This Engine Rebuild Was Doomed From Day 1

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]This engine overheated once before.

[00:00:01]That's what started this whole mess. The owner paid big money to have it rebuilt, hoping they were getting a fresh start.

[00:00:07]But instead of fixing the reason for it overheating, they just rebuilt the symptoms. And what happens when you ignore the root problem? You get to buy the same engine rebuild twice. The deeper we tear into this thing, the worse it gets.

[00:00:21]The recent rebuild that it had has the wrong size parts. Critical components were never replaced. Corners were literally cut to make this thing go back together. And now that the engine's overheated again, the fresh rebuild has completely failed. The owners are staring at another massive repair bill.

[00:00:37]So today, we're tearing into this disaster and seeing what we can salvage and seeing if it can actually even be fixed. We might not be able to rebuild this engine. We might have to use a different core or might have to come out and go to the machine shop and be able to have a out of frame rebuild.

[00:00:52]>> All right, let's start taking a closer look and tearing into this thing.

[00:00:57]Okay, we're going to start it up here.

[00:00:59]We got the tail pipe hooked up where that's going to the rear head, the head on the back side back there. So, all four cylinders are there. The smoke, if there's any smoke from them, should come out of the tail pipe. This manifold is off. So, these are going to smoke. This one smokes a lot. This one smokes a lot.

[00:01:12]These smoked a little bit over here. I do have a towel shoved in the manifold there so that none of the smoke could accidentally get to that way. So, that should just be If smoke comes out of there, then we know we got problems on the back cylinders, too.

[00:01:26]We'll do a compression test on everything just to see where we're at.

[00:01:29]But I just want to know if we're smoking back there because these smoked enough.

[00:01:32]It makes me think it might just be these two cylinders that are really bad.

[00:01:38]Ready?

[00:02:13]Just going to check the air filters and make sure they're in there and filled properly.

[00:02:18]This doesn't feel that heavy.

[00:02:22]>> It's a little bit low, but there is oil in it, so that's a good sign.

[00:02:29]That looks like really thin oil in there, too.

[00:02:31]>> There's no way that's 48.

[00:02:33]>> Yeah.

[00:02:33]>> Yeah. Okay.

[00:02:42]>> Okay.

[00:02:49]Okay.

[00:02:50]>> So, they don't have filters in them.

[00:02:59]We'll drain it all the way.

[00:03:01]>> Drain it all the way.

[00:03:02]>> Yeah. Cuz if we remove the bottom head, >> I thought it smell funny. The coolant.

[00:03:14]It's a lot of foam in there.

[00:03:28]One of the things they did was they flushed the radiator out, but they clearly didn't flush out the flush out very good because there's a lot of foam in there.

[00:03:37]This radiator swings out, so you can get some pretty good access back in there.

[00:03:41]It's not perfect, but way better than it not coming out.

[00:03:57]>> We're going to stick the boroscope camera inside the radiator and take a look and see how plugged up it is. I suspect we're going to have issues inside the radiator.

[00:04:07]Okay, hang on a second.

[00:04:27]Come back just a hair. I mean, those are definitely That's the top of that.

[00:04:41]They're definitely restricted. They're >> Mhm.

[00:04:44]>> much skinnier than what they should be.

[00:05:02]Yeah, we're going have to pull that out.

[00:05:09]We're going to drain the rest of the coolant from the block here. This shouldn't have too much pressure.

[00:05:16]Another close.

[00:05:42]It's raining.

[00:05:50]Okay, we got a table set up with a Don't do it by yourself.

[00:05:59]Kind of lift up. I think we're tweaked more. We're pulling the bottom too much.

[00:06:02]That's what it is. Okay.

[00:06:23]Oh, that was not fun.

[00:06:28]Let's turn his head over.

[00:06:37]Let's get back that way.

[00:06:49]We turn that light back on.

[00:07:05]This looks terrible under here.

[00:07:28]Well, one thing I noticed is this perimeter gasket is missing.

[00:07:36]You mean the whole thing is not there?

[00:07:38]>> Nope. It's like broke off from there to there. And it's not stuck to the head.

[00:07:54]And what the hell?

[00:08:06]That's permiteex.

[00:08:12]It's cut and permexed together.

[00:08:17]>> Yeah.

[00:08:27]for the right. Yeah, that's definitely cut. It's cut and there's like they shove a couple pieces in there and then fill it with permite.

