Best of luck getting her on the road

 

I sat the motor down on the perch for the motor mounts, but not on the actual motor mounts, to give me the room to reach those top four bell housing bolts.

At that point the heads and fuel rails were on, but the intake manifold was not.

With those 4 bellhousing bolts finally on, *THEN* I connected the fuel line, installed the intake manifold, and bolted on the coil packs.

Once the coil packs, idle air valve, and throttle position sensor were connected electrically... I finally jacked up the motor via the oil pan to raise it enough to allow me to install the motor mounts, then lowered it onto the motor mounts.

 

My 16 year old daughter started the Disco2 on the 2nd try today!

Runs fantastic. So smooth. I had followed the manual on soaking the lifters in motor oil overnight, then depressing each lifter until it clicked multiple times... so there wasn't even the expected "first startup" clatter.

Had to idle it up to break in the new Crower cam.

Engine bay sure was nice and cold...but the gold exhaust tape was a bad idea overall. The downpipes just can't handle that much heat, so the tape now comes off.

Sigh. Back to the hot engine bay.


Feels good to have the Disco back running again, though.

I'll reset the ECU so that it learns the new components tomorrow.




I do like the idea of plastigaging the crank/main/rod bearings in future builds. So I'd add that to my steps in this thread going forward, and I'd suggest *NOT* doing gold exhaust tape on your exhaust manifold.

Other than that, this thread is pretty much how I'd do it all again, if desired.

Of course, I'm an amatuer so I don't recommend you copying me. Ask the pros how to do these big jobs!

 

Congrats man glad to hear it is running!

 

Thanks! It felt good. It ran much more smoothly than I was anticipating, and that was with the new performance cam but old engine fuel/timing parameters (I haven't reset the ECU yet).


Sheesh, are there 1,000 little nuts, bolts, brackets, valves, and connectors on these old trucks or what?!

I kept looking underneath for leaks and listening for the sound of some bolt not being tight, etc.

All good, seemingly.

 

Just following up, the rockers were fine. Cam was *well* worn but not wiped.

 

One rod bearing had noticeable wear, but wasn't spun or completely wiped out.

Main bearings were in bad shape.

One cam bearing was approaching End of Life.

 

Yup. The oil pump was entirely busted up into a few large pieces, which fortunately did not escape the oil pump cover.

The timing chain had a tiny amount of slack in it, but it was not broken. Timing cog+sprocket were fine.

 

Cylinders, pistons, and heads were fine.

Valves were fine. Lapped them. Valve springs and valve seals were fine. Replaced the valve seals, anyway.

All fuel injectors passed my flow+pattern bench-tests with a 9 volt battery and carb cleaner spray.

Old spark plugs were fine, but replaced them, anyway.

Coil packs are fine.

 

That start was December 19, 2017. Rebuilt the motor and got the Disco running again February 27, 2018.

Heckofa project!