You. have. GOT TO BE KIDDING!?!Do what you can to get these A-holes out of business. They are no longer of service to anybody or anything. There's no excuse for an engine machinist to make that kind of mistake- or rather, these KINDS of MISTAKES.. PLURAL...
Sorry, I can't blame the machinist for doing what I asked him to do. To my minds recollection, there's too many mitigating circumstances that take the burden off of him. Rich may be a bit slow but, he's a one man band at his shop. Too many separate tasks without the comparative parts available which is my fault. He has never had the block and the whole rotating assy together at any time during this whole process.
No, with my own culpability in clear focus, I'm going to put the blame for this sequence of "Oh Just Shoot Me" events straight on to the shoulders of Bennie and Jamie Avante at Diesel Depot (DD or Dumb and Dumber) and Avante Salvage of Sandersville GA. “Just Desserts” for them though, their web page has been down for a while.
Had DD kept their word, honored the warranty, shipped the right parts at the same time along with the $$ to cover a small part of the work LAST MAY (2011), the chain of events that has led to this series of seemingly never ending mistakes/issues would have been mitigated. Then again, had they just spent $8 more on the one main bearing....just half of one of them even, this thread wouldn’t have even started. Fast forward to now and if I had compared specs on what was left of the deck height and old pistons, I wouldn't be in the current jam either.
Short catch up…The block was delivered to the Machinist in November where it sat while Ted waited for the rest of the parts, namely main bearings, cam, cam bearings, Pistons, Rods etc to show from Dumb and Dumber.
Those parts showed up weeks apart from each other over the next four months...pistons w/o rings etc. The crank, flywheel and 'reconditioned' heads (nothing but scraping some of the ceramic coating off during shipping) etc. had arrived but only in separate shipments and then only after days of phone calls to DD without the promised return calls.
So, the pistons arrive, but are left in the box without being inspected (oops on my part) and with their original 'specs' in mind, the block gets the full treatment at the machinists and it is confirmed good, and is decked .010. He doesn’t have the pistons and rods because we’re waiting on the wrist pin bushings to arrive (DD pressed them in without matching oiling holes). So, Later, the rods get the bushings pressed and measured but the pistons aren't with them cause it was then that they were found to be JUNK. The block returns from the shop and placed in a corner waiting for place on an engine stand and the rods get the wrist pins pressed and measured while waiting on serviceable pistons. New pistons were ordered from Mahle and here is where
I take responsibility for the piston mistake.
1. I was asked what compression I wanted...Stock.
2. I answered
without confirming the current specs on the block or the old pistons. Just that .030 would fit in the hole, not cylinder height…my bad.
3. I had the rotating assembly balanced with the new pistons that I thought (wrong) would be just perfect without confirming specifications.
4. There was at least two or more weeks between all this 'stuff' happening and I just can't blame a machinist for not remembering what was what. Maybe he should, I don’t know, I’ve not done this before but I have shop manuals and have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express….
So, again. Diesel Depot gets the blame for setting the chain of events in motion. I take responsibility for ordering the wrong pistons.
