Picked up new 4” v band clamps for my Dow pipe and 45 on the turbo. lol, neither fit. Princess auto and green line have zero v bands. Tried Lordco and they have none that big. Cummins dealer had nothing in stock but could order. Does anyone know the v bands clamp size for; Downpipe to 45 fitting size And Turbo cartridge to 45 fitting size Both are not the same as I found out the hard way. Also, where can I get it? Thanks !

I am unsure if I can reuse my rocker arms but they are not cheap these days so I was hoping someone could chime in and tell me if these need to be replaced, need to go to a machine shop if I can find one that knows what they are doing, or if they looks good to go. They feel smooth and slide on and off no problem. This is my first rebuild on this project 96 12 valve. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Well the only good parts of the 2006 truck I have it cracked now. 🤦‍♂️

So I’ve got my hands on actual micrometer and measured by Mahle .040 over pistons. They came out exactly at 4.050. I measured perpendicular to the wrist pin, about inch down from lowest ring grove. I set my bore gauge to 4.056 and checked the cylinder walls, they came out to within 0.0005, with out of round about 0.0002ish. This puts me at about .006 piston to wall diameter, which is half that at 0.003, is that acceptable? What is recommended? I did all this work so I can send these off to Line2Line with correct depth of coating. If mine is 0.003, at 75%, their coating should be .002 thick. I also got ARP 0.40 ring compressor, but with my pistons being 0.50, that clearly work work right. Any budget compressors you guys recommend? 1) what is recommended piston to wall clearance? 2) is 0.003 acceptable? 4.056 cylinder - 4.050 piston / 2 - .003 3) what ring compressor (budget) or will the APR work? The ARP does not slide down all the way in the piston. Lastly, bought the premium, it’s worth the money with questions I’ve already got answered!

I have a 1998.5 dodge truck that has a 53 block with bad main bearings. My brother passed years back and he had bought this truck with a 55 block in it. The 55 block spun a bearing so he rebuilt in our garage and had another bearing go bad in the engine. He had enough with dealing with that block so he just bought an already built “53” block, it has always ran fine doesn’t have a crack in the side. I had a shop replace the turbo on it a couple years ago and not even a week or two later the truck had rod knock from low oil. Not blaming the shop I should’ve checked the oil after getting it back from them. But I had a different shop “rebuild the engine” for me, 9 months and lots of money later the engine still had rod knock and they said that the engine will always have knock for what ever reason. I brought it to another shop they said they wouldn’t do any work on a 53 block for obvious reasons. I am at a point where I have decided I want to take on the job of rebuilding the engine myself ever since I started watching Rob’s videos. I have a good 55 block and crank and then I have the 53. I would like to bring the 55 to the machine shop and put the head and pistons from 53 in it. From everything I have found in my research that will not work because there is no tone ring for the crank position sensor on the 55 crank. Is it possible to have the machine shop drill and tap threads for the two piece tone ring onto the crank or am I able to swap my 53 crank into the 55 block? Also the identification label on the ecm for the 53 block is worn off so I can’t tell if the computer is a 2001 or 1998.5. I would appreciate all info and input on this as I don’t want to waste time and money doing this for it not to work.