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Engine Assembly & Lube

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I never gave this much thought but I have no idea what the builders of these diesel engines do with regard to assembly lube and or pre-lubing during manufacturing.

 

I have yet to see anything resembling assembly lube on service assemblies. I have never read any mention of this in any of the literature. For that matter, looking through the service manuals, there is no mention of pre-lubing anything let alone what to use.

 

For me, any assembly entails simply applying some clean engine oil to moving/mating parts, a little grease on the oil pump gears and cranking the engine a little before allowing it to start.

 

In technical school we used a pressurized pre-luber that tapped into an oil galley plug. I have not seen one since.

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Here is a bald faced assumption (coming from a guy that was taught to slather everything with Lubriplate 105).

 

I would think that, in this modern day and age, that most rebuilt and new assemblies would be "motored" on a test rig in order to checked compression and oil pressure - but I'll temper that with the idea that this step might onlyu be a quality control test step and involve only a small portion of the production run and a "pre-oiler" step might be a more economically viable stage.

 

Seeing that thinwall castings were a relatively new innovation when I first got into this business, it might also be safe to assume that enough things have changed so that I no longer have the fucking foggiest idea about what I'm talking.

 

When I went to school, we were still taught how to use a boring bar along with many other tools that evoke "WTF is that?" from youngsters. Even something as simple as a cylinder ridge reamer...

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It's been awhile for me, but didn't the (Ford) drop-in engines come with a little card or something that said they'd been dyno-run? (The diesels, anyhow - I never put a complete reman gasser in, I usually got to piece the fuckers together, one new head, one used head, half a set of valvesprings, a couple used lifters, anything that Ford could re-use on a "replacement" engine...)

 

 

I put an engine in a CanPar delivery van, that they supplied, that came from Jasper, and it came with a dyno sheet and a little package of info about the engine, what the oil pressure was, what water temp was, and a bunch of other crap.

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Well I thought engines were at least spun on a dyno to prelube everything and to make sure everything goes up and down and round and round...until one fine day we put in a FQR 4.0l pushrod engine in an Explorer, complete with oil and filter, fired her up, and what do you know, no oil pressure. I guess the oil pump drive rod was still sitting on someones bench in Mexico, because it sure wasn't in this thing.

 

When I assemble engines I will lube sliding surfaces with light grease, because it will not run away while the engine is waiting to be installed, fill the oil filter prior to installation, and if possible spin the oil pump to prime the oiling system. At least diesels usually take considerable cranking prior to starting.

 

Sometimes I think more effort is put into the shiny black paint on these reman disesels than anything else.

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Jasper, please, don't make me laugh. A long rant coming....

 

I had to do an outside warranty at our shop at the time we were Jasper "preferred". This was a T444E in a IH school bus. The bus company could only start it with ether to get enough cranking speed. ICP was too low on normal crank to get it to activate the injectors.

 

I found cylinder 3 injector shooting oil from around the upper oring on regular crank, it would make it about 20' across the shop. I pulled the injector and the head was pitted, like it had been in a junk pile. No amount of new orings would seal it.

 

They sent us a head, and the head they sent had a chunk of wire from what looked like a wire brush stuck between the head and an injector cup, it was sticking out into the chamber area.

Sent that one back, and got another. Put that head on, made it to the last two bolts on the final torque pull and the threads pulled. Jasper wouldn't pay to pull the motor, they let it run as it was. Nice.

 

It didn't last long anyway, as it had nearly no base oil pressure hot.

 

It came with one of their "dyno" tested to make 190 hp, etc, oil pressure, yeah, yeah. That was the second to last junk we ever did for them.

 

This was after we sent a '57 TBird Y block to them to rebuild on their "special" line. We get it back, wonder why it seems low on power and it would constantly run hot. After tons of parts and their "experts" it got sent back, and who or whatever put it together didn't know the cylinder numbering sequence and put the wrong pistons in wrong holes, so it ground the rods up and scored the bores. They, without telling us, found a used block and built it up again. The other engine was original. The customer was PISSED. Add to that, the motor that finally arrived, with wrong block, had tons of DIRT embedded in the paint they put on it.

