Powerstroke rebuild pics:

[speeder]

Here's what I've been doing w/ the last 100 hrs. or so of my spare time. I picked up a '99.5 PSD F-250 4x4 last fall w/ a sick motor for a bargain price and was bragging here about my mad eBay skillz. HA!

Anyhoo...., I rolled the dice that it would not need a complete motor but the price allowed for one as long as I supplied all labor. And I do mean ALL labor. It had one dead hole, (#7), OK, no problem, could be a bad injector, right?

I flew up to Utah to fetch it and drive home, (they told me that it ran and drove fine but had a miss), about 50 miles south of SCL it started knocking so loud that it was like there was a psychotic mormon standing in the bed hitting the cab w/ a sledge hammer. OK, so maybe I did not dodge the rebuild bullet, thought I. Pulled into a truck stop and everyone just completely stopped what they were doing and stared at me and the ticking grenade. Some guy actually told me that I had a knock. No schit, Sherlock.

"How far are you going?"

"Only another 700 miles".

I just felt like I'd proven what an idiot I was one more time, (always wanted to be a savant, but missed the mark), so I was going to make it home damn it. I couldn't return the thing, it was sold as needing a possible rebuild. Since I was on a lucky streak, and still deluded about being a savant, I decided to stop in Vegas and hit the tables at the HRC where I lost the rest of my pocket $$ and dignity. It made it home, barely, and managed over 18 mpg even w/ a blown engine. The photos to follow will explain the knock, as well as the incredible strength of the bottom end that allowed it to still run and drive 700+ miles.

Here is what it looked like when I got it:

[speeder]

When I got home I just parked it for about 5 months because I really did not have the $$ for a good used motor, or a place to work on it. PSD motors used w/ verifiable miles are hard to find and expensive, especially if they need to be shipped. They go for 911 motor prices and weigh ~850 lbs.

Still, I hunted for one for a long time w/ no luck, (not going to buy one on ebay for big bucks that I could not test/inspect first), these engines can last several 100k miles if they are maintained properly. And that is one big "if". They also blow up w/ 100k on them. Mine has 157k miles.

I finally decided that I would have to try to fix this engine, or at least tear it down and see if it was practical. My long-suffering friend David D., (dd74), donated some work space in the lot behind his office building in Hollywood and I towed it over. Major, major thanks to David and his lovely better half for this favor since it has predictably taken me longer than planned to complete the project.

Here was the little problem, somehow the rings broke on one piston and destroyed the cylinder wall, resulting in zero compression and the aforementioned knock.

[speeder]

To be continued.........

[legion]

Those diesels are sleeved, right?

[turbo6bar]

Drop in a Cummins 5.9L and be done with it, OK!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally posted by legion
Those diesels are sleeved, right?

The big rig engines are. I used to be a diesel tech, it was so cool how you could essentially rebuilt them in a day. Pull the head, drop the pan and pull the rod caps, drive out the pistons from below, pull the sleeves and insert new ones, drop in new pistons and rods, slap it all back together and you're done!

[legion]

Ouch...so no sleeves. Can you go to a bigger bore? Would that cost more than a new engine?

[onewhippedpuppy]

Oh, I didn't mean it that way, just sharing. I'm not sure if the PS engines are or not.

[speeder]

Originally posted by legion
Those diesels are sleeved, right?

Mine is now sleeved in one cylinder. Unfortunately they are not fitted w/ replaceable sleeves as Matt describes, but the common repair for a destroyed cylinder is to sleeve it at a machine shop, which is what I did.

And Jurgen, I should have put in a Cummins. Not sure what they go for used or how tough they are to find, and of course I did not know about that option in the beginning. It has been a learning curve w/ these trucks, as w/ anything else, and I've been putting in my time on PSD boards around the net. I think that they call what we are talking about a "Fummins".

If I have time today I am going to figure out how to make one of those personal web sites where I can post a photo album/diary of this project since I have dozens of photos, (I am pretty meticulous), that way I can caption each photo and people can whip through them if they care to.

A few highlights, here is a connecting rod and it is the desirable forged type used only through mid 2000, (mine is a late '99 or '99.5). And no, I do not have small hands:


These motors are made by International, not Ford, but of course they are made to Ford's specifications in certain areas. Variations of my motor are used in everything from Fedex trucks to school busses to *you name it*. Probably the military uses them somewhere. There is also a marine version. The engineering is impressive, here is a massive 4-bolt main cap:

[speeder]

What I chose to do after consulting w/ a local diesel guy was to re-sleeve only the one bad hole and replace one (standard size) piston since the rest of the motor was pretty good in terms of wear/compression/etc.. It was also the most economical solution, and I picked up one used piston in almost perfect condition for $25 from a guy I met online w/ a parts motor.

