Truck Rebuild 2010-11 pt 5

The heads are back in!

And the exhaust manifold!
The water pump is in now as well as the valve covers!!!!
The 'mock' assembly! I'm still waiting on some money so I can purchase the new fuel injector and spark plugs for him so he can be completely done!!!

There is a light at the end of this tunnel...I'm starting to see it!

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Truck Rebuild 2010 pt 4

The manifold is clean!!!

And now silver...
Valve body covers are going to be red....


...now for him to get to work on cleaning the actual heads....

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Truck Rebuild 2010 pt 3

We can see the heads!!!

As you're likely able to distinguish...the 'orange-red' side is encased in the lovely rust sludge from the blown manifold gasket. The other side is black, as it should be, HOWEVER...it should not look like black sludge either.

This is a prime example of what happens to an engine that is not properly cared for...the wrong antifreeze and mixing the two types of antifreeze will cause the radiator to rust and the antifreeze to turn into sludge, etc as mentioned yesterday. Not changing your oil on a regular basis and using crappy oil will cause a build up of oil sludge. Sludge of any and all nature is BAD for an engine!

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Truck Rebuild 2010 pt 2

Progress is being made...

This is the 'spider'...also commonly known as the fuel injector...pretty nasty looking
YAY! The manifold is out!

The distributor, also fairly nasty, but no significant damage, so should clean up nicely!!!The manifold...VERY nasty and full of 'lovely' sludge...
But it is cleaning up fairly well.... YAY

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Truck Rebuild 2010

...hoping the rebuild is done before 2011....

The other night, on his way home from work Brian, had a head gasket blow in our 'new to us' 1996 Chevy S-10 Extended Cab pick-up. We've only had it for just over a week, with this weekend being the first real weekend Brian would have to check everything out...Instead he is getting to rebuild the whole top part of the engine.


See...this is what happens when a person uses not only the wrong type of antifreeze in their radiator, but this also happens when they mix the two types of antifreeze...You get a lovely 'rust' sludge...

This rust sludge then works it way throughout the engine...making stops at the thermostat housing, where it works to build up the pressure and causes the engine to not really know the correct temp of the engine, thus causing even more antifreeze and coolant to make its way through the engine...

This lovely yellow looking stuff is where antifreeze got into the Intake Manifold by way of a blown intake manifold gasket, as you can see through the vacuum port. This can cause many issues in and of itself. The Intake Manifold gaskets are not a hard repair on these engines. GM's are notorious for this type of repair as the intake gaskets usually have to be replaced every 100,000 miles. Fel-Pro Gaskets make a problem solver kit for this. Luckily, those gaskets are included in the head gasket kit that we bought.


Brian now has the lovely task ahead of him of dismantling the top half of the engine, cleaning out all the sludge, rust, and grime build-up. And praying that such things, as this MAP sensor are not completely shot and also have to be replaced.
For Brian to take this to a shop to be done he's looking at minimally a $1000 repair bill...THANKFULLY I have a mechanically inclined husband, who also works in a parts store (thereby getting us a discount on parts)....I may have to spend this next week sharing the car with him again, complete with 6am wake-ups and multiple trips back and forth into town for doctor, dentist, physical therapy, and work...but the repair should only cost us about $400 out of pocket...This includes the price to replace all the heater hoses, radiator, water pump (maybe), gaskets for the entire top of the engine, cleaner for everything, two oil changes (at least), antifreeze, torque wrenches we don't have, and etc...

Just remember, OIL AND ANTIFREEZE should never mix. This is a sign of a blown head gasket. Never drive a vehicle that this has happened to until it is repaired properly. It may be ok for a few minutes in order to get it off the road, but signs of this condition are poor performance, engine skipping, very quick overheating, knocking, pinging and engine shutdown. if it gets too hot you can wind up replacing the whole engine as you can literally MELT the main and rod bearing to the crankshaft, snap a rod and knock a hole into the engine block.



**post completed in part by my lovely husband**

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Its been a while.

This past week or so has been one that I hope I can get over soon. Just plain exhausting!

Mikeal came home from school sick. Thought it to be the flu since it's pretty thick in the area, I called the nurse, got her recommendations on it, followed all to a T. After not running a fever for a whole day I thought he was on the mend until he went to sleep, then his fever came back with a passion as well as severe respiratory distress...turned out he had tonsillitis. One shot to the butt and he was well enough to go back to school that Monday, after getting sick the Thursday before.

Mikaila had an evaluation done by the Early Intervention lady on Tuesday. Mikaila scored amazingly well in every area - except her speech. I take her back in tomorrow morning for a more in depth evaluation, plus will be trying to get her on the waiting list for Head Start in this area. I think it'll do her a great deal of good!