[00:08:52]Why would they try to reuse That is so junk.

[00:09:08]Criminal is what it is actually.

[00:09:12]>> Highway robbery.

[00:09:13]>> Highway robbery.

[00:09:21]>> Yeah. Away from the cylinders. The color side of it faces away from the cylinders, not up.

[00:09:28]having that chunk missing from the lower lefthand corner. That explains why I was seeing the oil dripping from here. And then on the other side on the back of the head, that explains why I was seeing oil bubbling up behind the head on the top or that corner where they had that corner cut and glued together.

[00:09:46]Come on, camera. I don't see any cross-hatching. It's all the way around scored and but this lip that's at the top here that it's a huge groove >> but you can feel it with your finger. I don't if the light is capturing it but yeah you can that's what old old worn out liners look like. Not like something that's only got 2500 miles on it.

[00:10:13]>> I know for a fact I have this thing in here.

[00:10:22]Maybe that whole clamp has to come all the way off.

[00:10:31]>> I think the fan was in the way.

[00:10:36]>> Good.

[00:10:36]>> Yeah.

[00:10:43]>> Let's push cylinder liner over there.

[00:10:45]We're okay until I'll push it back in in a minute.

[00:11:09]Look at that.

[00:11:24]This one's going to come out. We'll go ahead and just take this one out since it's coming out.

[00:11:46]Jesus.

[00:11:50]>> You guys.

[00:11:50]>> Yeah.

[00:11:55]Okay. Hang on.

[00:11:57]Good.

[00:11:59]Yeah. Perfect.

[00:12:02]This one, the piston should start pushing out more, too.

[00:12:11]Okay.

[00:12:27]Nice.

[00:12:33]>> Keep going. Yeah.

[00:12:38]Oh, stop.

[00:12:51]Okay, stop.

[00:12:54]I want to get this one out.

[00:13:01]I'm moving.

[00:13:11]Okay, just twist it out. Pull it.

[00:13:19]Okay, let's wipe the outside of that down. Look for a manufacturer date.

[00:13:24]Normally top it.

[00:13:26]>> I don't know. It's hard to say. Just keep I've never heard of ES code before.

[00:13:40]Well, they did use new cylinder liners cuz the owners owned the bus for like 4 years and it has a QR code on it.

[00:13:47]One of the things they charged for was to hone the cylinders to make the new liners fit and these are number four liners. So, my concern is that there's an improper fit on them. Uh, and we're gonna have to send the block out to a machine shop and have them take it out to 10,000.

[00:14:00]Another thing they had to do is the trailer hitch is welded on to the bus where you can't remove the oil pan because the trailer hitch is in the way.

[00:14:06]The other shop had to cut the trailer hitch off and then they rewelded it all back together. So, you can't get to the pan without cutting everything apart again. So, we're going to cut it off and then make it so it's boltable. One thing that's not on the bill is Permiteex. And it looks like they use many, many tubes of Permiteex on this rebuild.

[00:14:24]Are you safe where you're at?

[00:14:26]>> Scott, are we looking okay?

[00:14:27]>> Yeah, you're looking good.

[00:14:32]>> Want me to lower it?

[00:14:37]>> Watch your fingers there, George. You ready?

[00:14:39]>> Yep.

[00:14:39]>> Just take it to the ground, right?

[00:14:41]>> Yep.

[00:14:44]>> I wouldn't take it all the way to the ground cuz you're going to pivot it forward.

[00:14:48]>> Pull the jack.

[00:14:50]>> Your toes in the way.

[00:14:53]Okay.

[00:14:54]>> Safety set.

[00:14:54]>> Yep.

[00:15:03]>> Flip around.

[00:15:06]Luckily, these radiators are completely serviceable.

[00:15:25]It should just lift right off.

[00:15:35]Yeah, there's a whole bunch of them that are completely plugged up.

[00:15:46]Plugged up. Mostly plugged.

[00:15:51]All the way. Plugged. All the way.

[00:15:52]Plugged. All the way. Plugged. All the way. Plugged.

[00:15:56]Some restriction. All the way plugged.

[00:16:02]It gets worse as we go down here.

[00:16:06]Cuz even these that are like this, I mean, it should be open like that, but who knows what's down inside there. It has some soft leak in it, too.

[00:16:19]Is that >> stop leak?

[00:16:20]>> Is that what that is?

