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82 stepside. Thoughts and crazy ideas

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I lied, I didn't get to her Friday night, waited till today. So I started digging into why she suddenly stopped starting. Since I didn't see anything the other night that was suspicious. I decided to just check everything systematically. I began by checking the ignition switch, everything had power where it suppose to. In the start position power continued down to the neutral safety switch. I pulled the neutral switch to check it and while a little worn it does work. I'm going to replace it since they're cheap enough.

The next step was tracing power down to the starter solenoid. I applied power with a power probe, very handy tool, to see if the starter would engage. No luck. So I move to the starter itself. I put power to the solenoid and low and behold she cranks over :woot:. So starter is good along with the other switches.

Now I started to dig into the "bad" wire. So far what I've checked the wire doesn't appear to have any damage :thinking:. I still have a little more to check. I ran out of time today but I'm going to run a temporary wire to confirm that everything else is working as it should.

The thing that is really annoying is that the harness is only 12 years old.
 
So I made up a list of things to do before the probable southeast meet up.

Must do:
Fire extinguisher. Seen too many burn on fb lately.

Tune engine. Engine has a slight knock while idling. Probably a sticking injector.

Fix trans lockup. I was working on this when the engine blew.

Reinstall driver side fuel tank. 1 tank would suck on a long trip

Recharge A/C system. It's nice having A/C on the trail.

New wipers. Helps to see.

Front recovery point. Handy but hopefully not needed.

Header wrap on downpipe. This will prevent the use of said fire extinguisher.

Transfer case output seal. Helps limit self under coating.

U-joints in driveshafts/spares.

Boost hose to wastegate. Because :burnout:

Nice to have:
Stereo. Tunes to make the miles pass by

Tonneau cover or cap. Keep stuff safe and dry.

Cruise control. Keep my foot from hurting.


All this and get some test running using her as my daily for a bit. That a doing some shorter trips beforehand also.
 
Well unless I either find a pot of gold, hit the lottery or get a sugar mama. I'm out any trips for next year. Those plans are :weapon11:.

So in my quest to figure out the slight miss the engine has while idling I noticed a decent drip after about 5 minutes or so of run time. After some digging I found it to be coming from the dust cover. So I figured the rear main seal was leaking. While new the engine did sit for about 5 months without being turned over. So the seal drying out was plausible.

This weekend being a 4 day one for me I figured would be the perfect time to tackle changing it. Should be simple enough, ORD crossmember can be unbolted same as the exhaust crossover. Now when I drained the oil pan I noticed that the oil looked kinda thin. I was super concerned as to a cause since I figured I had an injector that was partially sticking. But it didn't have any fuel smell to it. I finally pull the pan down and I see a pretty fair amount of grit in the bottom of the pan. Pulling the oil pump and #5 main reveals more thinned out oil and the wear you see in the pictures. When I ran my finger on the main bearing I felt very large like sand kinda large grit. So she's done :zombie2:.

Which caused me :doah::thinking:. Looking at the marks and such I'm pretty confident in saying that coolant found its way into the oil. Sadly I'm also pretty sure that it got in through the head studs. On the 6.x engines all but like 4 head bolts threads contact the coolant. Which makes it easy for coolant to get to the oil when something goes wrong. Without pulling it apart that's my guess of what happened.

The question now is, what to do about it. This engine is pretty much ****ed with a whopping 40 minutes of run time on it.

Do I stuck with a 6.x engine? I can buy a brand new long block.
A good old Cummins 12v swap?
Or put a common rail engine in either Cummins or Duramax from a donor?
Cost and time will play a factor in but I'm so tired of dealing with engine issues.

Some photos of what I found.

20181123_160540.jpg 20181123_160603.jpg 20181123_160619.jpg 20181123_160646.jpg 20181123_160647.jpg 20181123_160712.jpg 20181123_161551.jpg
 
beags86 said:
Yep, time to swap that junk. Dmax doners trucks are finally reasonable.
Click to expand...

That's the toss up I'm now thinking about. A brand new long block is $7300 plus shipping. I know I can pickup a used Dmax or Cummins for that price. The biggest up side to the long block is it would be a weekend drop in ordeal. But I know a Dmax or Cummins would more then satisfy my need for more power. Hmm choices :thinking:.

Course first and for most I have to have the money to do either one.
 
KirsL said:
That's the toss up I'm now thinking about. A brand new long block is $7300 plus shipping. I know I can pickup a used Dmax or Cummins for that price. The biggest up side to the long block is it would be a weekend drop in ordeal. But I know a Dmax or Cummins would more then satisfy my need for more power. Hmm choices :thinking:.

