98 C1500 Should i buy it?

[mars2878]

po scrapped a lot of curbs w/ that rf rire

 

[Sampuppy1]

Thanks to the pics I see a few things. Those tires are junk. Someone ran them a good distance with little to no air. If they went as far as to ignore an obvious easy upkeep item....... What else did they neglect?

Those running boards. Only reason I point them out is they breed rust. And also hide it. For me personally I hate how they look too but some like the look.

Check the fluids. Check the fluids, and check the fluids. Chances are the dealer at least changed the oil. Bring a flash light. Pop the oil cap off and have a peek at the valve train. They can make the dipstick clean but it's a bit more work to clean up the valvetrain. A little tan or brown varnish is no big deal. A good synthetic will clean that stuff right up.

Trans fluid. This is a big deal. If it's black? I would use it as a bargaining chip. If it's fresh pink..... You've got a 50/50 that is was decent and got changed, or it was black and all the friction material in the fluid is now gone. If it's the latter of the two you'll notice some. Slipping and slow shifting.

Rear gear oil. Make sure it don't look like peanut butter. Or sparkle like that weird kid from twilight. Simple enough.

As far as common problems? Intake gaskets tend to be an issue for original trucks. The factory used paper. Coolant breaks down the paper and you get a leak. Easy enough. Replace with fel-pro stuff or whatever else you choose I suppose. Also let's you get to the other "common" trouble spots.

The spider injectors. The original design uses poppets that clip into the intake ports. The poppets leak. You get bad fuel mileage. Mine have leaked for 100k miles. I only get 10mpg. Just costs me money. The newer MPFI spider is about $450 depending where you go.

Cool and quick connect. This is a cheap one. Intake has a coolant hose connection on the front right side. The metal part rots in the threads and starts a leak. Attempting to remove it causes it to snap off. Then it's a game of trying to get the pieces off and the threads clean. Mine came off easy at 252k miles. It didn't leak. But I was pulling my heads for a broken manifold bolt. So I figured I'd address it now before it leaked. I just put a new one on. There's numerous fixes for it available here.

Broken manifold/bolts. This is a hit and miss deal. Exhaust Manifolds can crack. They don't all have the issue. Mine cracked around 250k. I had a broken bolt when I bought it. Removing the manifolds to swap for headers I removed all the rest of the bolts with no issues. Still wondering how the easiest one got broke.

Other than that? Just drive it. Looks under it. You'll be able to tell how neglected it actually was. With those miles? Expect leaks. For that price? It better be clean.

Sent from a flagged XT1254
Tyler/T-Unit

 

[Sampuppy1]

I should add that I bought my truck with 176k almost 7 years ago. I'm at 267k right now. It has been good to me. But I take care of it. Synthetic everything. High quality filters, top shelf parts. I don't skimp on it. And it shows.

Sent from a flagged XT1254
Tyler/T-Unit