noise."State of the Author, Mid-April · 2:05am Apr 16th, 2021
Remember earlier in the week when I was talking about putting injectors in a 6.4L?
Well, there was another one lurking in the shadows. I got a day of mercy after the big green dually got pushed out, and then the other 2008 F350 SD with a 6.4L came in for an exhaust manifold and right side up-pipe.
I got a peek at the labor time, and it’s fourteen hours, give or take. So this is going to be a fun job.
I don’t remember the specific instructions for removing the manifold, that was actually the easier half. For the up-pipe, first step is remove the transmission. It had an aftermarket down-pipe, though, and maybe there was enough room to get the up-pipe out without removing the down-pipe (that’s why you’ve got to pull the trans). The tricky thing was going to be the bolts at the back of the engine; there are five of them and only four could be seen.
Or so I thought.
Wrench got thrown in the works right away. The hoist didn’t have the power to lift the truck. It’s underrated for that kind of use, and we’ve been using it hard for years. We could get the wheels off the ground by using a jack on the rear axle to help out, and could lift it as far as the jack’s travel.
That slowed the process significantly. Couldn’t raise or lower the thing to convenient heights; I took the starter off by feel. Finally got the manifold loose, wormed it out, and set to work on the up-pipe.
And even with tons of heat on the bolts, the heads rounded, and that was that (and it turns out as I discovered this morning, even if we had gotten the bolts out, the up-pipe would not clear the downpipe).
Luckily, there’s another way to get to the exhaust on one of these, even with a hoist that won’t lift the whole truck.
Lift some of the truck.
Took probably six hours to get the cab off, way longer than it should have, but then instead of lifting it up to get to the stuff on the bottom, I had to lie on the ground. Unfastening the lower radiator hose was fun; I’d already drained as much coolant as I could, but didn’t get all of it, and I was very much in the line of fire.
One of the new guys heard the splash as I got it apart, and asked me how much I’d gotten on me. I told him less than I’d expected. Once the hose was moving on the fitting, I closed my eyes and turned my head and that’s about all you can do.
The good news is after six hours of disassembly or thereabouts, it only took an hour to get all the up-pipes off the back of the engine (at this point, we’re replacing them all, since it would be stupid to do one and take our chances on the others).
Oh, and it sounds like we might be doing an engine on that other one. You gotta take the cab off to put an engine in (well, if you’re smart); the good news is I now know how.
In other news, I got my 5G upgrade today.
As an added bonus, I got a two hour break from working on that stupid 6.4L to get my shot. I don’t like shots, not gonna lie, but compared to busting my knuckles and getting drenched with coolant, power steering fluid, and trans fluid, along with a light dusting of rust and dirt, the shot was really, really relaxing.
Plus, it was at at a Meijer, and while I was walking off the fifteen-minute recommended wait before driving back to work, I perused the toy aisle to check out what new pony action figures they might have. Sadly, no Izzy or Pipp or Sunny yet.
Yet.
I got me first shot recently as well. It'll be a while before I get the second one though. I also got mine though a grocery store. I was in the county wait-list for a while, but in 3 minutes on the grocery store website I had an appointment for later that day.
More vehicles should be made with lift-off tops. The idiots who design trucks and cars with zero clearance on any side....
Way back when, my 1980 Subaru wagon had enough space to drop a softball through the engine compartment on any side, and that was before you took the spare tire out from above the engine.
(I'm still puzzled about the wrench on the couch)
No plans on me getting the shot anytime soon. I would rather stay out of jail/prison. I had to have some dental work done and the doctor was surprised after giving me the one shot of pain killer they couldn’t pre numb when it took more then twice as long as normal for my pulse to get back into a more restful state. He looked at me and said “Man you where not kidding when you warned me that you really hate needles.” Still I wish more of my coworkers would remember the mask mandate and where their masks, but since the supervisors are wearing them either and our union steward has publicly lambasted them I don’t think that rule will be inforced.
Kudos to getting that starter off by feel.
Got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last Friday. Spent Saturday and Sunday feeling like hell, then watched the story break about suspending the J&J vaccine Monday- which was just about the time that a sinus infection decided I was a great target of opportunity...
Oh, well - at least I didn't have to deal with Fords. My condolences
Soon™.
