how to fail with epic

[Guest]

so at the beginning of February, apparently i lost the impeller on my water pump. I was on my way to and from a trade show for work in marietta.

the engine overheated, and i suppose i had a few different choices, but i chose to drive it hot to see if it could get me to the show and back home (it did).

I had the water pump replaced the next day, and everything was fine until the next road trip. On the way back, the truck started overheating again. the coolant had vanished! not able to discern any external leaks, i feared the worst. I decided to tear the engine down to the block, replace the head gaskets, and get the heads worked on. (sure enough, they were warped. There was also about 2 gallons of coolant that came out of the oil pan before any oil started to drain).

here is the passenger's side of the engine (for reference)


driver's side:


here are the rocker arms, etc driver's side


passenger side:


here is some coolant leaking out of a bolt hole:


here is the air cleaner and some of the wiring harness removed. this one is throttle-body injected


here is the passenger side with exhaust header removed:


here is the intake manifold removed (i was surprised to see such a large empty space in the engine)


here is with the heads removed (it took me all of saturday and sunday to get to this point)


i believe this is the passenger side head:


here is the driver's side:


as you can see the gasket was fine, but the heads were warped enough to cause the coolant leak.

as of right now, everything is put back together, but it won't start. could be a cracked/broken connection on the coil, maybe. other than that, i don't know what.

FAIL!

[Highbars]

By looking at your pics your head gaskets were leaking between center cylinders on both heads... Common on these small blocks which came about in '87 with the introduction of throttle body injection. The cylinder heads were poorly machined in production.. this type of failure can ruin the block by etching out a path between the cylinders in the block.. If this had happened all you have is a 8 cyl. boat anchor.... but anyway as far as your no start check your distributor timing to mechanical timing and make sure the distributor is installed properly... usually 180 degrees off... reinstall making sure that #1 cylinder is at TDC compression position and rotor aligns with #1 terminal in distributor cap.

[Highbars]

BTW... It is only a failure if you have the same problem after repair.... this is just a bump in the path...

[Guest]

i am pretty sure #1 is at TDC - i adjusted that while the heads were off. Both of the push rod lifters were in the down position, the notch on the harmonic balancer was in the right place, and the rotor cap was pointing at the #1 terminal.

I did notice some damage to one of the coil terminals - this might be keeping it from making a good connection. i suppose i'll replace the coil and try again.

[Morella]

I had a '92 Chevy truck with the 350 throttle body injection, and I can tell you that it is a spectacular improvement over the carbureted 350, especially where gas mileage was concerned. Unfortunately, I let it sit for a year or two, and that is a major problem. The throttle body and the rear main seal went out, and I wasn't in any condition to replace them at the time, so I sold the truck. I wish to hell that I had kept it. Like most naturally-aspirated engines (which means no turbo or blower), it had trouble pulling a trailer up the mountains, but aside from that, I loved it.

Sometimes warped or pitted heads can be saved by building up the surfaces with Permatex copper spray, good stuff if you're living in poverty and can't afford to send them out. Fond memories.

When your engine is overheating, you should use a pressure tester to troubleshoot. If you're losing pressure and there is no external leakage, it indicates that the engine has an internal leak. Otherwise, it may be something simple. Running an engine hot will cause damage, warped heads, blown gaskets, etc., so it is best to fix a simple problem like a water pump rather than to keep driving it, but sometimes you just need to get home.

[Guest]

yeah in this case it was late and i just had to get home. luckily napa was able to fix up the heads and the valves.

at this point i've changed out the coil, re-installed the dipstick, and have the exhaust pipes hooked up (mostly). i just need to let the battery recharge over night and we'll try cranking it up again tomorrow.

unfortunatley i was out of town for the last 3 days so i couldn't really work on it before now

[Guest]

well thanks to LMS, i got the starter working. new coil did the trick. now i just have a few things to finish up.

(note to self - reattach that sensor you knocked loose when taking out the starter)

[Guest]

well, given a little more intelligence i could've got this going. i finally said "Fuck it" and had it towed to the shop up the street. they only charged me a couple hours labor, and didn't give me crap over all the other stuff that's not working properly.

apparently i swapped two of the electrical connections - they had the same connector. i also put one of the vacuum hoses in the wrong place.

Other than that, i adjusted the valves down too tight. (they were too loose before).

next time i'll try to remember to slow down a bit and label things. i really only bothered labeling the plug wires.

[pyro]

She's running, next time you'll get it.