Warning!! Check your surplus engines before start up!

[Gunfreak25]

You NEVER think this stuff will happen to you, that you will always be the lucky guy and everyone else gets douped. I've had my 6.2 HMMWV in my M211 for several months now slowly gathering the parts needed to do a first fire up.

I am a couple weeks away from firing it up since I have everything setup now and ready to go. I saw a guy at the DieselPlace forum who said the intake gaskets don't generally have to be replaced every time unless they are damaged.

So I thought cool, that would save me $25 so I thought I'd take tonight to pull my intake off before firing the engine up after having it sit idle in my truck for a year.

I found this sitting ontop of a valve on cylinder 3. Looks like it's been there a couple years.

I almost ruined my engine. GMC gods were speaking to me today. Follow your hunch.

 

[papabear]

Good job Sir!!
A fireup with that in there would have NOT have ended well!

 

[Gunfreak25]

I am picking up head gaskets, new head bolts and some valve lapping compound next. Something tells me it's VERY possible that there could be more stuff in the suspect cylinder where I found the hardware laying. I want to be darn sure! If the heads come off I'll be pulling out the old blue point valve spring compressor for head disassembly, valve polishing and and rust removal from the valves themselves.

Doesn't need to be perfect and truth be told i'll be happy if all I find are a couple rust pits in the cylinder from sitting so long. I've made sure to bar the crank over by hand every few months as well as add marvel through the glow plug holes.

You think a guy could get a decent peek into the cylinders with the injectors removed?

Pretty engine almost went boat anchor status on me. Still shocked.

 

[Keith_J]

Any other identification of this mystery part? Looks like a #8 machine screw, what it is attached to doesn't look like a part common to this engine. Yes, sounds like sabotage .

 

[APM215]

You think a guy could get a decent peek into the cylinders with the injectors removed?.

If you have a borescope then yes. I do it all the time at work. We have a nice one with a remote control head, laptop monitor and roller suitcase it all packs up in. I think someone told me it was worth 50K.

 

[Keith_J]

Any other identification of this mystery part? Looks like a #8 machine screw, what it is attached to doesn't look like a part common to this engine. Yes, sounds like sabotage .

 

[firefox]

There are cheaper inspection scopes, not perfect,
but should be good enough for things like this.
I just bought this thing from a friend of mine a
while back and tested it the other day.
Nothing to write home about, but it seems to work ok.
I'll attach the pdf of the manual to this post.
good luck Marine,
Bruce

 

[armytruck63]

I had a similar experience years ago with a replacement odd-fire V-6 in a CJ-5. I put the engine in, fired her up, and was all proud of myself. As soon as the thermostat opened up I heard a "whack" followed by the fan not turning and belts squeeling.

It turned out there was a loose bolt in the water passages of the engine that flowed into the water pump and destroyed it when the thermostat opened. I got off lucky. A new water pump was the only repair needed.

 

[Gunfreak25]

I tell you what, tonight is a 2 beer night! Thanks for the suggestions. After checking the intake ports again I see valves on both sides are looking a little rusty. I told myself if these heads ever need to come off I was going to install an ARP head stud kit while I was at it.

Got everything bolted back up for now. Going to save my pennies for the ARP head stud kit, gaskets and anything else i'll need or may encounter. Will also have the heads tanked, fluxed and cleaned up they are warped at all. No rush here. Just got my stud girdle kit too so I am going to get that installed in the mean time when I GET some more play time.

 

[gringeltaube]

Now tell us your secret, Tom: what in this world made you wanting to pull the intake manifold back out, after everything was so nicely in place...????

.... I could see use for a bottle of that "Murphy Antidote"...!


G.

 

[AnonymousOne]

Now tell us your secret

Yeah really ... you can tell us ... we wont laugh if you used your women's intuition

May be you used a divining rod ... How to Use Dowsing or Divining Rods: 2 Methods - wikiHow

In all honesty .. thank you for the reminder that people should not "assume" their surplus is perfect just because it looks good on the outside.

 

[Tanner]

I'd never fire up a surplus engine w/o first checking for 'surprises' inside. Especially if it's something ex-mil that has been through multiple depots/shipping ports/hands....

'Tanner'

 

[Gunfreak25]

I honestly don't know. This is not the 1st time I have gotten super lucky on things. This type of stuff happens a lot to me. Something told me I just needed to check. Aunt always told me to follow my gut and never be a piece of chit like my brothers are. Great woman.

 

[armytruck63]

Hey Gunfreak, is that the correct oil filler cap in your photo of the engine? I know that if you use a gas engine cap on a CUCV 6.2, it will cause the crankcase seals to leak.

 

[Gunfreak25]

No, the cap is from the 455 Olds I took out of the truck when I bought it. It fits okay but I'd like to order the proper GM cap for it.

The thing on the oil filler tube is an old school crankcase breather. Just vents to the atmosphere so there's no problems with crankcase pressure. However after reading the importance of the CDR valve and how it actually puts a vacuum on the crankcase to prevent oil leaks I will be ordering the proper CDR, bracket and hoses.

 

[rickf]

Surplus engines do not generally have air cleaners on them and that intake has a BIG dang hole in it that can catch anything thrown or dropped. A little moving around and right down it goes.

Rick

 

[Gunnermac]

Harbor Freight has an inspection scope for $79.00 with flex and a light on the head.

 

[48cj2a]

I found this sitting ontop of a valve on cylinder 3. Looks like it's been there a couple years.

Good chance that would have turned into this:

http://48cj2a.com/images/cucv/6.2/62damage.jpg

 

[Gunfreak25]

Holy moly what happened there?!

 

[48cj2a]

Never found the FOD, but it was something threaded or ribbed. Block was also cracked so I bought a donor truck and swapped motors, parted most of a complete CUCV 6.2 out and more than paid for my replacement engine.