I love the first pic you got here also it sums up everyone’s reaction to meeting Red as somehow he’s always raiding somones fridge
The heck is an 'up pipe'?
Oh.
I want 8. For my Geo Metro. It's a hemi. Zoooooooooom!
5498765
"Shachza, you work across the street from a CVS, right? You should get vaccinated!"
"Hey, CVS, I notice your waiting list is full. When is a good time to watch it?"
"Never."
"What do you mean 'never'?"
"We had invested in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine."
"Oh..."
idk about the diesels, but I'd much rather remove the transmission first, and just pull the engine up from out of the top. That's my usual procedure for truck engine R+R's. Every mechanic I talk to thinks it's stupid. Including my dad and my employee. Some months ago we did an engine swap on some kind of 4wd truck. Both my dad and our employee were adamant about leaving the transmission in the car, and removing the engine only. I went along with it. It took about an hour to remove the engine (that's not including any of the labor, that's purely taking two last bellhousing bolts, and hoisting the engine up). And it took the three of us about 2 hours purely to get it in and lined up on the bellhousing.
The second time around (heh, unfortunately) we agreed we'd do it my way. It went much quicker and didn't need three guys to wrestle it back in.
If you think about it, the only extra work is removing the driveshafts, transmission plug, and mount.
Ah, sorry about that. Good luck with the work!
(And also with any vaccine side effects that might hit you.)
What exactly is an up-pipe, though?
(Oh, and Georg's comment reminded me: ...Wrench on the couch?)
pulling the cab is really the only way to get to the up-pipe.
Some magical unicorn levitation would've been really handy right about then. Between the pony and the hoist, maybe it would've worked.
*vaccine envy intensifies*
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Shoulda put that in the blog post . . . it’s a turbo engine, so instead of the exhaust leaving the manifold(s) and going into the exhaust system, there are pipes going up to the turbo, and then the downpipe is the one that’s the turbo outlet into the exhaust.
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/130725964937166848/832671947212456027/20210416_085642.jpg
In this picture, here, they’re the two shiny, new, not covered in soot pipes. And all the stuff that’s covered with black soot is normally tucked under the front of the cab.
5498737
May 13 for me.
It’s been really hit-or-miss here in Michigan. I was on two county sites (live in one, work in the other), as well as Meijer, and I was also in a higher-priority group (1B), so I’d been eligible since January, but appointments filled fast. I got a little lucky, I got a notification of available appointments, replied almost immediately, and even at that the first day of appointments Meijer had were already filled.
The very next day, one of the counties also said that there were available appointments.
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I can tell you from talking to engineers, design and packaging (and production) are separate teams. And sometimes they take a car they’re already producing and try to stuff an engine in that wasn’t intended for it. Also, in the car world, most buyers aren’t sold on maintainability; in the commercial world that’s a higher priority than outward appearance.
Subaru’s an offshoot of a heavy industrial brand, and to my mind they care the most about maintainability. Most everything is sensibly laid out and easy enough to get to.
Also, speaking of open space under the hood:
lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/_iWfQBwJYhHoO74h38gWAh1eVtwr8ndXyjKWEvZ-0P9MRKpucMITto1XyOqFLoDqOKSoIVJzbwZ_3hL7vkTcSQPOdK9AR11BVw1UYgerK2N9zgttGl5YKTXdvRs4Ds_yTvUhNP33Yqxkcscn67zyzOODSS_mt5BQUHoFBHiZ652_xMZk2RiAOmI-3u_k12B2-yusXfOXJ_ByKovZGeo
That’s what it looks like under the hood of my old Chevy truck. You can change the starter from uptop if you want to.
I have no idea.
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Hmm, I don’t like them but not to that point. I wonder if there’s any way to make it . . . well, maybe not more pleasant, but at least tolerable?
The Doc that stabbed me did the usual formalities, we chit-chatted briefly, he put the alcohol on my shoulder, and then while we were still talking, he tapped me on the inner elbow kinda hard and simultaneously jabbed my shoulder; I didn’t see it coming and didn’t really feel it. Not saying that would work for everyone, but it sure didn’t give me any chance to tense up or try and delay the process.
We’re totally not doing them at the shop. The only good news is that it’s kinda outdoorsy at least when it’s not winter. Really probably should be, though.
