I just got an adhesive kit from wal-mart for like 99 cents and haven't had a problem with the mirror since. I had the same problem with my brakes right after I got the blazer. I had it in the shop for some reason and they called me and said that they were leaking. He only charged me $120 to fix it, from the front of the driver door all the way to the back.

 

Well its cold out and the day sucked!! My son called me on my way in to work this am and said his truck just shut off and won't restart After a million questions I finally got him to tell me that the temp spiked and then dropped so I knew it was something coolant related and I was just hoping that it wasn't the head gaskets! I get to him on the side of the road to find him covered in a blanket and shivering lol (that'll teach him to only wear a light spring jacket and a tshirt when its only 30 degrees outside). Upon opening the hood I find coolant all over the side of the rad but nothing on the motor so I figure the rad has blown and I'll come back to it later and confirm after getting him to school. So I go back and take the shroud off to find that the rad is fine and it appears that it blew the coolant out the cap so thats stupid and now it's time to dig deeper still hoping that it isn't the head gaskets. I started by pulling the the intake hat and found a very wet intake plenum and breathed a sigh of relief that it was likely the lower intake manifold gasket and not the head gasket but now knowing that it was more than just a simple side of the road radiator swap I had it towed home and dug in! This is what I found...

Then. Its pretty easy to see that things aren't healthy here

And heres all four coolant ports







And heres how the gaskets came off


I picked up the good Felpro gasket kit along with new manifold bolts and a tap to chase the threads in the heads, a couple gallons of coolant, a new tstat, new oil and filter, some new vac hose to replace all the vac lines (since I found that they are pretty sad and likely why the heat only blows hot occasionally which I just learned while teaching him how to safely drive out of a skid on our fresh inch of snow over the weekend as well as the 4wd not working), and a pile of brake parts cleaner to clean up the manifold and mating surfaces real nice like! I guess I'll be getting up early tomorrow morning to put everything back together and hope it runs!

 

It looks like it was just the plenum gaskets, which it was probably long over due for anyway.

 

Yeah they were shot! I got everything back together this am all that's left is to change the oil and add coolant then hope it actually starts. If all goes well and it runs I'll let him drive it for a day or two and change the oil and filter again since I'm sure things got loosened up inside while I was in there. I'll also delete the remote filter lines at that time cause they are leaking pretty bad to.

 

Well it didn't start Well it did and ran like poo for about 20 seconds lol then wouldn't restart. I let it sit for a few days due to not having time and went back to it today with some success! It started for a few seconds again and ran like poo again so I suspected timing and bad spark. After confirming the distributor was installed correctly I started checking the plug wires and found a bad crack in one so I replaced the plugs and wires and put everything back together and fired it up. It runs but I have a cyl#1 misfire so I suspect the CMP Retard is off. I just ordered a ELM327 connector and I'll download DashCommand later so when that gets here Tuesday I should be able to dial it in pretty quickly (hopefully).

 

Good luck Rex.

 

Thanks!! Luckily I have spent enough time around here to know the things others have done and what to look for so I feel I have an advantage over the majority of folks who jump into this lol!

 

Well I had to go and say I had an advantage didn't I!! I was able to easily set the CMP Retard but by doing that my idle became worse to the point the truck won't stay running below 800-1000 rpm. I am able to watch everything using DashCommand and everything is reading within the appropriate specs but I am having very high misfires in cyl 1 and 6 without a check engine light after setting the CMP Retard. The misfire count is much higher at lower RPM and seems to slow down but not gone at higher RPM.

It will stay running if I unplug the IAC but I suspect that that is only because it is staying wide open and allowing the truck to idle at 1500 RPM. I did have my son clean the throttle body while it was out so it may be possible that there is still some carbon inside the IAC causing some issues but I don't really believe that is my problem.

I can here a notable valve tap coming from the truck so I am beginning to wonder if the head didn't suffer some valve damage when it overheated on him causing a valve to not seal properly. If thats the case it very well could be causing to symptoms I am having.

I am going to do a FP and leakdown test (just to rule this out since it is so easy to do anyway) as well as a compression test, spark output test and a vacuum leak test this weekend and hopefully I can get some answers from that.

Admittedly I did use a BWD cap because they didn't have a AC Delco in stock and I didn't want to wait (go ahead and flame me lol) so that could also be causing me some issues. I used AC Delco for everything else though so I will go ahead and order a proper AC Delco cap to install before performing any of my tests as well.

 

It could be the cap but I sort of doubt that. Then again these 4.3s are weird about non ACDelco stuff.

 

Well the compression test showed less than favorable result in 4 cylinders(two on each side next to each other) Wet testing showed no change so its either head gaskets or something in the heads like valve seals or bent valves so I just ordered new severe duty head gaskets, head bolts, exhaust manifold gaskets and bolts, oh and a set of freshly rebuilt heads! I think I will go ahead and replace the distributor just because I am this far into it whats another $45 right?!?!