August 27, 2011

Increased oil consumption? Loss of gas mileage? Yep, that will do it.

That's the number #3 cylinder, which I figured was toast since we had no change in idle when we removed that spark plug wire on the road. I thought it was cracked, but it looks like I melted my first piston. Not entirely sure why it melted, all the others pistons look fine, the looks good, and so do all four plugs (well #3 is oily). I did notice that I have some exposed wiring on the #1 fuel injector plug, I think I might buy some injector plugs and rebuild that harness.

November 15, 2011

Back in November(October?) I think a piston cracked. I let off to make a turn (possibly sucked up some oil from the catch can) and heard a loud snap. Seemed to run fine for while until a Turbo Dodge get-together in Iowa. I was accelerating to catch up to the guy in front of me (everything still seemed fine at that point), but as soon as I let off, a huge oil smoke cloud let out behind me and the engine started burning/spraying oil. Went through about 4 quarts of oil driving it home from Iowa (it is a Dodge and all, but that still seemed a little high for oil consumption).

Bought a short block from a local Turbo Dodge enthusiest, and have the head gasket and head bolts. I started unplugging/unbolting things connected to the engine. Should be able to get everything swapped this weekend