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Used Engine

Rodd

Recruit
Messages
1,705
Reaction score
978
Location
Antelope, CA
Now that my used engine (95) is being delivered tomorrow, I need to know what I should do. Remember it has 254k miles. It was part of a fleet and was well maintained with paperwork. While I'd love to rebuild it, my wife would freak if I spend too much.

Here are my thoughts as to what I need to do before installation:
1. Inspect lower end
2. New head gaskets
3. New Injectors
4. New water pump
5. New Oil cooler/lines

Did I miss anything?
 
Yes. If you are worried about not disturbing the mains and don’t want to mess with crank, the pistons can come out without undoing the crank if you choose. Personally I would do new bearings in rods, main and cam. New rings. If you see any cracking then leave the crank alone. Can still do rod and cam bearings and rings that way.

New timing chain (usually chain drive gears can be reused- show pics before buying) if cant afford gear drive.
New brass freeze plugs. New oil pump.

Absolute- new harmonic balancer! Of course fluiddampr is best long term choice but a AC Delco is good for 100,000 miles. Don’t bother with the cheaper ones. Doorman are not even lasting 30,000 miles.

While everything is apart I like to do the waterpump because you have it off anyways and is a p.i.t.a. To bad Peninsular deal is gone. I asked John of UD about any of the take off parts and he said he didn’t get any in the deal:sorry:.
Maybe (cant recall his name) original Peninsular owner still has parts in Florida? If anyone lives near him or knows a different phone number, maybe we could find out?
 
Do the rings and deglaze the cylinder walls only. Don't have to pull the crank to do so. Unless the rod bearings show wear leave the crank bolts alone. Undoing and re-torque of the mains adds stress that may have already been released via mains cracks. With the miles the engine will have blowby and while it's out it's easy to do rings. I regret not doing rings twice and did them the next time I pulled the engine. Again GM cast blocks are scrap metal so it's not worth the cost of machining them. Only machine shop cost justified is new cam bearings.

Gapless rings are worth the coin for a cleaner engine and longer oil change intervals. Less soot gets in the crankcase. My sig link goes in depth on my results.
 
I can second on the ease of doing rings while you're in there. After the heads, it's just a matter of pulling the oil pan and you're there.
I used this hone to deglaze like WW said and will ship the second ring to Total Seal today to convert to gapless. It's only $10 a ring and supposed to be only a day or two on turnaround from Phoenix. Very cheap and easy for such a good return.
I did get a ridge reamer and cleaned the ridge but it wasn't really needed.
And btw, my Mahle rings said to not spiral them on (and twisted steel coating likely wouldn't like it either) so I got these cheap (and I mean CHEAP) rings install pliers. They work well.
 
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I ran a custom made set back in the 90’s. It worked very well, never a problem. Later I ran a dsg set. Those were not built for long term daily drivers. The first set survived multiple grenaded engines and the dsg looks better built. I did have a couple of the chains fail and cause destruction, so that’s why the $ was spent, and we couldn’t find any made back then.

Years Later, after re adjusting my timing at the annual task, and reading Leroy was starting to make them, i wanted to know about longevity. I was inclined to find dsg because I used them already with success, but everyone at the time said they were nla. Then I asked here about longevity and had TONS of phone calls to me and my own reading into everything, especially some engineering notes found about the 6.9 ford international- it made up my mind.
Most all of the calls were made in private because there are people on opposition with others and don’t want to get dragged in, including the guy that sent me the ford info.

Overwhelming proof that all gear system kills chains. Simple lower cost of build is why chain was used. Most of the info about vibrations causing ip issues were started by people selling parts that did not sell the dsg set years before. Simple economic reason to shoot it down. Wether that was their honest opinion and they chose not to sell because of it, or couldn’t sell so talked it down- who knows. Ford ip outlasts gm ip even when the same exact manufacturer, so...yeah...

I was under the impression Leroy bought rights to and started remaking them, as they seemed the same as what I rembered from years before. Still on my shelf awaiting to be joined by other parts to be sent with other parts to Chris for coating.

Chains work obviously, but since I don’t want to ever get inside this engine again, it gets the gears.
 