Brian got himself in at the free clinic in Grove on Thursday. He's set up to go have blood work done in the morning to test his thyroid levels, I'm quite confident that it'll come up that he does indeed have a thyroid problem. He'll also be getting his knee x-rayed & from that the doctors will try to determine if surgery is going to be needed to repair the damage done to his knee some 15 years ago, courtesy of his brother with a sledge hammer. The doctor did give him a medication for him to take in the meantime for his depression, but I took care of those because its the same exact script that was given to him right before he had a severe mental break and ended up in the hospital for 10 days while he was bounced on and off other medications - medication that proved to be of no benefit to him, but a $1500 script bill each month, plus about $300 a month in blood tests and doctor visits to make sure the meds weren't destroying his liver and such. I'm praying that the $4 thyroid med will replace all of that.

I bought some knitting looms and yard on Thursday. I've already made a scarf for Mikaila and Mikeal made a hat, originally for himself, but it's a bit small for him. It looks good on Mikaila though. I'll be done with Mikeal's scarf later this evening, I hope.

Mikaila has been doing wonderfully with her potty learning, however about the time she was done with diapers she figured out how to escape the pack-n-play and has yet to take a nap. A blessing in that she generally goes to bed about the same time as Mikeal...a curse in that many times she goes to sleep, then gets up a few hours later and its a PAIN IN THE NECK to get her back to sleep before daylight...making for a VERY tired momma!

I'll be posting pictures in a day or two of the kids' scarves that I've made, as well as other pictures that I've taken. I might even grace y'all with pictures of Brian's new toy - a 1982 Nissan 280Z. It has the T-tops, blah blah blah...pretty snazzy, just needs a good sanding down, then primered, some paint, new upholstery, and everything under the hood re-done. Basically its a piece of junk that will start, that after some work will apparently be worth something. Can't really complain though, it was free!

Also noteworthy-ish : My ex-mother-in-law contacted me about Mikeal - first time in over 4 years, at least...that's a whole post in itself that I'll get around to later. Another child support hearing is set for Wednesday. My ex-husband is a douché. But these details are going to be saved for another day or during a sleepless/stressful night.

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How to Increase Fuel Mileage and Extend the Life of Your Vehicle

This is a list of do-it-yourself things you can do to increase your fuel mileage and extend the life of your vehicle.

Use a fuel injector cleaner additive each time you top off your tank. Lucas Fuel Treatment is a leading recommended additive you can use to increase your mileage by 3-4 mpg as quickly as the first tank; it also helps to extend the life of your injectors and fuel pump.

A K & N air filter, instead of a generic one off the shelf, will increase your mileage by 2-4 mpg; it will also increase your horsepower by about 1-4 horses. The K & N filter also never has to be replaced, it is washable and reusable, saving you money from future yearly air filter replacements!

Synthetic oil, like Royal Purple or Castrol Syntec, will increase your mpg by 1-2 mpg, but more importantly you will reduce your engine wear by about 50%. Royal Purple is not recommended if you have less than 20,000 miles on your vehicle, but it is considered the best oil on the market. Because of the better blend the oil does not breakdown as quickly as traditional oils, so you can go three times longer (9,000 miles) before an oil change is needed. Persons who do not do a lot of stop and go driving can extend that out to 12,000 miles, or four oil changes for the price of one. To go along with the better oil, instead of going with the cheap oil filter, use a factory filter (varies by make of vehicle), a Wix filter is a really good filter, or K & N also makes oil filters and claim to increase oil life by 50%...meaning if you go with a K & N filter and the K & N oil you only have to get your oil changed every 15-18,000 miles...and spend an average of $50 for that year’s worth of oil changes, doing it yourself.

Something else to increase mileage is to have your differentials and transmission serviced (front wheel drive vehicles do not have separate differentials) Royal Purple makes transmission fluid and gear oil for this. You could see an increase in your mpg by 5mpg and will increase your horsepower. The Royal Purple fluids and oil will decrease the wear of the internal transmission parts, if the servicing is done on a regular basis of every 35-40,000 miles you should never have transmission problems due to wear, it is still possible to have transmission problems due to the electronic components of it, but that is electronics, oil can’t prevent those problems.

Finally, the simplest, easiest thing that absolutely anyone can do to help increase their gas mileage and reduce the wear on his or her vehicles is to clean it out. If it is not absolutely necessary, do not haul it!

These few things can increase your MPG by an average of 10mpg. These few things will also help extend the life of your engine and transmission allowing you to get longer use out of your vehicle and save money on repairs or replacement.

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