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That one really wasn’t bad. I knew there were at least two bolts, felt for them, removed them, starter didn’t come off, so felt around until I found the third.
Honestly, there’s a lot of mechanic work that gets done by feel.
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Oh boy, don’t you love it when everything piles on like that?
So far only my arm’s sore where I was shot, other than that no real issues. Bit of normal spring allergies, plus I’m tired and irritable, but that’s probably sleep deprivation combined with a pair of miserable Ford trucks to work on.
Thanks!
Y’know, usually I’m annoyed when the dealer doesn’t bring my parts, but today when they didn’t bring the parts I needed to finish assembling this 6.4 I wasn’t mad at all.
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Yeah, I hope so.
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Thanks! I have no context for that picture whatsoever, but it’s got a batpony and a wrench and it’s cute, and that’s good enough for me.
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Same it’s adorable.
Side note your fridge is out of pizza now
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Unless you’re building something extremely performy, you only need one per bank.
Ooh, bad luck there.
Overall, it looks like the supply chain is getting better and better, and even without J&J I’m guessing that it’s going to get easier and easier to get the vaccine as higher-risk groups are vaccinated. I can’t remember the numbers, but I think they were trying to get 100 million doses out by the beginning of April and they’re currently over 200 million (mind, that’s largely two-shot ones, so that still leaves 400 million some doses to administer).
[Just checked the CDC’s website, 202 million doses administered as of last updated, 80 million fully vaccinated, 127 million who have received at least one dose.]
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I’ve always thought it a situational thing. What do you want to mess with and what don’t you? Trans bolts usually come out without too much difficulty, and like you say, you’re going to have to remove the torque convertor bolts, starter, and exhaust anyway if you’re pulling an engine, so it’s not like you’re saving time there (well, you might be in terms of access, but that’s of course offset in what you’ve got to take off to pull the cab that you wouldn’t if you left the cab on).
I think you can fit the 6.4 out through the nose if you have to; the upper core support comes off, and all the various coolers do to (which you don’t have to remove if you pull the cab, but obviously you still drain all the fluid).
We usually leave the cab on/trans in on vehicles where that’s possible, but I think with the 6.4L it’s going to be just as easy to pull the cab as it would be to get it out the nose. I think there’ll be some more prep time, but now that I’ve had to deal with the exhaust bolts both through a little hole in the fender and then on the other side in the vast open spaces of no-cab land, that’ll save a bunch of time. And getting to some of the wires that need to be got at, as well.
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Thanks!
So far so good on the side effects, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m going to go to bed early tonight, probably, and while I do have to work tomorrow at a group home, it should be pretty chill.
No idea what the context is. It’s a cute picture with a batpony, and that was good enough for me.
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Only easy way, anyhow.
And we still don’t know if it would actually fit out if we didn’t, presuming all the bolts had been nice and came off. It might have, but it equally might not have. Heaven knows I’ve done my fair share of ‘the book says you have to remove this but I bet you don’t . . . oh, I guess you do after all.”
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Yeah, you aren’t kidding.
Or even some magic unicorn way of getting to the bolts on the backside and getting them loose.
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<goes and checks>
By Jove, so it is.
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Whistling innocently while eating said pizza
Thanks for playing along)
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Oh believe me I know
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Yay
5499254
mine's may 3rd
it was pretty easy for me. I got my appointment within 2 weeks of it opening up for my group, pros of living in a red state I guess. But overall Texas and my city in particular did a good job. we also don't have residency requirements for the counties so you can go where the shots are if you want. Fortunately the non county options had reservations so they didn't all get taken up immediately.
5499269
Me too!
Once the hose was moving on the fitting, I closed my eyes and turned my head and that’s about all you can doThat´s what she said.
5498743
We call "White Coat Syndrome" here, in Brasil. Yes I have it. I got so, SO nervous just looking at a dentist, or a nurse, that my blood pressure spike. Due to that, anhestescis wear off faster and work only 50% as good in me as in other people.
Way to go to make a problem even worse.
And I have an appoitment to extract 4 wisdow tooth and a broke tooth in two weeks.
Yay me.
Can't you wear safety goggles or some other protective eyewear? That sounds like important workplace safety concerns.
5499245
Ah, thanks!
