Rod knocking after pulling trailer up steep hill

Oops! Fixed.

 

Ain't this just a pretty little thing?

 

Very clean tho. Props
Looks like even kept the a/c - such a must

 

I just put the tranny in auto going up the hill, maybe half throttle, then on downhill move to manual shift to compression brake.

Got sidetracked, but going to pull the caps soon, get some pictures of the main/rod bearings. Mechanic said he thinks he saw some main/rod bearing material in the pan which makes sense.

Talked to another mechanic friend who suggested doing a motor swap from a wrecked donor truck with 50K miles on it, freshen up the engine.

What do you all think? If I get the sludge cleaned out and look at the valvetrain to look for issues, is it better to put bearings in it where I *know* the condition of the engine, or bet on what a donor rig engine has happen to it?

What's a high mileage on these motors before I'm *supposed* to start having issues like blowby or smoked heads or something?

 

After 177k on the old motor I'd swap for the one with 50k.

 

Swap.

 

Depends on how risky you're willing to live. If it were me and I had a warm shop to work and there was no catastrophic failure of the bottom end or damage to the crank and I had the time, then I would just change the bearings and carry on.

If one of those conditions were not met and/or I wanted a quick and sure fix, I would drop in a low mileage engine and maybe keep the old one as a spare. Emphasis on maybe

 

I rebuilt a smoked Jeep 4.0 motor that had around 150k on it, but then I *knew* what I had, fixed any issues, verified the crank and block were cool, put sealed power parts in it and the thing ran great for another 60K miles until I sold it.

This motor is far more complicated, but cranks are cranks, etc.

 

i would spring for the low mileage given the build up inside that engine.

 

These engine blocks have almost no room for overboring if there is liner damage. And judging by the pictures, you might not know what this engine has been through and you have owned it since day 1. I would consider a low mileage swap engine. But I would still want to know where the failure point was and how bad the old engine was to see if I could not repeat it.

I am curious, what did the oil look like when you drained it? What did the filter look like?

 

There are a lot of factors to consider.

In favor of a replacement engine with a warranty: People crash these trucks every day so they are out there, a low mile engine should offer good service.
The job would be done quickly but at a high up front price.

On the other hand if your current engine didn't have blow by or excessive oil consumption one could *assume* that it wouldn't have those issues when the bearing clearances were corrected.


"Back in the old days" (after dinosaurs went extinct but we still had carburetors) I freshened up old engines with:
a timing set
oil pump
front & rear seals
valve stem seals
valve cover, base pan & timing cover gaskets
water pump

I would Plastigage the bearings and replace if needed, maybe "polish" the crank surfaces with some fine sand cloth. The pistons were never disturbed.

These weren't beat, knocking, oil burner engines, just "tired" ones with some leaks and lower than desired oil pressure.

Cleaning, new seals and gaskets fixed the leaks and improved engine vacuum which makes the engine run cleaner & smoother.
Replacing the oil pump and maybe some bearings got the oil pressure back up.
The timing set made them run smoother because the cam and distributor was now back in sync with the crank.

It wasn't a rebuilt engine, just a smoother, better running, not leaking old engine - ready for several more years of getting you to work every day for not a lot of money.

These were low revving domestic, cast iron inline 6 and V8 engines from another time, I'm not sure if it applies any more. If you are up for a project maybe give it a try.


Man, do I feel old...

 

Well, short drives where the engine doesn’t fully warm up are not good. I question your math. If you only drove a few miles a day, how long did it take to get it to 160k?

 

I’d go with a low mileage swap.

I wasn’t big on your idea of replacing just the bearings to begin with.
Just replacing bearings is a “cheap” way out. And it usually doesn’t work.
Not in a modern day car/truck engine.

You can do what ever you like, but you’ve already taken the engine out
At this point, do a full rebuild or low mileage swap. I’d go swap.

 

No need to feel old. I did the same refresh on several engines of the older domestic V8 variety. It was easy and cheap. The engines lasted well into the 300,000kms range. I even pulled the pistons, ran a hone through the cylinder and put in new rings.

One of these engines even ran as a drag engine in a Mustang. Engines were a lot simpler then.

 

Life was a lot simpler then...

 

It seems like you have the resources and knowledge to go through this engine and get it back on the road. Assuming time is not a huge issue for you AND more importantly assuming you find out exactly what went wrong, Id keep this one. Just me and my tendencies

Don't necessarily think a swap is a bad route to take, but you'll want to verify the new engine. This thread has kind of proved that service records aren't always a good barometer

 

Do the swap! I think the existing engine has too many unknowns. The engine swap is too complex to want to do it over after possibly finding out the current engine has deeper unknown issues.

 

In case you are thinking about sending the oil to Blackstone, they just told me that they currently have an 18-20 day lead time.