Yeret
The Village Drunk
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2014
- Posts
- 943
- Reaction score
- 178
- Ram Year
- 1999
- Engine
- 5.9 Magnum
Holy shnike! Feel's like it's been forever since I last posted here. Well, actually, it feels like it's been forever since I've done anything involving my truck. That would most likely be due to the fact that 4 months later, I still don't have it. Remember how 4 months ago, I posted that I was having my engine reconditioned as well as a few other things? Well gather round, kiddies! I've got quite a story straight from hell to tell!
Well, actually, my mind is so spun on the matter that I really don't think that I could tell a sensible story. Instead, I'm just going to give a brief summary of things.
-the mechanic took 4 months to do 3 weeks worth of work.
-my hood has a couple nice, deep scratches courtesy of him lifting the truck with an open hood into his ceiling fan.
-it was never specified how he got the truck, sans engine, into the shop. All I know is the rear bumper is tweaked down more than it was before...
-the transfer case seal was installed with the weep hole facing up rather than down. The solution? He cut a hole in the seal with a utility knife.
-he broke the new distributor cap, had to buy another one.
-he had all of the valve-train parts laid out in nice, correct order on a table. One of his psychotic ****ing dogs then knocked everything on the floor, making matched-reassembly impossible.
-he reversed the valve covers (breather and PCV on wrong side of the engine). Took an hour of arguing with PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF before he replaced them correctly.
-he cut the wrong brake line while replacing the feed line to the drums. Used a compression fitting to fix it.
-my hood latch assembly has completely disappeared. No idea what the hell he did with it.
-he was so confident in his "decking" job on the exhaust manifolds that he decided to install them with Permatex, but no gaskets. Not sure what to think of that one...
-he claims to have decked the block to within .001" using a hand file and a straight edge. We're doubtful on that.
And now things get real spicy! Two weeks ago, he had a HUGE fallout with his woman, who owned the shop, when I was last there. So I got to watch the cops come and cuff and stuff him. His woman then kicked his ass out on the street before he could even finish the truck.
So, pops and I went down last Saturday to finish things. We hooked up the cooling system and dealt with a fuel injector that wouldn't stop leaking. After a couple rounds of o-rings failed to fix the problem, I came up with the idea of switching it with the injector next to it and see if the leak followed the injector or remained. To our surprise, the leak disappeared. Go figure.
Anywho, the moment that I've been waiting for across 4 months: firing up the engine! After a few whirls with the ignition unplugged (to listen for any weird noises) we fired the beast up. The engine fired immediately and boy did she sound strong! Looks like we're finally finished...
And then we notice an enormous white cloud billowing from the exhaust. At first, we thought it might be burnoff of the coolant that found it's way into the exhaust during removal of the engine, but after 5 minutes of running, the smoke did not subside. Big, thick puffs of white smoke continued to burst from the tailpipe. So, we shut the engine off and after a few moments of pondering before realizing that there's nothing else that we could do, we shoved for home.
Fast forward to today. We consulted a (real) professional in the area and he wants to pull the entire engine, send the block to a machine shop to check for cracks and oddities in the specs/mating surfaces and check for anything obvious in the the top end. So, after 4 months of waiting for my truck...I still don't have it! And now I'm on the brink of having the engine pulled a SECOND time! Haven't made a final decision on things yet. I'm so ****ing spun right now that I can't do anything except drown myself in beer. This entire frigging matter has become such a nightmare. My Mountaineer, which was my backup vehicle, needs an alternator (nearly got stranded on the last drive home from work) and a water pump (leaks like a siv). I continued driving my mechanic's Ranger but after he got kicked out of the shop, he nearly called the cops on me to report the truck stolen! What the ****?! Wanting to obviously avoid legal bull****, I dropped it off at his house ASAP. So the last few weeks, I've been hitching a ride to work with my folks. We've all become totally stressed. My mom wants to rip the mechanic's balls off and blast them into oblivion.