[00:16:21]>> That's what that is. That's stop leak.

[00:16:22]It's like a paste.

[00:16:26]>> That's probably all in the tubes and everything, too.

[00:16:29]>> Oh, wow. Look how Oh, >> that was the top of the radiator. Let's take a look at the bottom now and see what it's like. Sometimes the bottom is even worse.

[00:17:04]bottom.

[00:17:15]Lovely.

[00:17:23]It's got a lot of that.

[00:17:25]>> Yeah. So, I mean, there's there's not much flowing through this.

[00:17:31]>> Let me get you get it in there.

[00:17:34]>> No. Send it to the shop.

[00:17:39]There's definitely nothing getting through a lot of these or very little and we don't know what's inside of them.

[00:17:49]You know, this is just the end on it.

[00:17:57]I have no problem saying it was at least 30% plugged up.

[00:18:04]Was even like just crapped out of there.

[00:18:14]You know, it should be that full dimension like that. And they're all crowned over.

[00:18:21]It's got barnacles.

[00:18:37]>> Hey, George. Easy boy. Oh, >> it's a wonderful day.

[00:18:45]>> Let me turn it around.

[00:18:49]>> Don't get your hair caught in the wheels.

[00:18:53]>> You got a second.

[00:19:02]We're going to redesign that so if it ever needs to be worked on, it doesn't have to be welded and cut apart.

[00:19:09]It's crazy, right, George?

[00:19:17]>> It's crazy.

[00:19:20]>> Crazy. Not crazy.

[00:19:22]>> Can I show you the best part?

[00:19:24]>> Yeah. Well, no.

[00:19:30]They left to where you can unbolt this transmission cooler. I can get to two of them, but the other two when they put the bracket on, you'll see it in a second. Tell me when you can see the nuts.

[00:19:47]Can you see the or the heads of the bolts?

[00:19:49]>> Oh, yeah. Way up under there. Yeah, >> but they're they're pinned in. You can't That's crazy.

[00:20:02]>> We'll redesign it better.

[00:20:04]>> Yes.

[00:20:07]We're going to need to do some thread repair. I see they just threw that corner together there.

[00:20:19]You clean your finger first.

[00:20:23]Looks like there is some metal in there.

[00:20:25]Sure as hell is.

[00:20:27]>> Yeah.

[00:20:28]>> Wow.

[00:20:32]>> For an engine oil drain plug, that's a lot.

[00:20:36]>> Hang on. Let me get a fingernail against you cuz it's thick there.

[00:20:52]That's a lot lot of metal paste on there. That should not be there.

[00:20:57]Is that a chunk right there?

[00:21:08]>> We'll see what's in the pan when we get it down, too.

[00:21:23]Yeah. Just keep working the chisel around and you like you put it sideways and you can tap it sideways to break the glue. You know what I'm saying?

[00:21:33]>> Yeah.

[00:21:54]How much of that permiteex is going to be stuck to the pickup tube?

[00:21:58]>> All right, let me uh >> Is there a gasket on there, too? He reused the old gasket.

[00:22:02]>> There was um um cork sticking out.

[00:22:08]Yeah, there's a bit of cork right there.

[00:22:37]That's something else, man.

[00:22:53]Slide her out. Yep.

[00:23:03]Go ahead and touch it. Is it permittex or is that all metal?

[00:23:09]>> It's a lot of metal. It's a lot of metal.

[00:23:12]>> Yeah.

[00:23:16]>> And permax.

[00:23:19]>> I see more metal stuck to the drain plug over there, too. What is that clip over there?

[00:23:22]>> That's a big piece. What's that big?

[00:23:24]That's part of the valve train.

[00:23:34]There's a bit.

[00:23:42]You can just feel the metal on the bottom. Look at all that gray goo.

[00:23:51]There's a bunch up in this corner, too.

[00:23:54]Chunkies.

[00:23:58]You can hear it up top.

[00:24:30]See it?

[00:24:34]Keep wiggling it like that.

[00:24:37]You'll get it.

[00:24:39]Too much glue.

[00:24:43]Don't let that fall.

[00:24:46]Here we go.

[00:25:10]All right.

[00:25:11]Let me uh You can't go up anymore over there.

[00:25:18]Okay, I'm up I'm up as high as I can there.

[00:25:24]So, what am I hitting over?

[00:25:41]That is definitely not 55 footbs.

