I have an friendly acquaintance from work who hauls expedited freight in a '98 Chevy 3500 cargo van. The van has 560,000 miles on it and the owner wants to overhaul the engine as the oil consumption is getting very high even though he says he rebuilt the heads less than 60,000 miles ago. Since it has a small Chevy in it I was wondering what would be the best way to build it up for longevity. He has an old dodge van as a backup while this one gets worked on so downtime isn't the issue it normally would be for a commercial application. I think this poses some interesting questions.
What would be some logical suggestion for pistons/ring combos? Hypereutectic for tight cylinder fit? What kind of bearings and associated clearances? Would coatings be worth anything in terms of fuel economy or longevity? How would you set up the heads assuming that the previous rebuild was botched.
He also went through 3 water-pumps in 2 years and would like to avoid that again which has me wondering if maybe a coolant filter would be a good idea.
What would be some logical suggestion for pistons/ring combos? Hypereutectic for tight cylinder fit? What kind of bearings and associated clearances? Would coatings be worth anything in terms of fuel economy or longevity? How would you set up the heads assuming that the previous rebuild was botched.
He also went through 3 water-pumps in 2 years and would like to avoid that again which has me wondering if maybe a coolant filter would be a good idea.
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