chief, i know some of that goes on, but that chit wouldn't fly in my shop. it isn't the unit's decision on what or how it gets fixed. besides, the wait time for engines was bad (during my time), so i don't know what 3rd shop in their right mind would rather carry that WO on their backlog for 30+ days when they can have the gasket replaced in 2 hours. i don't know of a BMO that would support the owning unit in that fight, either. i did store engines in my shop stock (had them rebuilt locally) because of the wait time, but saved them for jobs that truly needed engines.
of course, i always got a lot of flack for running my shop 'right'...
back to the purchase, maybe these where changed out for the heluvit. good deal for you, if that's the case!
Downrange I always had engines in stock, so I swapped engines, then had them tear into the engine on the stand and if it was repairable fix it and put it back into shop stock. That actually saved us time, because we knew we were swapping in a good one vs tearing into one and finding out it was a cracked block instead of a head gasket.
Engines seem to come in pretty fast these days, so doing an engine swap like that won't cause much of a backlog. And if you have the engine on hand, it usually means you can get the equipment off your 026 faster. And since 6.2's are no longer rebuilt any 6.2 pulled goes right to DRMO. Of course that hinges on the SSA being able to supply you with engines...
That said, there is no more "3rd shop" in the Army. Under the new 2-level system you have Field Maintence and Sustainment Maintenance- no more ORG, DS, GS + Depot. ORG+DS are combined to be Field Maintenance, while GS and Depot are combined to be Sustainment (mostly- some exceptions on some tasks).
The new doctrine is "Fix foward-repair rear" and is based upon getting equipment back into the fight faster. Complete assemblies are replaced at Field level, either in the units organic maintenance or a supporting shop, and sent to be repaired at sustainment shops. So now company level maintenance is authorized to pull and swap engines, transmissions, transfer cases, but not authorized in most cases to crack them open and actually repair them. Same for hydraulic cylinders, etc.
They have taken it so far that now there are even NSN's for comeplete mounted tire and wheel assemblies, and when you change one out you evacuate the whole bad tire and wheel to a tire shop. That speeds the return of the equipment to service at the field level and shifts the more time consuming repair to "off-platform" maintenance in the rear.