work like that, but called Mel and my dad to ask their opinion. They confirmed my belief that it wouldn't work like that. So I measured it and it came up to 49 7/8"... 1/8" shorter than what I told them my brothers was and IT needed length ADDED to it! So now I've got a $200 drive shaft that does me about as much good as **** on a boar hog, I wont be able to drive my truck until I get a new one, and that jack ass will probably blame ME for his laziness! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Made lots of progress on the truck today, almost had it running, but got so pissed when the drive shaft didn't work that I decided to walk away from it.

Holy crap, Sean! whats up with the parts stores down there??

I've usually had decent service around here and the shops that had know it alls are long gone. The place I shop at now basically killed them off. Its amaizing to see the change in attitudes at the places that are just barely hanging on after years of business where they could treat new customers like crap and use excuses like minimum purchase to not help you.

Now that there's an economic crunch, the service has only gotten better. I don't understand how ****** like that still have work in this economy. Generally service gets better when money is tight. Either that or they go out of business.

Maybe its just our canadian way to be polite to customers??

Ya know Sean, you can usually peg a bad thing coming; crabby 80 year old? I would have ran for the hills to another shop. Probably off the meds.

Yea that's the only problem though. There are no other shops in town that will touch anything truck related, too much of a liability or something. The shop that screwed up my drive shaft is the same one we have to take our trucks to for front end alignments. This is the same shop that I ranted about last fall that I witnessed one of their techs almost blow my truck up when he couldn't get it started and when he did he mashed the pedal to the floor for 20 seconds. This really sucks that they are this way because they are literally the only place for truck guys to go. I buy all of my filters through them, they do all of our alignments, I just don't know what to do. The only thing they seem to do right is order me the right filters. They WILL be remembering me after monday because this is ridiculous. I will not be held financially accountable for something they should have done correctly. This is the second time they have seriously screwed up a job for me.

Failed yet again.

Didn't get it running yet again today. Just crap after other crap and it adds up. Not even the front drive shaft would bolt up because apparently the F350 transfer case yoke is different than the F250 ones. Not even close to bolting up. So I'll need to go buy that now, and you can guess from what shop. Yep, the only place around that can get this type of stuff.
As difficult as that outlet hose is to get onto the turbo I don't think I want to replace it. lol
Does anyone know of a company that I could have make me a custom silicone coupler/hose?

Anyway I finished tonight ready to install the radiator support but it was almost 8pm here and it was 24*. I decided my toes had had enough of the cold and called it quits.

Unfortunately my brother seemed to get what turned out to be most of the crappy jobs.

I see a business opportunity calling right now. Nebraska Diesel and Driveline. Nice ring to it. That shop needs some competition, Sean. Hey, if you do it and it goes big, just remember me (ya know, 10%-15%).;p

Check out www.turbohoses.com for the connectors.

Should've Would've Could've

Well... I was so close to getting it running today! Literally the last few bolts to turn, installing the starter, my brother was filling the radiator, the next thing I know drip drip on my forehead. *** I thought and started looking for where it was leaking antifreeze. First place I looked was the new heater outlet hose, nope, but what's that oh yes that's where its coming from! The old block heater freeze plug. I couldn't believe it. I didn't touch any of the freeze plugs figuring why mess with a good thing, none had ever leaked before. Well not even tightening the screw in the thing would seal it up so guess what I get to do IN THE TRUCK NOW. Yea, replace that freeze plug, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in that area.
But here's some update pictures just to keep ya'll in the loop.



Oh yea I had to cut out a HUGE hole in my passenger wheel well to fit the intercooler. This thing is making me thing I should have used a different intercooler.

You know, I had the exact same problem when I put my truck back together...stupid block heater! I ended up installing a rubber expandable freeze plug. I know that many people frown on that, but it's still working just fine 4 years later, and I didn't (and still don't) have the special freeze plug install tool to put a proper freeze plug in place

Now that I've said that, it'll blow out on me while I'm on my way back from L.A. ...

The block heater hole is different than the others IIRC.

Sean. The block heater has an oring on it and the screw, just replace them.
Also you may need to hack off the bottom half of the fenderwell anyway to let all that heat out from under the hood. Thats what I am going to do.

Also make sure you wipe down that driveshaft before it falls thru the shop window.

Moments away!

Well I rubber freeze plugged that sucker because IH said they wanted $90 to install that one plug and they didn't have the tool nor the freeze plugs on hand so they'd have to order both. It's been pouring down freezing rain all afternoon and I've been laying in a 2" puddle of water for the last 2 hours. But its ready to go! Only thing holding me back are two dead batteries. lol
I guess somehow my clutch hydraulics must have bled some air into the system because my pedal goes all the way to the floor.

The company I had build the driveshaft said they would build me a new driveshaft free of charge, but were a little hesitant until I pulled out the "you have two options, build me a new drive shaft on your dime, or I'll shove this drive shaft up HIS ASS!" comment. lol. It was most likely the threat that I'd be withdrawing all of my business from their store if they didn't comply. I bring all of my bosses service supply needs there and have a few friends I could persuade to quit purchasing tens of thousands of dollars in goods there as well. But long story short, I got me a new drive shaft, hopefully this one is the correct length.

Well it runs but...

Now it leaks oil out of the filter to housing seal so bad that I cant run it but a few seconds before the oil level is completely off the stick. I took a filter wrench and tightened the filter down as tight as I could and it still leaks. I am so sick of this thing!
You know what! My luck, it's the filter head, its out of round or something and I have no hope of it EVER SEALING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OR!!! OR!!!! I've got a head gasket pressure leak into an oil passage!!!!!!!!!! YEA!!!! THATS MY LUCK!!!!!!!

The timing on this thing must be darn near perfect. It fires as soon as the key is turned over and it just purrs along. Its crazy how nice it runs and i haven't even timed it yet! Now if I could only get that filter to quit leaking.

This project has lost all fun or enjoyment that it once had. I am actually sick of working on this thing. **** just keeps breaking and they are always the most severe of problems.
The oil leak is the oil cooler gasket.