Moving Home

[RocketScott]

Update - Boy did that not go as planned

Pulling Snoqualmie pass the engine decided it was done. Temps were a little higher than normal but not crazy. No idiot lights came on and the engine shutdown didn’t kick in

Got into Ellensburg and had a shop check it out. Chunks of bearing in the oil filter and pan. Guessing a liner cracked and dumped coolant into the pan

So, the show went on. Rented a U-Haul and transferred all the important stuff to it. Carried on to Kentucky. I’m flying back on Monday to see what I can do to clean up the mess

Found a shop in Spokane that’s going to see what they can do to rebuild it. Also looking around for good used engines. A 444xt seems rarer than hens teeth though

Feel free to tell me I’m an idiot, because I am. I should have gone though all the gauges to double check that they were accurate. Also should have made sure that the engine shutdown was fully functional. That would have lessened the damage had it shut down when the coolant dropped

[Rawze]

talk about bad luck.

[tree98]

A 444xt is a damn dinosaur isn't it?

And so go the best laid plans of mice and men.

[RocketScott]

It is a dinosaur. But apparently there’s a market for them in Mexico. Several of the engines I found were slated for export

I would be inclined to do a full swap to a newer engine but it’s at a shop 3 hours away from mine. I don’t know how keen they would be letting me work on it at their place. I really just want to get it back to my shop so I can go through everything

[RocketScott]

Last week I flew back into Seatac and have been working on my house to get it ready for sale. Not much movement on the truck other than setting a plan in place:

The shop where my truck is at is going to pull the engine later this week. Seems like they are not in the regular practice of doing something like this and I'm needing to coax them a bit. They didn't really say what their concerns are so I'm guessing there might be an issue of me working on their property and/or their liability with palletizing the engine and getting it out of there. I assured them that I would take care of the blocking and packaging of the engine and they seemed ok with that. I'm happy for them to do as much work as they want to do on it so it's not that I'm being a cheap skate

Once the engine is out I'm going to bring it back to my shop in Tacoma and tear it down to a long block. That will go to a shop in Spokane for a rebuild/reman. Once done I'll bring it back to Tacoma to bolt everything back on then take it back up the hill to be dropped into the truck

Not the most ideal of situations but I'll be happy spending that money knowing the engine is solid. I'm really interested to see what the liners look like when they come out. I did call the shop that did the last 'in frame' before I bought the truck to see if they could work on it. Completely not interested in ever seeing that engine again

[tree98]

(04-07-2021 )RocketScott Wrote:  I did call the shop that did the last 'in frame' before I bought the truck to see if they could work on it. Completely not interested in ever seeing that engine again

Hmm, that doesn't sound like a good thing.

[Rawze]

(04-07-2021 )RocketScott Wrote:  ... That will go to a shop in Spokane for a rebuild/reman.
...

Seen plenty of engines from that area that weren't built worth a damn.

Sounds to me like your going to repeat history with it.

[RocketScott]

The place I talked to sounded ok on the phone. He actually knew about the older big cam engines and wouldn't commit to working on it till he knew he could get the parts

I'm open to suggestions for other builders. Talked to a place in Cali that just gave me a price of $10k without even talking specifics about what engine I had. Another place in Colorado that was going to be around $14k

Is it ok to name names to see if anyone has heard of them?

[tree98]

Why don't you do it yourself?