 

The last one, a 4R70w in an Econoline that slammed downshifted and sometimes flared. (on first test drive out of the shop) They had us replace nearly everything electronic, from a properly operating sister van, nothing changed it. We ended up after blowing so much time and money, buying a Ford trans, and lo and behold, it worked just fine.

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I put a Ford FQR 6.0 in an ambulance, got it all buttoned up and it wouldn't start. No base oil pressure. Boy was I impressed. I'm guessing they have a stack of printouts that they just throw one in the paperwork showing all the dyno results.

Thankfully the second one was much better as 6 months later that same ambulance was the one that got me to the hospital in time to save my life !!

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Both new complete 6.7l engines that I have done had absolutely no traces of oil anywhere. You would think that if they used enough oil to assemble it that there would be something in the pan, not these. Even the oil filter, that I had to remove to install the engine, had no oil on the oring. Hotline said this is normal and the cranking needed to get the HPFP bled was enough tp prelube the engine. WTF??????

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Hey, oil costs money you know. How much do you think they save per unit on not using oil.

 

Probably like how we've found bunches of 2008-2012 GM C/K and SUVs with the rear diffs at least a quart low on oil at their first service, just to get the level to within the 1/4 inch of the fill hole.

 

I wonder what they pay? GM lists their syn 75w90 at $46 per quart.

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  • 1 month later...

Jasper, please, don't make me laugh. A long rant coming....

 

I had to do an outside warranty at our shop at the time we were Jasper "preferred". This was a T444E in a IH school bus. The bus company could only start it with ether to get enough cranking speed. ICP was too low on normal crank to get it to activate the injectors.

 

I found cylinder 3 injector shooting oil from around the upper oring on regular crank, it would make it about 20' across the shop. I pulled the injector and the head was pitted, like it had been in a junk pile. No amount of new orings would seal it.

 

They sent us a head, and the head they sent had a chunk of wire from what looked like a wire brush stuck between the head and an injector cup, it was sticking out into the chamber area.

Sent that one back, and got another. Put that head on, made it to the last two bolts on the final torque pull and the threads pulled. Jasper wouldn't pay to pull the motor, they let it run as it was. Nice.

 

It didn't last long anyway, as it had nearly no base oil pressure hot.

 

It came with one of their "dyno" tested to make 190 hp, etc, oil pressure, yeah, yeah. That was the second to last junk we ever did for them.

 

This was after we sent a '57 TBird Y block to them to rebuild on their "special" line. We get it back, wonder why it seems low on power and it would constantly run hot. After tons of parts and their "experts" it got sent back, and who or whatever put it together didn't know the cylinder numbering sequence and put the wrong pistons in wrong holes, so it ground the rods up and scored the bores. They, without telling us, found a used block and built it up again. The other engine was original. The customer was PISSED. Add to that, the motor that finally arrived, with wrong block, had tons of DIRT embedded in the paint they put on it.

 

The last one, a 4R70w in an Econoline that slammed downshifted and sometimes flared. (on first test drive out of the shop) They had us replace nearly everything electronic, from a properly operating sister van, nothing changed it. We ended up after blowing so much time and money, buying a Ford trans, and lo and behold, it worked just fine.

 

 

 

This sounds just like my jasper experience. They followed me over with my job change a while back and now trying to peddle their shit products on my yet again. I keep telling them I will never install or work on one of there shitty products again but the idiot wont leave me alone!

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You have to catch the sales guy in his bull shyte.

 

The tbird motor that they did for us, after it was installed and we had all the issues, he showed up.

 

He comes over, we all tell him it's running too hot, it makes too much noise, and is down on power. I made the comment along the lines of what do you expect from junk.

 

He says "Do you KNOW what these things go through?" In a very condescending tone. I looked at him, looked down at the motor they just did (and painted) and picked through the paint and pulled off a HUGE chunk of dirt/sand, and put it right in his face. "If it went through SO much, WHAT'S THIS!?"

 

He shut up and everyone laughed at him.

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Done it.

 

My last was a injector that looked like it came from the scrap pile rather then the rebuild bench. He was trying to tell me how much better their rebuild injectors are compared to the OEM ford stuff. I just so happened to have both on my bench and called him on it. asked him which one he would want in his truck!

 

Didnt seem to phase him much, he still shows up every month or so....

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