Helping Waterloo out with an inframe ...

[Waterloo]

Well, we are still trudging along here at the Rawze School of Mechanics!

We went up to Atlanta and picked up some more parts, hit the dealer, Rush International, I can see why they have a bad reputation, nice guys, but not impressed. I'm going to order the parts from my dealer up in Michigan and just have them drop shipped here to Rawze's house.

The one bright spot was Global Truck Parts, cool bunch in there, know their stuff. One of the few remaining items I have yet to replace is my fan clutch. The dealer wanted $700 for theirs, Global had it for $500 NIB, no core required, so saved a few bucks there. My old fan clutch is the factory original, nearly 1 million miles on her, so replace it now and be done with it, before it fails.

Right now, my personal expenditures are running around $7500 with needed parts, with the new head, cam injector gear, etc, along with other miscellaneous stuff. The dealer came through with the in frame kit, 6 new injectors and two new cams, which arrived the other day. Those parts add up to $13,000... So, I figure to do this job in a shop, you are looking at an easy $28,000 with the machining of the block etc. Anyhow, just wanted to update you guys on the costs.

So, yesterday, Rawze and I machined the block, cutting the counterbore for the new and correct liners. We set the liners with the .020 shims, liner heights came out at .012 of an inch across the board with a half a thousandths variance on two liners. All in all, I would say that is pretty darn good. The old liners were all over the map, from .008 to .012 and no machining of the block. Failure was certain. Here are the new liners, the test fit, we then removed and cleaned all of the crap out of the block.

   

We discussed the liner height issue, we were going to go for 14 but looking at these new carbon packing rings we decided .012 inches would be sufficient. Those rings are questionable to me and Rawze. I heard there have been issues with them snapping in some cases. They are very brittle, I think we made a wise decision. The 600hp motor will be retuned for 450hp and 1650 torque, no need for anymore than that with what I do. Going for fuel economy, I want my 8+ MPG back that I had prior to the first in frame.

Tomorrow I'll be under the truck rolling in the main bearings. Hopefully we will knock those out quickly and get to resetting the liners and hopefully installing the rods and pistons. Supposed to rain later in the day on Sunday, and Monday looks like a wash, more rain.

Rawze did measure the rods for wear, they came out well within specs showing little if any wear. So we should be good to go there when we install those.

Both of us are sore, Rawze's back is killing him, I lost the hitch in my getalong a few days ago. Right hip lower back, neither of us are 18 anymore, and crawling around on the ground and or laboring over the block in contorted positions is not fun. Neither of us are as flexible as we used to be.

This is the big suck, I have done more wrenching this year than driving. This is something that any of you new guys following my saga should know, with these EPA trucks, you are a mechanic first, driver second. It is so frustrating owning one of these trucks, just no fun anymore, continual downtime and labor with no pay coming in. I can see why guys give up and leave the industry, or just go drive a company truck.

And to add to the frustration of the piss poor in frame of two years ago, and having to redo all of this work, I believe I lost the AC condenser in my sleeper too. I saw what looks like freon soaking the two refrigerant lines under the cab where they enter the sleeper berth from below. Going to have to dig into that before recharging the AC system. It never end$.

At this point, I think I will go back to Michigan and open a shop. God knows I don't drive anymore.