IDIBRONCO
IDIBRONCO
What, exactly are you doing here? I know you said that you're rebuilding your engine, but are you overhauling/reringing it? Are you going to do the whole thing with new pistons?
Do you know where the engine came from? If you do, ask the previous owner if they maintained SCAs in the coolant and why the engine was removed to begin with. @IDIBRONCO would you say there is concern with getting a used 7.3 and having cavitation? I would personally fear rebuilding an unknown engine and having pin holes hiding on me.
I would say yes, but... Yes, there's always the possibility of cavitation with a 7.3. But...the general feelings here is that most (if not all) of the blocks that were more prone to it have already had it by now. Like Jasper said, the only way to know is to have it checked. I will go one step farther and say that if you have it bored, have the cooling passages pressure checked if at all possible. Even if it means trying to borrow/rent a set of plates that someone has already made up. Even this isn't 100% certainty. I installed one 7.3 (back in the late 90's) that was pressure checked at the machine shop after the machine work was all finished. It was checked again at our shop before assembly (we used full line pressure of around 120PSI). The block passed just fine. After I installed the engine and was on the test drive, it started blowing a lot of white smoke out of the exhaust. Sure enough, it was antifreeze, so I had to pull it back out and install another one. All we could come up with was that the pin hole was hiding just below the surface of that cylinder. There was enough metal covering it to pass the pressure checks, but the rings must have wore through it pretty quickly. That was probably a one in a million thing, so don't sweat it.@IDIBRONCO would you say there is concern with getting a used 7.3 and having cavitation?
Good advice. I've rarely seen bad bearings unless there has been a lack of oil or maintenance. I've looked at many engines with 250,000-300,000 miles and the bearings would have run for a long time. That said, it's easy enough to pull the pan and check the bearings too. I'd pull a couple of mains and a couple of rods. If those look good, then the rest probably are too.Since you have the engine out, I would at least pull the bearing caps and inspect them for damage and wear. A worn out set of bearings will still have the engine spin smoothly unless there is significant damage.
An intercooler isn't needed, but is highly recommended along with a pyrometer. I can't do any machine work, but I'll do all the rest myself. I did do an overhaul on this one. That's why the pistons are new. When I bought the engine, it had about 120,000 miles on a "rebuild". I wasn't sure if anything had been done to the exhaust valve guides so I decided to pull the heads and have them gone through just for PM and peace of mind. The "machinist" (that's being extremely kind) took too much material off of the heads and didn't hold tolerances very closely. I checked the valve clearances and two only had .0045" clearance between the valves and pistons. That isn't close to being enough. So I had to find some decompression pistons to get my valve clearances back. At that point, all I had left to it being a complete overhaul was the cam bearings so I bought some of those too. I found another, good machine shop to take my parts to. To have the block hot tanked, cylinders honed, and new cam bearings installed cost me $170. I was VERY happy about that. I didn't buy new lifters, since they were supposed to have about 140,000 miles on them. I did put some miles on the engine before pulling the heads. I'm not sure that they had been replaced during the previous "rebuild" since one lifter was too weak to open the Comp 910 springs that I had installed so it got new lifters after that too.Well then. Good to know. Intercooler is needed huh?
How far should i go into this thing if im doing all this? If the motor turns over smooth i can assume the low end bearings are in good shape right? And looks like you have new pistons should i do those along with the rings too? Not really trying to break the bank, although i know much of motor work is pretty pricey. But looks to me that you can do alot on these yourself
It depends on what year of 6.9 he has (this is a 6.9 engine). I did forget to mention that when I mentioned removing them.This one has the press-in cooling jets. Yours will have the bolt-in which are better.
It looks like overuse of silver anti seize to me.What is all the goo on the injectors??