Most mercedes folks use peachparts as their non-dealer parts source.

engine is looking pretty sweet there joe... good luck with the honing...

 

The gauges are mostly wired directly to the cluster. Some of the wires go through the ecu, but you can still hook them strait to the cluster. The tach will need some work. Probably the best bet is the dakota digital adapter. I have heard it's about $80.

Engine's looking good. I'm on my second one, first engine started knocking.

 

Big Shrek- That isn't a bad idea at all. If you have the equipment I'd suggest a leak down test as well. I use a combination of Peach Parts and Mercedes source. I'll grab some pics of the engine mounts tonight. They aren't pretty at all but they are very solid.

Thanks Aviator! I can't wait to hear it run.

89lc Thanks for the information! I don't have a tach cluster so that makes life a little easier but I am sure there will be someone that swaps one in an sr5 cluster eventually.


Well I have all the pistons in the block and the rotating assembly is put together. I plastigauged all of the journals and I have around.0025 clearance. Max spec is .0032 I believe. I am going to hopefully get the pan painted tonight an start putting it back together. Here are the pics I have as of now.
Here is the box from Peach. I have to give these guys props they get stuff here fast!

Here is a piston before it went in.

Putting a piston in the block.

And a couple pictures of the bores.

 

bores look good, nice and clean...

 

Thank's Aviator!

Well I have the rotating assembly finished and I just got the oil pans put on and put the harmonic balancer on. I also did a ton of painting. Here are the pictures.











I am going to paint the star on the valve cover. I haven't decided on what color yet. I am debating between red and black. I'm not real sure. If any of you following this have any ideas throw em out here. Well that's all I have for today. I had a long day at school I think I'm gonna crash.

 

Maybe go with black to match the engine...

Hope you used high heat paint on that turbo... be prepared for some smellyness for the first few days as it bakes on... lol

have you hand spun it a few times yet?

 

I agree black would look good. What parts did you use to rebuild the motor and what did they cost? Looking for a 83-85 donor car and worried about running into the same problems your having. Btw truck looking good and look forward to seeing a vid when you have it running.

 

Aviator- I think thats what I am going to do. The whole engine is primed in extreme heat paint I believe its good to 1500. The manifold and hot side of the turbo are painted with the same stuff. The rest is engine paint good to like 500. On a side note. My cousin had a grill/ smoker he built that burned in a shop fire that they had recently. I helped him clean it up. It was a pretty sad ordeal lost like 27 classic tractors a Ford Model A and 2 model T's and a bunch of stuff. Thank God no one was in it. The fire marshall said it was the hottest fire he had ever seen. It was a steel framed building and you can see what happened. Anything other than steel was either gone or a puddle on the floor.
I tell you all of this to say the grill when it was dug out still had the paint on it, albeit charred but it was still there. I thought it was pretty incredible. Sorry for the derail just thought it was interesting. I have spun the engine a few times and it felt good. It is hard to get a good feel due to not having the timing chain tight.

Baggedgmc- I used basically all seals and wear parts from Peach Parts. I am having my head professionally rebuilt with new valves guides and seals and the works. As far as parts all told will be about $600 all said and done its going to be a hair over a grand. Be advised that pistons for these are super expensive so plan accordingly if you get an engine that has issues. I have a block that is a boat anchor now because of 2 bad pistons. Best of luck wit the swap! If i can be of any help drop me a line.

 

Oh man... so sorry to hear about your cousin's loss... those classics are irreplaceable and their loss is a sad sad event... glad to hear no one was hurt...

So the grill was good to go after getting all the fire fighting goop out of it? that maybe something...

what about the tractors? after getting all the rubber/plastic parts replaced they might be salvage-able at least some of them... unless the metal got seriously warped by the heat...

 

Yeah they had some real rare stuff in there. There was a fully restored 1940 Ford coupe and a couple experimental John Deere's from the 1920's. As well. What the real blessing was that he had some friends over the night before and they were going to sleep in there but decided not to. The grill was fine it just warped the frame it was on. As far as the tractors they are hit and miss. The ones that had antifreeze in them seem to be ok. The ones that didn't there is nothing left. The radiator cores that had no antifreeze in them all melted as well as all of the magnetos melted some of which are irreplaceable. The tractor you can see in the picture has over an inch of sag in the main frame from the heat. It was in the shop where the fire began. If it tells you anything there was a 45 minute gun safe in the shop as well and all that was left was the shell. It burned from the inside out it seemed. Here is a picture of the tractors we drug out last week. The painted ones came from a different shed. It's a pretty bad deal but they are rebuild as I write this and plan to fix the repairable tractors.

 

Damn that's quite a collection your cousin has there... good about his buddies but on the other hand if they had been in there maybe the fire would have been caught sooner...

the 1940 ford is probably replaceable there are enough of them left around and the after market supports them so well you could probably build a whole new one...

the experimental JDs not so much... don't give up on the other ones though... the rads can probably be custom fab-ed by a good rad shop and the mags? hmmm... you might try a look at some aircraft magnetos... the technology in some of them is really old school and you might be able to adapt them to the purpose... sure it would'nt be all OEM original but it would be functional...

the gun safe would have cooked from the inside out.. it probably got so hot the rounds cooked off and ignited the gun lube which would have lit off the wood stocks and so on...

If I ever get my farm I'm hoping to be able to get an old steam tractor to mess around with... love seeing those beautiful old beasts at the steam shows...
being from around here if I had an old gas/diesel tractor it would have to be a massey-harris or massey-furgeson... since they were built right here in my home town...