Those bulges are flexible sections to make installing and removing the pipes earlier?
(And is the forward part of the engine, further away from the camera, just black, then, not covered in soot? Or is the engine actually entirely under the cab on this truck?)
Relatively recently I (just mentally) tried to work out the best way to twincharge a Junkers Jumo 205 and did some research on turbochargers (and superchargers) for that. Still wouldn't count myself as an expert, though, of course, just from that.
(I believe, regarding the engine, I eventually decided on two turbochargers, one each for each side's exhaust manifold and both feeding air into the preexisting supercharger, which might or might not have any bypass-and-disengage system. Though one disadvantage I had was that I was mostly just trying to work from old pictures of the engine, rather than actual plans or the like.
(This was for that same Junkers Jumo 205-derived locomotive engine I believe I mentioned to you a while ago.))
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Oh, good, though I was also just hearing in the comments to another blog post that apparently it's the second doses that usually give the particularly strong side effects. Still, good luck on this one and that one.
And glad you've got a pretty chill day of work expected rather than a more intense one; I hope it does indeed turn out that way.
Hah, alright then. :D
It is, indeed, a cute picture with a batpony. :)
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With the cab off, putting on the starter was trivial. Plenty of access.
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I’m not sure what all the requirements were where I live—obviously, if you scheduled at a CVS or Meijer or whatever, it didn’t have to be in your county so long as you were willing to drive, and some of my friends reported being able to get shots in some of the redder border counties of Ohio instead of waiting for them to become available in Michigan. I think for the counties where I live and work, you had to be a resident to get on the list of the county vaccination efforts, since of course they’re going to prioritize residents first.
It took me about four months from when it opened up for my group; I probably could have gotten it a little quicker if I’d either registered as soon as I was eligible, or had the free time to check every pharmacy within an hour’s drive for appointments. I’m just glad that I got it, that’s one less thing to worry about.
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Good luck!
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I’ve got reasonably safe glasses (and I’ve found that the side shields seem to channel stuff into the eye) . . . it was more that I’m lying on the ground under the truck, and when I pull that hose, any coolant left is going to hit the ground faster than I can get away. It’s not usually so much of an issue; usually we can lift them and I can be well out of the way before the coolant comes splashing out.
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They’re not that flexible, they’re just for expansion/contraction as the engine and exhaust heat up and cool off. Otherwise the pipes would crack or the bolts would break. Basically, under that finger-trap looking wire basket you can see, it’s a steel pipe with crimps in it, kinda like this:
cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0972/8304/products/Flex-Bellow-No-Logo_1024x1024.jpg
The back quarter of the engine is partially under the cab (the wiper cowl, but that’s part of the cab and doesn’t come off). A lot of the forward parts of the engine are black, especially the plastic bits. Here’s a YT video of them doing basically the same job I did:
Also, I’m jealous at how rust-free that truck was and how well it came apart. :P
I know you can turbo supercharge an engine, but AFAIK no automaker does for a production car/light truck engine. I don’t know if there are any advantages for a modern engine which would overcome the potential complexity disadvantages, TBH. With direct injection, variable geometry turbos, and variable valve timing, you can already squeeze a lot of horsepower, torque, and fuel economy out of an engine.
Yeah, I’ve heard that, too. I do plan to have the weekend off after the second dose, just in case.
It did turn out that way, so that was good.
5502757
Ahh, thanks!
Ah, and thanks!
I don't have time to watch the full video at present and am not sure I will do so later, but I skipped around and saw some interesting things; thanks for sharing that, too. :)
"Also, I’m jealous at how rust-free that truck was and how well it came apart. :P"
Heh, sorry! :D
re twincharging:
I've no idea about road vehicle engines, but thanks for the information.
A two-stroke diesel, though, requires some form of forced induction to operate (at least, as far as I know, all of them do, though there might be exceptions), and a turbocharger doesn't start working until the engine's already gotten going. As I recall, a number of locomotive-sized two-strokes are twincharged; there are apparently some designs that actually use the same impeller for both the turbocharger and the supercharger, as I understand it, and whether it's driven by the engine or the exhaust turbine depends on the engine speed.
