Yes, I will update periodically until them.

 

I picked up the replacement motor Wednesday afternoon. First thing I noticed is both the dipstick tube and oil pan were different, so I had to swap them over from mine. I had already planned on pulling the pan on mine to see what caused all of the fuss. I found the #3 rod bearing spun and got chewed up completely, you can see all of the debris laying on the oil pump and pick-up tube screen in the pictures below. The new motor had no sludge inside, but a lot of varnish build-up. That's a clear sign of an engine that sat for long periods and only had the (conventional) oil changed every 3K miles instead of once or twice a year with synthetic. The new motor is ready to drop in and the plan was to do it tomorrow, but there are lots of scattered thunderstorms predicted, so it might have to wait until Sunday.

 

Here's a final picture of the frame rail that was replaced, all painted nice and clean looking.

 

Wow, that motor munched things up quite well......

Can't even tell the frame rail was repair from the pics. Excellent work.

 

I swapped out the steering gear yesterday. I had one heck of a time getting the pitman arm off. I had the puller on it and was hitting it hard with my impact gun right up to the point where the puller shaft wouldn't turn anymore. I had to heat up the pitman arm just to get it moving. The other issue I had was with one hole in the mounting plate. There is a plate that mounts to the steering gear, then that plate in turn mounts to the frame rail. One of the holes in the plate has a round mound, while the corresponding threaded hole in the steering gear has a straight edge next to it. Brought me back to kindergarten, trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. I was able to solve the issue by die cutting the plate to make a straight edge on that side of the hole. After that everything went together fairly smooth. To avoid contamination, I'm not going to connect the hoses until the engine and PS pump are installed.

 

The engine is in, and all bolted up nice and snug. The intake, exhaust, motor mounts, starter, transmission flywheel and bell housing are all set as well. Tomorrow the front of the engine, all the hoses and wiring should be connected. Will a bit of luck it should be running sometime in the afternoon.

 

It's mostly back together, enough so that I did start it up. It fired right up on the first shot, but I have a noise I have to track down. It's not an engine knock or tapping, I think it's probably the exhaust isn't bolted up right, or tight enough. Well, that's an issue for tomorrow, I'm done for today.

 

I'm super impressed by your tenacity. Are you a mechanic by trade? I'd have thrown in the towel, I think. Glad to hear the boneyard motor runs.

I'm dreading doing the plenum gasket on my 5.9, and that's probably like a 5th of the work you've done here.

If you were located near Los Angeles, I'd hire you.

 

Thanks, and no I'm not a mechanic, actually I'm an electrician; but I have done all of my own vehicle work for close to 40-years. The plenum gasket isn't that hard to do, you just need the correct tools and some patience. If you need guidance, start a new thread and people here can help walk you through it.

 

Sucess, the noise I was hearing was the crank sensor tone ring/flywheel rubbing the access plate cover. We must've bent it a bit taking it out and reinstalling it...dang starter mounting stud. Anyway, we took it out, bent it slightly to clear the moving parts, and now the engine is purring like a kitten. Another PITA project is now done.

Also, I took it for a test drive and the van steers like a sports car, the new steering gear made a world of difference.