This past Monday, tragedy struck. I started up Ted, after priming the oil system, and he was running great, after some carburetor tuning. I let him get up to temperature and I followed the break in procedure in the manual. Then I took him for a test ride around the house. There was nothing out of the ordinary for noises other then the ticking of the valves, which is expected. Oil pressure was great as well. Then badness. About 2hrs after initial startup and while driving, the jeep came to a abrupt stop and I mean a DEAD stop. A few choice words were said at this time. The engine would not turn over...
I towed it back to the garage with the other fire jeep (how ironic). My immediate thought was that the head gasket blew and a cylinder was full of coolant. So I pulled the plugs and nothing. Next, I drained the oil. Looked perfect with no metal in it. Next thought was a bent valve, so I pulled the manifolds off and valve cover. Nothing wrong there. Next idea was the oil jet somehow broke off and got stuck in the timing gears. So off goes the oil pan and timing gear cover. All is well there. Out comes the engine next. I started popping bearing caps off and checking the pistons to make sure the pistons didn't get stuck in the bores. Nope, they all move fine. Then off comes the rear main cap.
Voila, the rear bearing had welded itself partially to the crank. I brought the crank and bearing back to the machine shop and they were amazed at what happened. They polished the journal again and it turned out to be ok. They also ordered a new set of main bearings. I guess it could have been much worse, but it still sucked having to pull the engine out.
stupid pertonix dropped the ball. I ordered the kit a month ago and I got an email saying it was on back order. Then apparently my credit card didn't go through. So i finally called them up and got it all sorted out. So that's the big hold up with starting the engine. I wasn't very happy with them...