I did catch one thing thing that makes me nervous. the tick you mentioned... did it show up after the engine got warm? and it sounded like lifter tick on the left bank? my junkyard 3.0 I have in right now does this after running it pretty hard. hope its not piston slap.
either way, best of luck on your build!
ah that sucks. that does happen though.
hey perfect thread for me to watch though! I'm grabbing my spare 3.0 with a cracked #6 piston this Friday. its already .020 so I'm taking it .040.
where did you get a piston/rod set or was that with the old rods on it?
What did the machine work cost you? Im curious as I just got burned on a motor I bought that guy said ran perfect. Spent all weekend putting it in and it knocks. So im looking at a possible rebuild.
What did the machine work cost you? Im curious as I just got burned on a motor I bought that guy said ran perfect. Spent all weekend putting it in and it knocks. So im looking at a possible rebuild.
You're getting to discover first-hand why these things blow head gaskets--the exhaust cooks that one corner, which is why it looks so bad. Eventually that would lead to the failure of the gasket. I'm kind of surprised you didn't need to go up one size on the pistons, but if the shop says it's good. If you could swing it, this would be a great time to add some headers, to move all that heat away from the heads--unfortunately, they cost more than your original vehicle purchase price (yikes!). Best of luck on the rebuild!
EDIT: Sure, go ahead and change the story while I'm typing (LOL)--so your pistons DO need resized after all. That's more like it. I would be wary of that first shop--that was a major miss that would've caused you problems on the finished product. Block looks great!
I was just thinking.... maybe you could try the passenger manifold on the driver's side trick for your headers?













