She's out! - Hole in piston - cylinder walls look good

[Rooftop Special]

Well we got the engine out. Id' guess it took 14-15 hours with 4-5 of those on the torque converter bolts and 3 upper bell housing bolts. All in all it wasn't that bad of a job but there is a learning curve for sure. Helps if you've done a water pump before because you already know how to take the stack out. A load lever, I'd say, is a must. Makes it so easy to dip the motor back to clear the turbo, etc. And of course you need great resources like DD to ask questions. Thank You for such a great resource!



So I have a hole in one piston with a slight crack but it didn't damage the cylinder wall from what I can tell. Got everything loaded up and I'll be taking it down to the machine shop tomorrow. I'm going to have them assemble at least to a long block and potentially do covers as well so I don't have to buy the seal tool for rear/front main seal.



I do have a couple more questions:


-Should I replace oil pump and oil cooler? Truck has just over 200k?
-I'm going to do new injectors. Can I just clean the high pressure lines or do they need replaced? On my LB7 I was able to clean them up.
-I'll probably go with 60 overs. Can I drive the truck to get programmed as is or should I trailer it to be safe? It currently doesn't have any tuning. The plan is EFI Live with a stock tune, a tow tune, an economy (if there is such a thing?), and a couple power tunes. I don't have the cash for the tranny quite yet so I can't play too much right now.


Thanks,

Casey

 

[2004LB7]

Ouch. Looks like there is some scratches on the cylinder at the crack.

Yes, Efilive can be programmed with any number of tune types. Just talk to your tuner about what you want

I wouldn't run the truck with 60 overs without the tune corrected for them.

Not sure on oil pump and cooler

 

[Rooftop Special]

Ouch. Looks like there is some scratches on the cylinder at the crack.

Yes, Efilive can be programmed with any number of tune types. Just talk to your tuner about what you want

I wouldn't run the truck with 60 overs without the tune corrected for them.

Not sure on oil pump and cooler

Thanks for the reply. I think what looks like scratches in the picture are streaks. The cylinder wall felt smooth but I had rubber gloves on. I'll run my finger nail over it tomorrow. I'm hoping to get away with just honing?

 

[hondarider552]

Yes on cooler and pump

 

[Chevy1925]

Pull the oil pan and see if all the oil squirters are still in place

 

[Rooftop Special]

Pull the oil pan and see if all the oil squirters are still in place

I already loaded it in the back of the truck. Chipped the block when I was taking it off the engine stand


It's one of the holes the rear cover bolts too. I'm hoping it's no big deal as it's not near an area that sealed from fluids. What do you guys think? What would I use to fill it in? JB Weld or something?

 

[2004LB7]

Doesn't look like a problem to me

 

[DAVe3283]

I think you'll be OK with that chip, I wouldn't do anything about it. Looks really shallow.

Many people recommend replacing the oil pump, but I wouldn't, if your oil pressure was good before. When I built my motor, it had 280k on it, and I re-used the stock oil pump and cooler. I was seeing a rash of people with fresh Melling pumps have them fail, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I left mine alone. For the cooler, I figured that's possible to change whenever I want, so I left the stock one.

Now at 330k (50k miles since build) on the stock oil pump and cooler, no problems. Oil pressure actually came up after the build because bearing clearances were back to what they should be, instead of 280k miles of wear.

As for running the truck with the +60% injectors, it would be fine to drive onto a trailer or run a couple miles down the road gently, but I wouldn't drive it far or with any kind of a load until you get a tune.