If you have been following us over the past couple of weeks you’ve been following the Pickle GMC food truck and it’s saga trying to get back making money. 
This is a gourmet food truck out of Atlanta that has had it’s share of drive train issues. The pickle first came to us with the classic cracked intake vacuum leak…. made it to Orlando 1 hours drive at a time. As soon as the motor heated up the crack would open and Elvie stopped. After all that getting here Andy felt he was through the wors and decided to do a little preventive maintenance while here and installed the last Manny trans we had sitting on the floor. Test driving the tranny and now the motor was well again…. you could here a low end knowck at highway speed. Sounded fine at idle but there was a definite issue so what else can you do but pull down the Jasper rebuilt motor with only 20,000 to see the issues.
As most production motor rebuilds go it was not understood I guess the importance of balancing the rotating assembly so pulling that food truck all over the crank beat the main and rod bearings to a pulp. The copper color isn’t supposed to be there 
In the interest of time it was decided to rebuild only the block called a “short block” rebuild. The block was disassembled, checked out then line bored making the pistons, rods, crank all working together 
The previous 10/10 over crank grind was cleaned up from the bearing eating to 20/20 
with it and the pistons and rods sized and weighed it was all ready to put back together. 
A dozen donuts always help things go better so together it went. 
From here it was “diver Down” for Phillip. Yes, we were rushing which personally is never a good thing to do… this money maker had to get back to Atlanta so we risked not running the motor on the floor stand … 5 hours saved but the pucker factor of “will it be OK” rises a little when that corner is cut…. no choice, I was being pushed and I gave in. Guys you need to understand yes, you do have a timetable and getting your coach back on a time is important but the reality is that stress was self inflicted… in 5 years when the motorhome is out there doing it’s thing any pressure put on getting the job done is far outweighed by being sure everything is done well, adjusted and set in for the long haul. Hey but things must happen w so we did it…. the motor and fresh trans was installed and yesterday as the sun went down, The Pickle pulled itself off the operating table (the lift) and hopefully on to do it’s job well. 
A job like this could have never been accomplished from a 1 man shop, it took a talented team to break down, diagnose and repair a motor issue like this in what less than 10 days! I want to tell all of you the rude saying has to be said “I can’t be in your hurry”. The motorhome has it’s own timeline to health and pushing that envelope usually will not come out well. We dodged a huge mortar shell on this one….. we hope. I say thet knowing we did our best still “trust but verify” is what must happen so this morning we install the new Zip Dee awning fabric…. the coach is inside now…. with 38 degrees outside it’s like the frozen tundra of the Arctic to us! 
Andy is flying in this morning so by noon we ride…. with a perfect shakedown… I hop, I hop, I hop this Pickle will be headed north. Stay with us on the rollout and know we’ve had to bout stop all mechanical work to get this puppy on time…. will be great to get back on the other projects.
All projects were not stopped, Nic’s “Sundae” got it’s white color color patch and fade 
We’re stopping the brown repair and fade work now that the lift is open his fresh 403 roller cam motor will go in today! 
and from there we’re back on our mechanical schedule….. wish us luck.
So the moral of today is give things time to get done…. rushing things may work but most of us are not always that lucky. Bttom line was back 2 motors ago because of time it was decided to put a production motor into a commercial use vehicle…. that is where the mistakes started. If you expect to ut a car motor into a heavy load machine please tailor the motor for the job… you may end up paying much more……. and good planning makes for the best possible outcome….
Not gripi on what we had to do… sometimes a gotta do what has to happen but just try and not put yourself in that kind of hurry. Just give things a chance to do well…… Thanks for the visit… I’m hoping to do another video today on Patreon so stay tuned for that….. we’ll see ya laer….
