Since it has been a number of months...
Quit my "real" job, downsized, had to get the FAV 2.0 towed to the new place and am finally getting to the end game of a ball of yarn I unwound under the hood. The driver's side head goes back on this weekend (weather permitting), then complete vehicle re-assembly to commence. The FAV 1.0 was brought out of retirement and I rebuilt it in May so we could hit Colorado for a couple of weeks back in June. Trusty ol' blue is still in service and hopefully taken out of service again very soon!
After injectors and some fantastic mechanic mistakes on my part, I got pretty dang lucky. Cylinders 7 and 8 had a little oil in them after the injector rebuild (silly me, should have evacuated the cylinders twice) which resulted in a lot of worry, but only blown head gaskets. While blowing apart the top of the motor I found leaks in the turbo pedestal, found that the turbo needed to be rebuilt and took care of a bunch of other random small issues that could cause major issues while out in the back country if they failed.
Beginning this process I was pretty new to diesel motors, now I'm not so much and I'm sort of glad for it. With the original FAV I have performed some serious roadside and parking lot repairs that should have ended entire trips, and was only able to do so by being very familiar with the vehicle and V8 gas engine.
This project has earned me a lot of new scars on my hands from having to jam my bear sized mitts into the tiny spaces around this huge motor. If I had a shop with a lift and had to do this again, I might just take the body off the frame! Seriously.
