I think i'm gonna try and finish up painting the chassis with Por-15 today -- Hopefully the paint hasnt dried up (forgot to put plastic wrap on lid)

 

After a solid day's work, I put the finishing touches on the engine reassembly on my project truck. Turned the key and it roared into life. Oil pressure good, and it came up to temperature nicely. A lot of whining from something in the vicinity of the serpentine belt -- not unexpected since it has been sitting for almost two years. Time to start diagnosing the little wrinkles and swapping parts from the donor.

 

Engine swap for the wife's new Rover - done. Now to fix the air suspension.

Still chasing down low oil pressure in my Bro-in-laws Disco. Did the sensor (no joy) - then the pump & pick up O-ring - removed pressure valves and cleaned added a washer to each spring (no joy) - then the main bearings and rod bearings (no joy). Triple checked for a walked cam bearing every time the oil pan was off. Same story, gets up to running temp and light comes on at low idle - top end gets noisy.

Really don't want to do the camshaft bearings. Something on the top end? Any opinions on this one?

 

Nah. Sucks but low oil pressure is typically clogged pickup tube, bad pickup tube o-ring, bad oil pump gears, or worn main/rod/cam bearings.

Of course, low oil pressure can also be a gouged out front cover. I sprang for ~~ $400 for a new front oil pump cover.

If you are going to do new cam bearings then you might as well upgrade cam+lifters because the old cam is likely worn.






*I'm assuming that you have already tried the larger oil filter and heavier oil, plus I run a couple of capfulls of TurboMax additive

 

Woo! Almost 7k of trouble free operation since doing a motor refresh

 

I did. Big WIX filter and heavy oil did nothing. The front cover looked really good as did the old oil pump. It worried me that it looked so good as soon as I saw it. A new front cover would be nice, but I really hate spending money that's not mine! Hard to tell the bro in law that he needs to pony up almost what he paid for the whole truck for a front cover.

I think we'll pull the valve covers and see what can be seen in there before going to the trouble of doing the camshaft.

The whole deal is making me feel like a crappy mechanic

 

Watched my 04 DII sit in the driveway yet another day. Really need time to swap out the t-stat and at least get it half-driveable... (I've been working 70 hrs/week for so long now that I took my current daily driver ('12 Xterra) in to a garage to do normal service that I can do, so that I could sit in the lobby and work on my laptop some more)

anyway, once it's driveable, gotta get it down to Rover Bones (www .britishboneyard .com) and get the heads replaced with refurb ones so I don't keep painting the heads green with antifreeze. Along with that, need valve cover gasket, front cover re-sealed and will have to replace harness for driver-front O2 sensor. Replaced all 4 of them and can't get voltage reading from that one... most likely due to the amounts of oil that the valve covers paint that harness with.

This truck USED to be my daily driver; now it has moved to 'project car' status.

 

Finally got the new cats welded into the little ladie's Disco, and took it to the car wash to clean it up with her little brother.

Her dad was supposed to go get an inspection sticker on it today, so she should be dailying it starting tomorrow. Still needs a MAF sensor, but it's good enough to drive for now.

 

Moved my project truck under its own power for the first time in more than two years. Forgot that I had removed the track and drag links in order to get the oil pan off the engine -- until I tried to turn around at the end of the street that is. Dragged my trolley jack down to it so I could lift up one corner and get both front wheels pointing in the same direction. VERY glad that I didn't try to go any further afield...

 

Uh, yeah, that would be a problem.