Graywolf blog

9/19/24: I know I probably waited way too long to do it but I finally did an oil change after almost 6k miles. the oil was okay and did not immediately sparkle. the only place I saw some sparkle was in the oil that came out of the oil filter.   when I drained the oil the majority of it drained within 10 second which completely overflowed my catch pan and spilled some outside. It also splashed everywhere. have yet to actually cut open the filter.

9/11/24: it has been a while so I should make an more recent update. the eBay seller got the address wrong somehow, but the sipping company called me and we got it sorted out, two days later it was delivered to Carlisle in Tacoma, I paid for it and it should be coming up within a week or so. the pictures below are of the engine as received by Carlisle, I don't like how it is leaning and I hope It is not damaged but we will see 

 8/31/24: I moved the car and washed the engine bay as well as I could. I used a foamer with dawn dish soap and a plastic bristle scrub brush, I sprayed the greasy areas and let it soak before adding more soap and scrubbing it, I did this process repeatedly until the grease was gone and now it looks and feels a lot better. 9/1/24: ordered the engine and need to figure out how to ship it  9/3/24: the eBay seller said it would cost an extra $650 to get it up to Alaska 9/4/24: hopefully got seller to send the engine to Carlisle who offer myconnect, a service where you can ship stuff to Washington and they will ship it up to an endpoint somewhere in Alaska where you can pick it up. I hope the ebay seller actually included the myconnect number in the address like I asked but we will see 

8/25/24: Sent an email to the machine shop but will call later 8/26/14: started to pull apart the intake manifold to clean it out, got a lot of stuff off but will probably end up just putting some of it together without cleaning it. the inside of the manifold was very oily on both sides of the turbo and I suspect the turbo was replaced very recently because it was clean. there is secondary throttle bodies of sorts right before the ports by the fuel injectors, I still am not sure of the purpose of these. 8/27/24: put intake manifold back together 8/28/24: went to machine shop and found out I need heads for the engine and if I got heads IM down over 1k for just the bare heads that require valve paraphernalia and machining to work, not to mention camshafts. the shop also could not do the crankshaft because it was too small. they did say $180 for a hone. after looking at my numbers I do not really like them, I would have to spend around 3k on fixing the engine and at that point I think I c...

8/23/24: Pulled off the oil pump and water pump but nothing of note 8/24/2024: I pulled the wrist pins out and took the pistons out there was extensive damage on all the piston skirts and there was a broken piece between two rings on one piston. once the pistons were out I took off all extra things on the block and removed all the bolts holding it together. I then split it apart and inspected the camshaft and rods. all but one of the rods were in good condition but the crankshaft and the crankshaft bearing were beat up and grooved. The one visibly bad rod had the bearing basically melted on and was very black from the heat. I plan to take the block to a machine shop and have them hone it and the heads, but I will ask how much it will cost to machine the crankshaft and camshafts, if it is over the amount I would pay for good used ones it is not worth it.

 8/20/24: proceeded to take off the intake manifold and most of the coolant lines and pcv lines and wiring with it. after pulling that off I went around to the exhaust and took off the heat shields at the block to access the manifold bolts, I removed the up-pipe and the entire manifold. then I began by taking off the cam pulleys which requires a large allen key and a large breaker bar. after I removed the pulleys I removed the plastic back timing cover and the valve cover. under the valve cover initially looked clean and the lobes were not damaged, it all turned worse after I took the journal off. there was groves on the cam and journals and there was a lot of them, you could feel them with your finger and you could probably file your fingernail on one if you tried. I moved past that for the time being and took the head off and found more bad news, the cylinder wall had piston slap marks and you can even feel them, I then quit for the night and came back the next day. 8/21/24: I to...