[00:25:51]So, all this buildup here tells me that I think that that cap under there is leaking oil.

[00:25:57]Maybe on both sides of this one. You're supposed to use this tool that has a vacuum cup on it that we put on here.

[00:26:03]I'm going to clean this up and see if it holds a vacuum, but I doubt that it does.

[00:26:10]See the gauge?

[00:26:15]So, that's been leaking oil the whole time on there.

[00:26:23]Test the other side.

[00:26:30]It's very slowly leaking. You see it moving?

[00:26:41]We test them for 60 seconds and yeah, it's it's leaking. So, that causes a leak coil. And then look at this piston ring right here.

[00:26:50]It's broken.

[00:26:53]Yeah, the piston rings on this one are good.

[00:26:58]The piston's just in terrible shape.

[00:27:02]Okay, so here's another one.

[00:27:04]It's definitely got some goobers on it.

[00:27:08]Let's uh that's holding.

[00:27:30]But as you can see, it doesn't have all the goober around it.

[00:27:34]So, doesn't look like that one was leaking, but this one has the broken piston ring there. See that gap on that ring?

[00:27:42]Big section missing. Probably going to find that in the uh airbox somewhere.

[00:27:50]Now, here's some more concerning stuff.

[00:27:54]Take a look at the bearing on the rod here.

[00:28:02]Pull the cap off so you can get a better shot of it.

[00:28:07]Look at all that goobers.

[00:28:11]This only has like 3,000 miles on it.

[00:28:18]I don't know if it was put together dirty.

[00:28:23]All that crap kind of smashed in there.

[00:28:27]Could just be from crap in the oil, but 3,000 miles doesn't look very good.

[00:28:38]Look at that one. See all that copper showing through and then all that crap.

[00:28:46]Can you get a really good like zoom in and get a really closeup and see? It's like a record player.

[00:28:51]We got to really look close to the crankshaft.

[00:29:03]Lots of copper in there. Can you see the copper coming through?

[00:29:09]Come around the other side.

[00:29:18]That's not what you want your brand new engine to look like.

[00:29:24]You can see how scraped up these pistons are.

[00:29:30]That's from the overheating.

[00:29:36]>> Rings are all good there.

[00:29:39]>> But look at that.

[00:29:46]Terrible here. This rebuild label on here.

[00:29:52]clearly says that the rods and main bearings are supposed to be 10,000 undersized. So, the crankshaft's been turned. It's undersized 10,000. Um, and these are not.

[00:30:03]>> That guy did not want to roll out.

[00:30:07]>> And these are the rod bearings that they use and they're standard. STD is standard. So, they did not use the correct bearings for the rods.

[00:30:26]We're going to take a measurement on the crankshaft and make sure that everything is it's been turned like that. Um I believe it has though. This this owner's own the bus for almost 40 years, 30 something years. Um so that rebuild tag, it had a fresh rebuild when he got it.

[00:30:39]Um or had like a year before or something like that. He had the documentation that came with it. So uh that tag is going to be very accurate.

[00:30:46]It's lower and it's towards you.

[00:30:50]>> Okay.

[00:31:12]plastic will tell us for sure. But that just seems very >> that's insanely loosey goosey whenever I've rebuilt the engine. I've not rebuilt the diesel.

[00:31:26]I happen to have some brand new uh rod bearings for 10,000 uh undersized crank. We're going to put it on here with the plastic gauge, torque it down, and take a measurement and see what we've got.

[00:31:37]>> I like it.

[00:31:40]>> Think you're almost there?

[00:31:41]>> I'm hitting something.

[00:31:42]>> All right, hang on.

[00:31:42]>> I got to twist one way or the other or something.

[00:31:48]>> Give me one second. This bolt is out.

[00:31:53]So George is going to torque those.

[00:31:55]They're 65 footbs. I looked it up. I thought it was 55, but they're 65.

[00:32:20]>> Okay, take it. Now you can take it back off.

[00:32:27]So here I put a 10,000 oversized bearing in it with the red plastic gauge and we're 0002.

[00:32:44]And then the dial caliper reading for the crankshaft for the rod journal is telling us that it is turned to 10,000 under size.

[00:33:08]Permiteex over a there's a pipe plug in it.

[00:33:14]Or >> is that permiteex?

[00:33:17]>> I feel something hard back there. Maybe JB weld.