(And a diesel, as I understand it, also is easier to properly twincharge than a spark ignition engine, since the latter has to worry about messing up the fuel/air ratio and potential unintended compression ignition and the like while the former basically just has to worry about the cylinder developing a new opening from overpressure, allowing both more air to be shoved in and less concern about exactly how much air is being shoved in.)
(Oh, and in looking a bit more about that up for this reply I found that apparently there are commercially available twincharged road engines.)
Also, for this particular fantasy application I'm looking at something that should be workable with just the technology of ~1950. The Junkers Jumo 205 had direct injection, and so does this, but there's no electronic control system, just a governor that tries to keep the engine turning at its constant set speed by varying how much fuel is injected per power stroke as the speed changes with changing loads.
That sounds wise. I hope you don't need it and end up just having a fun and relaxing weekend, but particularly good to already not need to go into work if things don't turn out quite that well.
Ah, good. :)
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Heh, no worries, I just took a quick look and found one that would be a decent all-around view of how things went together. Videos like that are mostly only interesting if you follow those guys and their projects, or if you’re pulling the cab off one of those trucks for the first time and want to know where the things you need to remove are.
On the other hand, stuff on a car failing due to rust garners us a fair bit of business; after I finished that Ford, I did brake lines and fuel lines of a Chevy Dually ($1300 repair) because they’d rusted and were leaking.
I’m really not up on my two-stroke diesels, so I’ll take your word for it. You are correct on the locomotives as I recall, I know the opposed piston ones needed forced induction in the form of a supercharger to make it work. Some ship engines are started with compressed air, which might be a way to get things going and let the turbo kick in (or it might because an electric starter for a ship-sized engine is really impractical). I did just learn that the EMD 645 (locomotive engine) is turbocharged, but “has a centrifugal clutch that allows it to act as a centrifugal blower at low engine speeds” (wikipedia link that mentions it); the EMD 567, its predecessor, apparently had the same arrangement. Which, if I’m understanding correctly, lets it be a supercharger when engine output is low, but a turbo when it’s higher.
I know DI was around in the 50s for gas engines as well; Mercedes used it in the 300 IIRC. I think they were the first for an automobile.
As for the combination turbo/effectively a supercharger, EMD’s 567 engine was first produced in 1938, so that tech would have been reasonably mature by the 50s (I will note that the 567 was also available with just a Roots-type supercharger, such as on EMD’s FT, and I don’t know when they started using the combo unit). There’s probably drawings you could find about how they worked, though. I couldn’t find anything with a real quick look around, but I’m sure the info’s out there.
They’re also common in marine applications. From what I know, a lot of inland tugboats (Mississippi River and other waterways) use EMD engines, and depending on where you live, you might be able to get a tour of a tug or buy a tugboat mechanic a couple beers in exchange for a look at the repair manuals.
5505057
Heh, thanks. :)
Hah, yes, I suppose there is that side of it too! :D
(Also, your mention of brake lines leaking reminded me of this, which isn't quite the same thing (copper pipe, for one) but is something I came across a while ago and thought I'd link now in case you might find it, or other related videos, interesting. No obligations to watch involved, of course. :))
"I’m really not up on my two-stroke diesels, so I’ll take your word for it. You are correct on the locomotives as I recall, I know the opposed piston ones needed forced induction in the form of a supercharger to make it work."
Well, I'm not sure how up I really am on them either -- certainly not to the point of physically doing work on one -- but as I recall, that's the case for all of them, aye. I believe that's needed primarily to get the exhaust gases blown out quickly enough.
"Some ship engines are started with compressed air, which might be a way to get things going and let the turbo kick in (or it might because an electric starter for a ship-sized engine is really impractical)."
Ah, right, I think I recall that. And I _think_ it's the latter, though I know even less about the _really big_ marine two-strokes than I do about locomotive diesels.
re the engines with the centrifugal clutch:
Ah, right; I think that's what I was thinking of in the comment you're replying to.
"Which, if I’m understanding correctly, lets it be a supercharger when engine output is low, but a turbo when it’s higher."
That's basically my understanding too, I think, though my impression was that it wasn't exactly engine output. Also from the Wikipedia article you linked: "The turbocharger can revert to acting as a supercharger during demands for large increases in engine output power." Which I'm guessing means during conditions where the engine speed has picked up faster than the turbine speed?