 

The furnace that started the fire was in the shop where they would have been staying. It had a faulty ignitor and filled with gas and exploded. It looked like a bomb went off in it. There were panels off it that never were found. It was acting up the night before and he thought it was shut off but the automatic thermostat kicked it back on. They figured they lost about 100 gallons of propane before they got it shut off. They are going to look into getting some or the more rare ones repaired but the more common ones they are going to keep as parts for others. I'll let them know about the magnetos because I have a feeling they will be looking. Thank you for the tip! The guns in the safe had no rounds in them but it certainly did burn the stocks off and warped the sin out of the barrels. It literally melted a hole in the safe and you couldn't even get the door open because it was warped so bad. I had to cut a hole in the side of it with a torch and beat the door open with a hammer. I haven't seen many fires but I have never seen anything in my life get that hot. There was an A in there on skeleton wheels that the wheels folded in two. It was hot. We have a neighbor that has an old steam engine and he fires it up about once a year. Boy it sure is an awesome sight. I hear you on the Massey's I have a huge soft spot for them. We actually have one running around here. We still farm with it and honestly I like running it much better than the newer ones. it has character.
According to the origin tag it was built in Ontario as well. I wish they were still around they built a heck of a machine.

 

Leave that one to me lol. I'm looking into working for AGCO as an ag engineer down here in Hesston, KS, which is who bought out M-F

 

yeah those 'stats will do it every time... folks if you have a faulty furnace remember to shut off the gas supply valve and the breaker/fuse on the power supply. That way there is no way it can turn itself on and maybe go kaboom... remember the life you save may be your own.


Nice MF combine... why the round [roller?] bars on the head? I've only ever seen straight boards on them.
I'd send you some pics of the plant those MFs came from but they tore it down a few yrs ago to clear space for condo developments. I'm sure I could find some stock images if you were interested Joe.

 

geez, that shop looks crazy. I can't imagine the initial blast, and oil of any kind never helps a situation like that. Its been a while since I've been on, and while scrolling through looking at all the pretty engine parts I got really pumped. Then the destruction. Really glad nobody was around to feel it. North America would not be what it is today with out tractors like those. Glad to hear the plan is to save those rare ladies.
On a positive note...got my donor diesel today. has 199,900 miles. Sucker glides. Brings tears of joy to ponder how it'll push a truck about 500 pounds lighter. I plan on turning it over 200,000 when its sittin in the yota. Suppose I'll be startin a build thread soon myself.

 

Joe I have to be honest I have run several newer Massey Ferguson tractors and I am not a huge fan. That being said We bought a new Agco/Hesston disc mower last year and it has been great. I much prefer the older simpler equipment to the newer stuff. We have an old 966 IH that is probably my favorite on the farm.

Amen to that Aviator! Thanks that combine was a true barn find. It's a 1981 and just turned 1300 hours. Those rollers are actually plastic irrigation pipe that is put over the wooden bats.It prevents the bats from knocking the soybean pods open in real dry conditions. If you happen to find some that would be awesome. I know my grandpa would get a kick out of them.

Mountain goat- They were there when it started and it really wasn't that big it just burned quick and hot. It did make quite a boom! From start to finish it was on fire for just shy of an hour. Congrats on the engine! It's just getting broken in! My engine was still within spec after well over 300k. I am eager to see your build. I think we need to have a diesel yota gtg some time! If I can be of any help let me know!

Well I talked to the machinist today and my head needs valve guides and seals so I have them on order from Phil and hopefully they will be here soon. Maybe fingers crossed I can have it back in the truck next weekend!

 

only 1300hrs original? heck it's still getting broken in... so that's a soybean combine eh?

the pipes cushion the impact of the bats and prevent premature opening of the pods eh? hmm I learned something new today... makes it a good day

I "drove" a combine once at my uncle's place in europe in '75 ...it had a grain head on it... open cab, no railings between the operator's deck and the head... I was 5... freaky to be steering the thing with the head spinning away right "there" in front of my nose...

 

Yep it sure is. Corn beans and wheat is about all we farm around here. The head has many more hours than the combine as we bought a smaller one to go through the gates of our smaller fields without having to take it off. I've run one that didn't have a cab but it had a railing. It was pretty interesting. I know that at night when I get really tired that reel will make me motion sick if I follow it haha. The last head we had had aluminum bats and they reflected light like no other. It was really annoying. It is amazing how much bigger and crazier things appear when you are little.

 

Nothing like rotoscoping with the bat flash.. makes everything go in slow motion... then you hit the fence at the end of the row and everything speeds up again lol...

I don't care what you say combines are still the biggest pieces of equipment down on the farm lol...

so you don't raise your own livestock? even for your own table?

speaking of the head would it not have been cheaper to just build a bigger gate? jus' askin'

 

Ain't that the truth! I've never got a fence but 2 years ago I picked up a rock and I couldn't get the thresher kicked out fast enough and ran it through. Ended up busting the concave and grain pan. We had to literally gut the whole combine to get it out. It took about a week. We don't raise livestock on our farm simply because with me in school and being gone a lot during the day its a little too much for Grandpa to want to take on. Well we don't have a header trailer so really the cost is about the same plus the time factor as those old "quick attach" headers really aren't that fast.

Well I really have no updates. I was hoping that my parts would be here before the weekend. I spent some time cleaning up the shop and painting more parts. I finally got the valve cover done. I am so much looking forward to having this done. I have been driving my Benz for the past week or so and even at 330k it is still returning 27 mpg. I have to say I am really impressed with the power this thing has too. It really surprised me. It is by no means quick but it sure isn't bash your head in slow. It will keep up with My sisters 06 tdi. I can't wait to see what some ip tweaks and removing the alda will do for the truck. I'll post some pics tomorrow if I get a chance. Thanks for all of the interest and support guys! You all have made this project a lot more interesting and fun for me! I look forward to getting on Yotatech everyday and seeing what's new its a great bunch of people here!