Hey y'all. Just bought a truck yesterday at a wicked good deal, but it has 400k and lots of blowby, so the truck is essentially powerless and can't pull a hill in 3rd. Anyone know of a machine shop in NC that has a good reputation and can do my block and heads for not too much money? Thanks!

 

Are you sure something else isn't wrong? With 500K mine had so much blowby that even with multiple extra crank case vents it was making so much crankcase pressure that I was going through a gallon of oil every few thousand miles because it would blow out every external seal as fast as I could replace them. And in spite of that blowby, it would still pull 20K up a hill in any gear without breaking a sweat. Don't get me wrong, it would puke oil out like nobodies business while doing so, but power was never a problem.

 

So, after a little more inspection I think what is actually wrong as it has a blown head gasket. It appears that every time I start up the truck there's coolant being pushed back from the radiator into the overflow tank. This makes me think that excessive pressure is coming back into the water jacket more than likely from a piston and not getting compression and a powerstroke.

 

It could be something else but at this point I only have $3,000 in the truck in the first place, so I'm just going to yank out the motor and rebuild it. I figured for only another $2,000 I can have a brand new motor. A busted head gasket would also explain complete lack of power either one or two cylinders isn't firing so that would explain a lot of weakness going up hills. That's awesome flush my cooling system twice so far and every time it seems to be coming back with a little bit of oil in it getting dirty haven't checked the oil bad itself but I'm sure it's got some coolant in it probably a little milk in white.

 

Your oil cooler could also cause this mixing of oil and coolant, but it wouldn't explain the pushback into the overflow. Head gasket might though. I'm not sure where you can get a new motor for $2k. Or even $5k if I misunderstood, but if possible you'd be miles ahead for the investment if you keep it long enough.

 

Oh no no no no no I can rebuild my motor for under $2,000. That's why I'm looking for a machine shop I just need somebody to bore out my cylinders and then do the work to my head, the rest I'm more than capable of. I figure the machine were probably when it cost more than $500 for everything and really it depends if anything actually needs to be bored out or if it's just a holding on my block, and I'm sure the crank is in good shape too. I also figured a decent rebuilt kit would be about $1k, then the extras that'll be replaced along the way (fuel plate, fluids, water pump, clutch etc.) Would work out to about $2k in total maybe a bit more. So for under 6 grand I'll basically have a new truck. I think buying remans is too pricey for my budget haha. Though I did get a quote on a remans for about $4200

 

Ah... now THAT makes a lot more sense. Yes. For a grand you can find a pretty good marine rebuild kit, actually.