[4theluvofgold]

Ok, so beginning of the week I had trouble with the hinge pins on the tailgate/window to my 89 V1500 Suburban. I used a little lift action to catch the pin for latching and Crash! the window shattered inside the tailgate :grrrrrr:

Well being in Alaska Freight jacks up the prices of replacements, I was lucky enough to find one at a salvage yard unbroken. Lucky there saved almost 175 bucks, or 3 month wait.

It worked out I was like whew....

Well the temp gauge on the dash was acting funny..... Hmmmm Thermostat!? Cheap so change it... hmm coolant still leaking, so look at cap rubber on the cap is missing a section... Ok so change it.... well :neutral: I'm wondering now.

I couldn't see any signs of a leak anywhere! So we continued to drive it. I then noticed a faint white smoke in the exhaust.... oh no.... is this? We drive home and sure enough I'm almost positive it is a Blown Head Gasket. Well I figure I have enough to get to go to the parts store and get some stuff, that next drive I was letting thunder heads behind me.

I'm not thinking a sealer would do any good for this one. I figured do a flush though before I end up doing this exploration I've never done. I tried to start it and tick..... nothing.... ok, crap so I undo the spark plugs and one cylinder was full of fluid, second confirmation. I then wanted to turn it over and get the rest of the fluid drained, but now it still doesn't turn over to start, I have power. I just would like to know it turns over before I dig into it trying to fix it.

What a day now, no ride, and need a torque wrench, and a garage would be nice as well. I'm going to try a sealer if it will buy me some time maybe a couple weeks to get some money saved or find another means of transportation. But to do that It needs to turn over, I'm stumped i figured if the cylinder was hydro-locked then taking the spark plug out would let it turn over, I have had faulty plugs and still turn over with only 1 not working... the rest were good.

I'm recharging the battery to full and hoping it will turn over this time and let me skate by.

I have 8 days. How many hours should a head gasket take? Should I bother if it is seized because of this?

I'm in a stump. At least I don't have to drive to work I just fly. But that will leave the wife and kid stuck till we get it enough money to fix or get something else.

 

[silveradotrailblazer]

Have you tried turning the motor over by the crank bolt??

 

[4theluvofgold]

I didn't do that one. I will try it. I went to try and start it one more time and noticed the negative battery terminal smoking. This is lame. Seems to always happen at wrong time.

 

[Joeairforce]

If you've got that much coolant in the cylinders there's no way a sealer is gonna help ya.... It's time to pull the heads and maybe have them checked for cracks before ya replace the gaskets.... Even if you don't have the heads checked it's definitely time for new gaskets.... Should be able to do a set of head gaskets in less than a day if nothing goes wrong....

 

[4theluvofgold]

Well smoking at the terminals is happening because there was a crack in the exhaust manifold passenger side that apparently during my last segment home had too much dousing of the coolant and is now bad and shorting drawing too many amps when attempting to start. So it won't turn over. Contemplating what action to take next. If I had a garage and more tools at hand I would attempt to do it, but I don't have the setup. I would like to do it to learn from and know in future how to do it.
Contemplating the value of changing the gaskets or just seeking a new motor and swapping out. I hate these things when they happen. Always seems to be the worse time.

One day huh? From what I have heard you must be pretty darn good. Everybody telling me it would be a week project. But I'm use to working 12 hours a day so I doubt it would be even for a rookie at tearing in like me.

I'll have to call around and get quotes... oh well.

 

[ntbush83]

Wow man I'm really sorry to hear about this!! I hate when one bad thing happens on top of another.

Thats a hard decision to make on whether to get a new motor or not. It sure would be a nice start with a fresh motor and be able to through it in with no worries. It would be the route to go if you knew you could get a good deal on one soon. Save you the time from tearing your motor down and building it back up. Once you do that you could use your spare time to part out and get some money back from the bad motor.