The process on this is the machine shop bores a larger hole in the damaged cylinder and inserts a cast iron sleeve that is a press-fit, they leave a small *step* on the bottom as well. This will all be engines 101 for you diesel guys, but in case any mechanical novices are curious I'll show some pics. Here is the sleeve installed from the bottom, you can see the step:


The most time-consuming part of a rebuild or overhaul is cleaning parts, especially if you are meticulous, which is not bad quality to have for this work. Here is piston cleaning detail:


Interestingly, all of the major bearings and pistons are Mahle, and the pistons are forged aluminum. Just like Porsche uses.

[speeder]

When the motor came back from the machine shop it was clean but really rusty on the outside, so that of course was not acceptable for a Pelican-style job.

I took the spinning wire wheels to it until it was a clean hunk of iron and then my 2-step finish w/ red oxide primer and high-temp black paint.

[speeder]

Here are the heads, they weigh about 100+ lbs. each and are really interesting. The injectors are run on oil pressure + an electronic pulse, the heads have huge oil galleys that feed the injectors from an auxiliary high-pressure oil pump (HPOP) on the top of the engine. The heads wound up needing a complete valve job w/ all new intake valves.


Here is the front of the engine w/ cover off, it has a gear-driven cam w/ roller lifters and the HPOP gears to the top of the cam gear. (Not installed yet in this photo):


Here is a detail of the HPOP, (w/ 2 lines attached, 1 for each bank of cylinders), and its reservoir, the tall box:

[speeder]

Here is an injector, they are pretty big.


Here they are cleaned up w/ new seals, (these seals are crucial to the engine's performance:


And installed + rockers/pushrods/etc:

[masraum]

Interesting. I don't really know anything about diesels except that they have insane compression and don't use spark plugs.

[MichiganMat]

What a beast.

[tobster1911]

The cool part is that they feed in high, really high pressure diesel fuel. Something like 30,000psi. This is why the injectors are HUGE and they are run by the aux oil pump. No need for spark with this kind of pressure combined with the compression ratio.

http://www.boulderbiodiesel.com/tom/Diesel101/

Check out the diesel at the bottom. 5.6Million lb/ft torque.

[kmhemi]

Here is a direct link to that huge Diesel if anyone is curious about the size of the pistons....

http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccsshb/12cyl/

[speeder]

Originally posted by MichiganMat
What a beast.

No kidding. 16 qts. of oil, 850 lbs., injectors that weigh 7 lbs. each, and a really big turbo. I love diesels, especially TDI (direct injection turbo) type, but maintenance is KEY.

I almost forgot to tell what the verdict was on what happened to the motor to cause the damage. There were plenty of educated guesses, it belonged to a paving company in Utah and was not maintained very well, it showed evidence of lack of oil changes and dirty fuel. (Filters). Still, what happened to that (1) cylinder and not the rest? A common problem w/ diesels is a leak in the intake tract post-filter, (or the installation of a K&N, same result), which causes *dusting* of the motor and destroys the rings. They run on super-compressed air and really suck it in.

I did not know until I was re-assembling the block and cleaning parts when I discovered (1) completely plugged piston oil squirter. Just like a 911, these motors have tiny tubes that squirt a stream of (relatively cool) oil into the bottom of the piston to cool it, and lack of oil changes killed this motor. The bad piston showed tell-tale marks from being cooked, (it looked like a torch was pointed at the bottom), and within a matter of time it got toasted. All of the rest of the P/Cs looked fine, and 7 squirters were clear.

There was also this little issue w/ dirty fuel, this what I found in the fuel filter/H2o separator, (which was filthy), when I cleaned it:


It looks like the particular type of reddish dust that was everywhere on the truck from the Utah dessert, but how on earth did it get in the fuel supply??

[speeder]

OK, now my motor doesn't seem quite as large. It's all perspective.

I wonder if they build that massive diesel in the ship(?) How on earth would they move it after completion?

Still, mine is pretty large for a V-8, I tried to capture its size in a snapshot and it never seems to convey. This is as far as I got last night, more pics later.

[Evans, Marv]

Superb pics & writup. I have an '03 F350 PSD and always wondered what things looked like inside that engine. I also look at some of the diesel sites and am trying to do as much as I can to give mine a long life. Right now fuel is really high, but at least lower than regular gasoline in this area. Do you think this is something somebody with average/decent mechanical skills can do?