"I know DI was around in the 50s for gas engines as well; Mercedes used it in the 300 IIRC. I think they were the first for an automobile."
Ah, neat. I don't think I realized -- ah, but there were some gasoline injection aviation engines in WWII, weren't there, I think? So I guess I did know the technology was that old. Though I don't know about direct injection for gasoline. [shrugs] I am just an interested amateur here, after all, I suppose, and my interest has tended to run more towards compression than spark ignition. Still, now I am a bit curious about this... though apparently not enough to look it up right now. Then again, considering the limited time available to me right now, perhaps that's for the better.
"As for the combination turbo/effectively a supercharger, EMD’s 567 engine was first produced in 1938, so that tech would have been reasonably mature by the 50s (I will note that the 567 was also available with just a Roots-type supercharger, such as on EMD’s FT, and I don’t know when they started using the combo unit). There’s probably drawings you could find about how they worked, though. I couldn’t find anything with a real quick look around, but I’m sure the info’s out there."
Thanks for the suggestion (and information). :)
I might at some point, though I'm not sure if or when.
The main issue I faced when trying to figure out how to fit them, at least in my mental models, wasn't how to add them at all, though, but how to add them while increasing the engine's bounding box as little as possible. A core part of this project is that the engines should be, relatively speaking, compact, easy to swap in and out of locomotives and easy to ship around. And the drawings I could really use would be of the Junkers Jumo 205, I think, so I wouldn't have to just look at pictures of the external casing and make variously-educated guesses about the internal arrangements. And those might be available somewhere too, but I've not found them yet. Eh.
Well, fortunately I'm just doing this for fun. :)
(Also, I recently roughly designed what I think would be a railway vacuum toilet buildable in 1950. OTL, railway vacuum toilets didn't come into being until much later and were derived from aviation systems, if I'm recalling that part of my research correctly, and it's even a bit early for vacuum sewer technology at all. Still, the first attempts at vacuum sewers date to the 19th century, so it seemed plausible enough that someone could come across that and think that it could be made to work with then-modern technology.
The control system I found interesting, given I was working with relay and electromechanical logic and ended up using a cam wheel driven by a known-constant-speed motor for function timing. I also thought it might be a good idea to use an ejector running off the train's compressed air supply to produce the system vacuum, rather than trusting the dubious reliability of a period vacuum pump under those conditions; as I recall, even decades later, pump reliability was an issue.
(Also an issue with railway toilet design: the things people put down them. I found a study from 1948 that was, uh, illuminating.
It's an interesting field of design, though, I think, railway toilets; they might have a bit of an air of distaste about them, but they're a pretty important system! With quite a variety of possible variations and challenges to meet.))
"They’re also common in marine applications. From what I know, a lot of inland tugboats (Mississippi River and other waterways) use EMD engines"
Oh, neat. :)
"and depending on where you live, you might be able to get a tour of a tug or buy a tugboat mechanic a couple beers in exchange for a look at the repair manuals."
Hm. Don't know how likely that'd be, but thanks for the thought, at least. :)
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As a bit of an update, if you're interested, I discovered that putting a turbocharger on a Junkers Jumo 205-based engine is already a thing! So that's neat, I think.
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Huh, that is interesting!
I’ll get a look at it sometime; I do like the RDC cars and have considered getting a model of one, even though it’s totally inappropriate for any railroad I’d be likely to model.
My gut assumption was that the system was more or less identical to diesel injection at the time, but I honestly don’t know. According to Wikipedia, GDI has been around since 1911, although it wasn’t widely embraced. Skimming through the wikipedia article, I noticed that the Bosch system “was basically a high-pressure diesel direct-injection pump with an intake throttle valve set up.” The same article also mentions Junkers using GDI for aircraft as early as 1916 (but it was never put in production, apparently).
I think that they just dumped out on the tracks for simplicity, and nobody really cared. I’ve never actually looked into when they started using holding tanks on trains.
There’s a town near me that has a vacuum sewer system and it turns out when there’s a long cold spell, the sewer lines freeze.
Yeah, that’s really a challenge with all such systems. I’m sure it’s a problem in aviation as well. I know that there are people who test out airplane toilets to make sure they don’t clog when normal things are flushed down them; I don’t know how well they cope with abnormal things.