Hello.
My head gasket finally let go this spring.
I had the heads rebuilt. ($350)
There is a scratch on one of the cylinders from a bad valve.
I'm leaning towards having the short block rebuilt. ($1800}
I might be able to pull motor from passenger side door.
Motor is a 1996 TBI.
Any thoughts?

You can do this, Steve VW did it and I had the motor replaced in the Command Center (thanks to the motor given to me by Steve VW).

Hey Dustyjeeper, sent you a PM.

Motor did go through the door on the command center.
It's getting rebuilt down in Denver.

Hey Larry: I think that if you get the engine by this weekend, I may be able to come and give you a hand. Looks like my time is freeing up nicely here and I will have another week to do whatever. Maybe at that time I could get your dim head lights better for you.

Great to spend time with you and Steve, we really should do a Western GTG sometime!

We definitely should have a GTG somewhere out west. I would try to make that for sure. Hope that 454 goes in easily but I'm betting you two amatuers can figure it out!

We will be heading east in a few minutes. We will dawdle a couple of days then back to Minnesnowta this weekend.

Thread drift, but I'm sooooo in for a West GTG.

Do it, brother!

"Build it and they will come."

Have Barth, will travel

Still working on putting accessories on. Motor is installed. It came back missing the oil filter adapter. (have a call into the builder) I would also like to install shorter dipsticks in the motor and tranny and just put a fill cap in the valve cover. Any one know part numbers for these? 1996 Chevy 454. Motor is now 30 over with rv cam.

I reused the old filler tube. I cut it shorter and used a short rubber coupler to connect with the engine end.

After checking to be sure the engine level was right at full I cut the dipstick tube shorter with a tubinng cutter. Then I cut the dipstick a bit at a time until it was into the oil, thne I punched new marks for full and 1 qt low.



You can get new dipstick/tube from auto parts store, too.

Thanks for the help. The motor is finished. First trip out. Glad to have a running Barth.

Dusty, what was your Command Center used for in it's previous life?

Dusty , Congrats That 1st trip back out really feels good .

Bob

So happy to have it moving again.

This was originally a Texas department of public safety office. It pulled a portable scale and had cellular communication. Truckers probably didn't like seeing that bright blue stripe on the Barth.