Would you ditch this truck, do engine swap, or swap the head gasket?

Your situation sounds alot like mine was when I bought my truck. It's a 98 K2500 with the 350. The truck ran great when I got it until I looked at the oil in the first oil change. Chocolate milk.

I thought it was a head gasket so I youtubed and read books and joined this forum to figure out how to pull them then when I did, heads were cracked in multiple places so I just replaced those too, as taking a motor out was a little much for me at the time. Buttoned it all up and drove it to texas from florida (great idea) fro my PCS.

It overheated 77 miles from my new house and warped both my new heads I put on it. So i decided to retire the old motor with almost 300k miles on it. Found a cheap 350 that was apparently rebuilt recently from a guy on FB for 500 bucks. I took my time, tinkered with it over a couple weeks, cussed alot, and I got my old motor out with the new to me one. Runs better than when I bought it and I did it by myself. This is coming from someone that couldnt do more than add coolant and change the oil a few months ago.

Long story short, you can get a decent engine for probably what you are putting into this tired engine like like I did. Replacing it would be alot faster if you had another set of hands as I did not.

If you have any questions, I just did this a few weeks ago so it should relatively be in my memory still. Best of luck

redfishsc said:

My current hater issue is the asshat that decided to glue metal to glass and hang a heavy freaking rear view mirror from it.

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Agreed. My rearview mirror fell off about 10 years ago, so I just did without it and used the side view mirrors. Finally decided to replace my rock-chipped cracked windshield last year, and the new windshield had the glue-on mount, so I remounted my old rearview mirror that I had stashed away.

east302 said:

Back to the power steering pump, did the bolts finally come out or did you have to find one with studs already in place?


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Yes. Got them off the old one just fine, and the one from O'Reilly had only one bolt on the back (upper) and an empty threaded hole at the bottom

We got the upper bolt off just fine, was a bit difficult due to the thread sealant they used but not too crazy like the other one was

Hey red, if you get a chance, maybe you can help this guy out with his power steering pump?

http://www.gmt400.com/threads/power-steering-pump-fails.39935/


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I commented. Probably a swing and a miss though lol.


BTW almost got this truck fully bolted together. Tomorrow I just need to do the plugs, wires, and belt, and it's showtime!

Success! Got it all bolted together this morning, flushed the crankcase out really well with some cheap oil from Walmart (and some diesel), replaced it with some fresh 10w30, and took her out for a spin. This truck runs like a top! just want to thank you guys for all the help. I probably would have ditched this truck if you guys had not encouraged me to fix this.

Now I need to flush the cooling system out, try to get out all of the stop leak crap that's in it. I also think the front U joints are shot, I can hear them clacking as I decelerate. Sounds like it's coming from directly under the driver seat. Previous owner told me it was doing this.

Good job, sounds like you're out of the woods.


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Congrats mate. Sounds like the hard work is done. Wish mine had turned out that way.

Good deal!! maybe the trans mount or the front u- joint on the rear drive shaft is making the noise.

Add "crappy alternator" to the list. But I have a warranty on that one. Duralast is the WORST alternator line. I just bought this pos.

Voltage is all over the board. Using Torque Pro app, the obd2 voltage goes from 11.8(!) to 13.5.

Every ground in that engine bay (that I am aware of) was literally cleaned and tightened in the past 48 hours.