Course first and for most I have to have the money to do either one.
Click to expand...
Buy a doner truck with a loan....:whistle:
 
That sucks!

Problem with cheep a Duramax is that its cheep cause it probably needs injectors and or head gaskets. 2000.00 would be about the least you`d spend on head gaskets, and 3500.00 for injectors. If you do it yourself. If the heads need work it`s going to be more.
 
max 02 said:
That sucks!

Problem with cheep a Duramax is that its cheep cause it probably needs injectors and or head gaskets. 2000.00 would be about the least you`d spend on head gaskets, and 3500.00 for injectors. If you do it yourself. If the heads need work it`s going to be more.
Click to expand...

In just the short time I've been looking I'm seeing that trend. The bad will have a low price and be like "runs good but goes into limp mode sometimes". Or the best I've seen so far is "no time to diagnosis so my loss is your gain!" The decent ones folks still want over 10 grand for. I guess if I lucked into a wrecked one but I like the idea of parting the rest of a rig out to offset some cost.

Lots of might as wells in a swap and little "hidden" cost.

I think a van with the dmax would be the best for a swap. It would give me a 4l80 which is relatively easy to swap to passenger side 4x4 without crazy adapters. It being detuned would be handled by EFlive. Which I would need anyway to help make it a standalone engine. I'd probably have to swap to a new style instrument cluster or could the original be made to work?

Getting the either a dmax or Cummins to physically fit is the easy part. It's all the details that'll drive you nuts.
 
Much as I dig the 6.x motors. I'd swap a much more modern in there.

Cummins or d max or whatever.

Sorry man that sucks
 
I'd love to stay with the 6.x engine also. But then I look past my stepside at my dodge/cummins which as been absolutely awesome to me for 13 years and 190k miles. Reliability like that for stupid long trips is hard to pass up.

There's definitely something to be said for being able to just get in and go. And not worry if you'll make it there and back :eek1:.
 
Cummins swaps have been fairly common now so the recipe isn't too hard to follow. Dmax swaps are still fairly rare and much more uncharted territory to follow in the footsteps of others.

It's personal preference added in with availability as to which way to go. I deal with dmax trucks regularly at the dealership and there are points to each version that are good and bad. The LB7 is much simpler, less to go wrong and easier to toy with at the expense of the injectors issues they are well known for. Dealer list is something like $450 per injector, although there are aftermarket options that beat that price. The injector location sucks and requires way more effort to access than the later ones too.

The later you go the higher the acquisition cost is and the added complexity of the controls. Yes the injectors are better, located in a better spot for access, but you will pay more for it, wrecked or on the used car lot. Plus if it's pre-emissons the price is abnormally inflated because that's what the bro's are looking for to hot rod without dealing with the garbage emissions systems.

I'm obviously not a diesel guy, but deal with enough to know the pitfalls on the stock stuff. There's a reason why 12valves are so widely swapped into everything. Stone simple one main reason I see. Plus outside of the length, the package is much more tidy than a v-8 dirty Max with all the exhaust and charge air piping.

Sucks to have any engine fail like yours did though. Good luck with what you choose.
 
I'd be happy with either swap. I think I might be able to get a dmax a little cheaper as the Cummins has always commended a higher price.

I've had to change injectors twice in my dodge so I'm well aware of the cost. But since I got 130k out of performance nozzles. If I get that kind of mileage on whatever I swap in they'll last a lifetime in the stepside:haha:.

The wiring will be a decent challenge but I'm thinking a dmax donor is the way to go. It'll solve the transmission issues I was fighting when the other engine blew up. I already have a dmax intercooler in the truck so that's basically done. Even though I have a newer wiring harness it might be simpler to use the full donor vehicle harness. Hmm :thinking:, much to ponder about.
 
So with some time off because of Christmas I've been doing some thinking and research. After much thought and doing some more digging on the engine currently in the truck. I've decided to pull it, clean it, throw new bearing and gaskets at it and run it. So far any damage I found is superficial, bearings and such. Hopefully that trend continues.

Between having to spend $2500 in parts for some serious maintenance on my Dodge and trying to either buy out my parents share of my house or buy a different house. I just don't have the funds to do a major swap.

I thought about about picking a used engine but it would cost about the same as freshing up what I have. So I'll just work with I have. Probably little crazy on my part but I need the truck to at least run.

The overall goal is to hopefully with in a year, blow the truck apart and give her the full restore she deserves.
 
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