[00:33:22]But all this you see a lot of build. It's cleaner over here. Still not totally clean, but there's it's real gy. And that's all we scrape that off and it's magnetic. So this is all like fine metal shavings from those cylinder liners or it's definitely a metallic.

[00:33:43]Let's scrape some off. Get some It's all steel.

[00:34:12]Look at that.

[00:34:31]Yeah.

[00:34:31]>> Rod bearing standard. That would be >> Yeah, this this is old. This has been in there a long time.

[00:34:40]But at least they didn't have the wrong size on it then.

[00:34:44]a manufacturer date on this or not.

[00:34:48]Picture this thing. It's too too much light.

[00:35:07]Yeah, they're just they're not even the same brand.

[00:35:11]This one's clearly older.

[00:35:15]But it's probably good they didn't change it. They should have changed.

[00:35:21]Well, they didn't change the main bearings on the engine rebuild. Um, you know, did the customer think they paid to have that done? That should have been done in the rebuild. We've done engine work before and not changed main bearings sometimes, but after an overheat, you you should. Um, but yeah, it's it's I don't know. It's a double-edged sword. They didn't do it, but it's a good thing they didn't cuz then they would have had the wrong size.

[00:35:41]they would have probably put standard in there, too, and just made things worse.

[00:35:45]We still have to remove the other head and we're going to remove the other cylinders and see what's going on. Um, even though they weren't smoking horribly, the owner wants to just rebuild everything, obviously. So, we were just looking for some kind of red flag that would tell us not to go any further. But, we we're finding red flags, but nothing that says that we shouldn't progress any further.

[00:36:04]This was a brand new Reand blower on here when they did the rebuild. That wasn't even on the invoice because he he ordered it from our friend Luke at US Coach. Something obviously went through there, but who knows what that was.

[00:36:24]A lot of oil in it.

[00:36:28]This is a oil pan adapter. So, because that engine is cocked in there at a crazy angle to get the oil pan to be flat, this like 45 degree angle thing goes under there. this. So the engine block is turned and this is the bottom of the block like that. And then to make the oil pan flat, it mounts to the bottom. So it is a different oil pan gasket. It's not a standard Detroit diesel oil pan gasket because it's different shape. Um but yeah, we're going to this adapter plate makes it very unique. And that's a left-hand rotation engine. It's not a right-hand turning engine because the GM the engine spins backwards in there.

[00:37:00]One of the benefits of having the YouTube channel is that we have a great community that we built here. Um, we're going to try and do something really nice for this couple. We're going to try and help them out with the bill here.

[00:37:10]So, we're going to donate ourselves $500 off their bill. I'm opening it up. If people want to make a donation to help them out, they can. If you can't afford to do it, don't do it. It's just something helping. They're not they're not begging for help. I'm just trying to do something nice for them. I also reached out to some of our vendors. Our uh buddy Luke at US Coach is going to be getting us some of the special GM parts that are only, you know, they're not specifically Detroit diesel parts. They go to this GM bus. It's got that uh because the engine's cocked in there sideways, there's a different oil pan gasket. Um there's some other specialty things that go in there Luke's going to help us out with. So Luke at US Coach is stepping up. Uh we reached out to our Detroit diesel engine part supplier and thought it'd be nice if they could give us like a 25% uh discount on the parts that we're going to buy. Uh they declined to do that, which sucks because we use them a lot and I don't think that's affecting their price. I'm not trying to enrich myself. I'm just trying to help out a client and pass on the savings. Uh, so we're going to look for another diesel part part supplier. So, we're going to reach out and maybe we can find somebody who'll work with us.

[00:38:05]But if people want to make a donation, um, you can do the scottbusgrease monkey.com if you want to donate through PayPal. Uh, and then I will p publish a list of I'm going to use your name, not your whole name. I'll just put your first name and how much you donated so you can keep track and you'll know that if you donated that the money went to them. Uh, so it'll all be above board and everything. But we're just trying to help them out. Some people in the bus community uh, know what it's like to get screwed on a vehicle thing like that and we're going to help them out and see what we can do. So hopefully some people will step up. We've already opened up to our Patreons and we've raised about $1,000 off of their bill already. So we're doing good.

[00:38:37]One thing, if you do donate through um PayPal, if you could just select it as friends and family, that way it doesn't take out all those big fees or anything like that. Um that'll help us be able to, you know, give more money to them.