I wanted to buy a cooling system pressure tester, go down and confirm if there is indeed a breech in the cooling system. Pops is certain that there's something *****'d inside the engine and that it would be a waste of time to mess with it anymore.
I don't know what to say. I need a beer. A few beers. A lot of beers, LOL.
Hope y'all have had a much happier winter with your trucks than I have.
Well, actually, my mind is so spun on the matter that I really don't think that I could tell a sensible story. Instead, I'm just going to give a brief summary of things.
-the mechanic took 4 months to do 3 weeks worth of work.
-my hood has a couple nice, deep scratches courtesy of him lifting the truck with an open hood into his ceiling fan.
-it was never specified how he got the truck, sans engine, into the shop. All I know is the rear bumper is tweaked down more than it was before...
-the transfer case seal was installed with the weep hole facing up rather than down. The solution? He cut a hole in the seal with a utility knife.
-he broke the new distributor cap, had to buy another one.
-he had all of the valve-train parts laid out in nice, correct order on a table. One of his psychotic ****ing dogs then knocked everything on the floor, making matched-reassembly impossible.
-he reversed the valve covers (breather and PCV on wrong side of the engine). Took an hour of arguing with PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF before he replaced them correctly.
-he cut the wrong brake line while replacing the feed line to the drums. Used a compression fitting to fix it.
-my hood latch assembly has completely disappeared. No idea what the hell he did with it.
-he was so confident in his "decking" job on the exhaust manifolds that he decided to install them with Permatex, but no gaskets. Not sure what to think of that one...
-he claims to have decked the block to within .001" using a hand file and a straight edge. We're doubtful on that.
And now things get real spicy! Two weeks ago, he had a HUGE fallout with his woman, who owned the shop, when I was last there. So I got to watch the cops come and cuff and stuff him. His woman then kicked his ass out on the street before he could even finish the truck.
So, pops and I went down last Saturday to finish things. We hooked up the cooling system and dealt with a fuel injector that wouldn't stop leaking. After a couple rounds of o-rings failed to fix the problem, I came up with the idea of switching it with the injector next to it and see if the leak followed the injector or remained. To our surprise, the leak disappeared. Go figure.
Anywho, the moment that I've been waiting for across 4 months: firing up the engine! After a few whirls with the ignition unplugged (to listen for any weird noises) we fired the beast up. The engine fired immediately and boy did she sound strong! Looks like we're finally finished...
And then we notice an enormous white cloud billowing from the exhaust. At first, we thought it might be burnoff of the coolant that found it's way into the exhaust during removal of the engine, but after 5 minutes of running, the smoke did not subside. Big, thick puffs of white smoke continued to burst from the tailpipe. So, we shut the engine off and after a few moments of pondering before realizing that there's nothing else that we could do, we shoved for home.
Fast forward to today. We consulted a (real) professional in the area and he wants to pull the entire engine, send the block to a machine shop to check for cracks and oddities in the specs/mating surfaces and check for anything obvious in the the top end. So, after 4 months of waiting for my truck...I still don't have it! And now I'm on the brink of having the engine pulled a SECOND time! Haven't made a final decision on things yet. I'm so ****ing spun right now that I can't do anything except drown myself in beer. This entire frigging matter has become such a nightmare. My Mountaineer, which was my backup vehicle, needs an alternator (nearly got stranded on the last drive home from work) and a water pump (leaks like a siv). I continued driving my mechanic's Ranger but after he got kicked out of the shop, he nearly called the cops on me to report the truck stolen! What the ****?! Wanting to obviously avoid legal bull****, I dropped it off at his house ASAP. So the last few weeks, I've been hitching a ride to work with my folks. We've all become totally stressed. My mom wants to rip the mechanic's balls off and blast them into oblivion.
I wanted to buy a cooling system pressure tester, go down and confirm if there is indeed a breech in the cooling system. Pops is certain that there's something *****'d inside the engine and that it would be a waste of time to mess with it anymore.
I don't know what to say. I need a beer. A few beers. A lot of beers, LOL.
Hope y'all have had a much happier winter with your trucks than I have.
