OldIHC

So a client showed up with a ‘51 L122 a few months back. She had just bought the from a Doctor in a neighboring state. Thought the truck needed a minor tune-up and some some other little things. Unfortunately the engine had been poorly rebuilt sometime in its history and now it needed to be done again properly.

The top piston rings in all 6 bores were shattered and working there way up through to tops of the pistons and the guides were knurled and loose again (among other things).

I warned the owner that repairing this engine would be expensive( I had no idea how truly expensive SD’s have become to rebuild in the last 5yrs). I offered her a BG241 that I had on the shelf that just needed head work, but she maintained that she wanted the original engine back in the truck. So off we went finding all of the parts needed to get this engine back in fighting shape.

Fast forward 8weeks.

The engine is back from the machine shop.



The custom pistons from Diamond are here... They are oversized, don’t recall how much off the top of my head- maybe .030? The best part about them is we had the crown raised a bit to bump
Compression by a point.



Take a seat before calling to order a set, but it should still be less than what we paid as the R+D is done for you. Order this “custom part id” and yours will look just like ours.



I’ll posts more about this truck as time allows.

Keep on Binderin’

Great info and Pics. Thanks for sharing.

Finally getting this one back together. This should be a great runner. Head and block decked to true things up. Fresh valve guides. Manifolds and mating surface on head skimmed. Crank was cut .010” mains and .002” (yep, just 2 thou) on the rod journals. All bearing clearances are between .0015-.003”.

Awesome, sometimes it costs a LOT to keep it 100% as from factory, but some people want it that way, as long as they can pay you.

Indeed!

I delivered the ‘52 back to its owner earlier this week. She couldn’t be happier w/ the outcome and had asked that I put together a list for the next round of repairs. The engine runs like a sewing machine. The trans now shifts like it should. After replacing the incorrect/failed oil seals in the rear axle and relining/arcing the oil soaked shoes the brakes work as they should now as well.