It appears that major engine work is needed. Something is definitely broken inside the engine as there is lots of loud clunking noise. I'm guessing it's piston-related but it sits outside my mechanic's shop for now till he can listen to it on Monday. I suspect it's something that will be very expensive,

So I see 3 options: (a) Fix it (b) Swap engines or (c) Junk it for $400. I once swapped a motor in another car for a professionally re-built one with a 60K-mile warranty. Cost over $5,500 for the whole job if I recall correctly. Got over 120K more miles before I sold it (still running) for the Blazer.

Anyway, I thought I'd check with my forum members for their thoughts. (What else am I gonna do? Not driving anywhere!) Mine is a '98 LT 4x4, Auto, with, far as I know, every option and near perfect body. Leather seating, too. It has it's share of Blazer-common "quirks". (Instrument cluster warning lites often on without cause, no heat (blocked hose I think), no working A/C, crappy mileage (14 mpg), etc.) Radio/CD player still works 100% though! It has 149,770 miles. I have spent about $1,500 on normal and not-so-normal maintenance in the past 1.5 years while only putting on about 3,500 miles since I bot it. It needs shocks. I am semi-retired so I don't have to travel somewhere every day if I don't want to.

All opinions are welcome. Thanks.

 

150k miles seems pretty early for major engine repair. Mine has 265k+ and doesn't even leak oil.

If major engine work is needed, how about rebuilding it yourself? Except for machine work, you could do the rest in your garage.

Going the crate motor route isn't bad, either. We dropped a GM crate 350 in my chevelle, and the total cost was under $2, IIRC.

You should be able to find a new long block for 1500-1800, and if all your accessories are good, swap them over to the new block.

Of course, this is a lot of money to put into a 16 year old truck. It just depends on how much you like your vehicle.

 

If you go into this think you will never get the money you put in to it back. You could take scrap price and the money you would have spent on the repairs and put towards another car. That car you could total in an accident the next day or have engine failure as well. Its a crap shoot! If you do the repairs you have a better idea what you have and how reliable it is. Your repairs may also external and minor. Think positive.

 

I'd say rebuild the motor n roll with it the engine and car sounds like it's good to go I wouldn't scrap it if I was you but hey that's my personal opinion spend a 2 grand which it should cost and not 5 grand if you shop smart within three thousand you should have a good running vehicle good luck

 

Just rebuilt one myself. Fixed cracked heads, replaced valves, all machine work, parts and supplies, everything hot tanked and pressure checked. In the end it was 1500. I didn't need a cam or crank. Only polishing. All else was replaced except rods also checked out. Did everything except machine work myself. Again 1500 for complete rebuild. A lot of time and money and its still only worth 3000. But I'm confident in it.

 

Thanks for the replies thus far. Two guys at my shop listened to it and they are thinking it's a bearing. They don't rebuild motors ("this engine is a pain to rebuild" they say) but will replace it - but only if they find the replacement motor. Better them than me I guess - unless some Forum guys know a good source for engines. (Hint, Hint) I should have mentioned earlier that I don't have the know-how to DIY it.

When I told them another shop had recently replaced the spider, they said that, if the mech over-tightened something when re-assembling things, this could have caused me to have this problem now. The spider was replaced 12/2/13 and I have driven only about 1,000 miles since

 

My opinion, DO NOT SCRAP IT!! Post it on craigslist or some other local classifieds if the cost of engine replacement is more than you want to pay, $400 scrap is way too little for something that sounds like its in otherwise decent shape, im sure there is someone with a motor in wrecked vehicle that would buy it and do the swap for themselves, if it's in good shape you should ask $1000 for it and let someone bring you down a couple hundred bucks, bottom dollar $750. On the other hand if you like the vehicle and want to keep it around think about getting an engine from a salvage yard, prices in my area run $500 - $1000 and do some thinking if you have a friend or family member that maybe has the ability to do the work, offer to pay them a few hundred bucks and you will probably save $1000 or more off whatever a shop quotes you.

Also on the spider thing, i cant think of anything that could have been overtightened that would cause a major engine failure like this?

Oh and your lack of heat could have been caused by low coolant level which may be because of an internally leaking intake gasket, the antifreeze leaks into the crankcase and mixes with the oil, its corrosive to the bearings and may be why this "bearing failure" happened, sitting for long periods of time with contaminated oil allows the antifreeze time eat at those bearings, if this is the case it may have been dying while it was just sitting there, sad but it happens a lot. I cringe every time I see someone adding antifreeze to a 4.3 or 5.7 of these years or one of the 3.1/3.4 V6s in the GM cars, they all have the same type of failure prone gasket materials/design.

Anyway good luck with whatever you decide but PLEASE dont scrap it, at least sell it to someone that wants to fix it for $400, I hate seeing these great vehicles meet the shredder with so much life left in them.

 

I agree that there is nothing that can be overtightened while changing the spider that would cause a rod knock. Pull one spark plug wire off the distributor and start the engine. If your knock goes away you found your problem cylinder. If you still have the knock and just have added a misfire to the mix then shut off the engine put the plug wire back on the distributor and remove the next in line until you find the cylinder. It may be a bad piston instead of a rod but unfortunately it still calls for a rebuild. If the knock doesn't go away it most likely isn't a rod knock. If its not a rod it could be a collapsed lifter, cracked flex plate. The mechanic probably makes enough money on his smaller work and doesn't want to get into something that deep. I have done the Craigslist motor swap and the motor I put in was making more noise than the motor I pulled. Make sure if you by used you can here it run for a while first. Even if a junk yard offers you a warranty the can not replace your lost time and wont pay for the labor for removing and replacing another motor. They will tell you bring back the motor and we will give you another to try. Been there done that.

 

Had another talk with the shop. His price is "nearly $3K" for a used, junk yard engine swap - with no warranty at all. He also said just finding one in reasonable condition would be difficult. Also questioned him about the need for a COMPLETE re-build when, if his bearing theory is accurate, couldn't a more-focused "repair" be easier & cheaper. Said the bearing thing was just a guess; could be more things wrong; could be metal shards floating around, etc. Not gonna argue. But, to my mind, if it starts right up, runs OK but noisy, doesn't have anti-freeze in the oil, isn't smoking, etc, then it can't be all that bad can it? My thoughts now lean towards NOT throwing more money at it. Not $3K on an "iffy" used motor anyway!

I don't think I'll scrap it without doing a Craig's List ad first. Ideally, I'd buy another Gen 2 Blazer and keep the old one for parts but I have no space for that.

 

Get a second opinion from another mechanic preferably one that does rebuilds. The ones that d0 rebuilds have verified with their own eyes what was the real cause of the noise on past engines and are most likely better at making educated guesses. My personal experience, after finding the offending cylinder by removing plug wires, I decided to do a rebuild. Sounded like a rod knock to me. The machinist found it was in fact a piston that was .013 under spec. Both scenarios required rebuild though. But a Second opinion wouldn't hurt you at all.