I ran a custom made set back in the 90’s. It worked very well, never a problem. Later I ran a dsg set. Those were not built for long term daily drivers. The first set survived multiple grenaded engines and the dsg looks better built. I did have a couple of the chains fail and cause destruction, so that’s why the $ was spent, and we couldn’t find any made back then.

Years Later, after re adjusting my timing at the annual task, and reading Leroy was starting to make them, i wanted to know about longevity. I was inclined to find dsg because I used them already with success, but everyone at the time said they were nla. Then I asked here about longevity and had TONS of phone calls to me and my own reading into everything, especially some engineering notes found about the 6.9 ford international- it made up my mind.
Most all of the calls were made in private because there are people on opposition with others and don’t want to get dragged in, including the guy that sent me the ford info.

Overwhelming proof that all gear system kills chains. Simple lower cost of build is why chain was used. Most of the info about vibrations causing ip issues were started by people selling parts that did not sell the dsg set years before. Simple economic reason to shoot it down. Wether that was their honest opinion and they chose not to sell because of it, or couldn’t sell so talked it down- who knows. Ford ip outlasts gm ip even when the same exact manufacturer, so...yeah...

I was under the impression Leroy bought rights to and started remaking them, as they seemed the same as what I rembered from years before. Still on my shelf awaiting to be joined by other parts to be sent with other parts to Chris for coating.

Chains work obviously, but since I don’t want to ever get inside this engine again, it gets the gears.


Just personal experience... 34,000 miles on my set so far. I love em.
 
How are Leroy's gears working out? I always thought that would be the route I'd go if I needed another timing set.

Plenty of chains I have taken off sloppy as hell that went on very tight. This is less than 30K miles and the chain is sloppy. That's a lot of timing adjustments. My project truck was an example of the really sloppy chain hammering the valvetrain, exhaust valve stem tips, and hammering the crankshaft key damn near clean through. Someone on here had a chain start to fail with parts in the oil pan, but, caught it before the chain broke. Yeah, chains can break and this year's best example is BattleBots Tombstone the #1 favorite getting knocked out when his weapon chain broke.

They can't be worse than a chain.

So far I did not notice any noise from them in the short time I have run them. Install of @Burning oil Leroy Diesel's gear set here:
https://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/moose-call.46822/
 
Plenty of chains I have taken off sloppy as hell that went on very tight. This is less than 30K miles and the chain is sloppy. That's a lot of timing adjustments. My project truck was an example of the really sloppy chain hammering the valvetrain, exhaust valve stem tips, and hammering the crankshaft key damn near clean through. Someone on here had a chain start to fail with parts in the oil pan, but, caught it before the chain broke. Yeah, chains can break and this year's best example is BattleBots Tombstone the #1 favorite getting knocked out when his weapon chain broke.

They can't be worse than a chain.

So far I did not notice any noise from them in the short time I have run them. Install of @Burning oil Leroy Diesel's gear set here:
https://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/moose-call.46822/

Hmmm, "battlebot" - "6.5"... yup, pretty accurate comparison! : )>
 
Plenty of chains I have taken off sloppy as hell that went on very tight. This is less than 30K miles and the chain is sloppy. That's a lot of timing adjustments. My project truck was an example of the really sloppy chain hammering the valvetrain, exhaust valve stem tips, and hammering the crankshaft key damn near clean through. Someone on here had a chain start to fail with parts in the oil pan, but, caught it before the chain broke. Yeah, chains can break and this year's best example is BattleBots Tombstone the #1 favorite getting knocked out when his weapon chain broke.

They can't be worse than a chain.

So far I did not notice any noise from them in the short time I have run them. Install of @Burning oil Leroy Diesel's gear set here:
https://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/moose-call.46822/
Every timing chain on a 6.5 that I have ever seen - that wasn't just put on, seemed sloppy. The sloppiest had about 350,000 to 500,000 miles on it- on the 89 C2500. I don't remember the mileage the timing chain was changed at, but it was a bunch
 
I was under the impression Leroy bought rights to and started remaking them, as they seemed the same as what I rembered from years before.

Well I will only say that the only part in the sets from Leroy I have had here that the only part of it that was made was the reluctor part... I have seen the same very gear sets in other places through the years and from gear makers. I compared them to the DSG's I have that are many years old and they are identical other than the reluctor..

Did Leroy buy the rights, I have no idea and if he did that's great, at least someone is keeping them available.
 
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