Did I Luck Into Something?

[JayTheCPA]

At 150K miles I had stud girdles installed, asked for feedback on whether there were any obvious signs of cracks (goal is to start towing after a few more mods), and the feedback I received was that the engine (at least the whole lower end: block, crank, connecting rods, and pistons) looked like they were nearly new. The mechanic felt that the engine was a GM replacement as there were a set of initials on the block, red dots, and green dots in misc places.

Grabbed a couple shots of the upper valley while the Burb was still up on the lift:



Bottom end was already put back together, so I did not want to pay for two oil pan removal / installations; otherwise I would have a couple more photos.

Had a VIN check run a while ago and there were no signs of GM HQ knowledge about an engine swap, so it was either a dealer, a local shop, or possibly the PO. At this point, the only thing I know history wise starts at 140K miles and there certainly were no engine swaps in the last 10K miles . . .

 

[flmike]

I think my first question would be why is the intake port full of fuel or antfreeze or some kind of liquid????? First Pic right intake port.

 

[WarWagon]

Green is diesel and the red in the valley is coolant. The rear block drain needs to be unplugged looks like.

The diesel needs to be removed from the intake port. Then the engine needs to be spun over by hand with the glow plugs removed. Hit the starter and it may light (flame thrower out the glow plug hole) or bend rods. You are about one careless spin the engine over from a gasket busting, head bolt breaking, rod bending hydrolock.

The thing that matters is the numbers formed by the dots in the valley. (or symbols/logo's) This is covered by the coolant mess at this time.

Why do you have the intake off? And why is all the fluids dumped all over the engine esp in the intake ports? I give your mechanic the benefit of the doubt, but, there needs to be a good reason and there needs to be a plan to deal with it. Maybe you are doing head work?

 

[JayTheCPA]

Ok, point taken that I need to get a better pic of the valley without goop in it and looks like I erroneously presumed that there were enough of the 'dots' exposed to indicate the block's build / style.

WW, will get the the rear block drain checked; would not surprise me if it was clogged given there were signs of critter housing on top of the block and front diff.

Burb's intake is off as it is getting another IP based on odometer (unknown history), erratic T/C lock / unlock, and the RPMs not following the TPS 100% of the time (driving and doing a RPM cycle from idle to 2K); Heath's tow tune pointed me in the direction of the IP. While going after the IP, I am rounding out the project with injectors, new injector lines, new injector return lines, glow plugs, upgraded GP harness, GP controller, lift pump, FTB, and ATT.

 

[great white]

get a pic of the casting numbers on the passenger side rear of the block.

Will tell you conclusively what you have.

Various rebuilders have various ways of identifying a rebuild. Everything from stamped numbers to punched dots. It varies so much there really is no rule of thumb to tell if it's rebuilt of not..

GM doesn't rebuild them, the just sell replacement Optimizer 6500's.....almost the best 6.5 you can get.

 

[chevyCowboy]

get a pic of the casting numbers on the passenger side rear of the block.

Will tell you conclusively what you have.

Various rebuilders have various ways of identifying a rebuild. Everything from stamped numbers to punched dots. It varies so much there really is no rule of thumb to tell if it's rebuilt of not..

GM doesn't rebuild them, the just sell replacement Optimizer 6500's.....almost the best 6.5 you can get.

whats the price tag on one of those now?

 

[JayTheCPA]

whats the price tag on one of those now?

CC, noticed you asked that question a year or so ago (in another thread) but looked like you never got a response. Do not know about a price for the Optimizer, however no matter what kind of engine we determine is in the Burb, if my Wife had her way she would sell you the whole thing for cheap. But I digress . . .

 

[great white]

whats the price tag on one of those now?

Somewhere around 7 grand for a new one through gm parts...

 

[JayTheCPA]

Got some better angles and looks like the first set of pics does portray the dot pattern; here is nearly all of the valley:



The dot pattern shows vertical lines at the leading and trailing edges of where I have seen numbers in other photos, so only a <blank> instead of numbers.

The only numbers (casting?) I found were on the drivers side in back of the FFM:



which looks like (?(maybe 5?))55506, so do I need to go back and look harder for ones on the passenger side?

Got the rest of the story on the goop in the valley: Burb was already up on the lift with the intake off and IP out when the lift pump was replaced. Short version is that the lift pump was tested and fuel drained out via the weep hole in the back. Am sure that even the most seasoned of us will occasionally overlook placement of the fuel drain hose when purging.

So, stuff in the valley is fuel that is lower than the drain hole level and critter leftovers which the mechanic knows about and (without me asking) commented that the valley would get cleaned and the engine turned by hand (just in case) prior to reassembly of the misc parts.

 

[ak diesel driver]

not a GEP motor chevycowboy has one like yours as do I, no valley numbers

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

You have to scrub out the valley to know for certain if it is a GEP engine as it will have the international diamond in the very bottom of the valley cast into it if it is. Yours looks like a regular GM made block which were cast BY GM until late 99. There were a few late 99 blocks that were improved though with the standard GM casting marks that GM used up through about 05 until they ran out of old stock. They wre better than the origanal 97-99 blocks, but not quite as good as the GEP blocks cast by international. Yours does look like a standard 99 GM block which is teh ones that the chinese are copying.

 

[chevyCowboy]

the date code on my block that looks the same as this one is oct 20 of 99 so i would say that is pretty late in the year, this motor is in a 00