Hello, I am new to this forum and am in need of some advice. I own a 1999 blazer ls 4x4 4.3/l v6 at. Has about 170,000 km, 10,000 roughly are mine. Long, long story short, I have a few thousand into this and my mechanic now says "sorry your truck is dead". I am told I have the dreaded double-knock, in the lower part of the engine. I am no mechanic, so forgive me, but here goes. Had a lower rad gasket replaced a year ago, rad replaced due to leak 6 months ago, rad replaced due to leak 4 mnths ago(on the house, yay), and finally the same lower rad gasket replaced 1 mnth ago. I am told the coolant left in the engine from these various leaks has eaten away the bearing and I now have a broken connecting rod. The parts I am told are around 800-1000, however, it will be 30 hours labor. The mechanic has said if it was his vehicle he would not do the repair as he suspects I also have a cracked heater core and that would be some massive job as well. So my question to anyone who can help is, what would you do? I know I'm pooched but now what. Do I have any options apart from turning up the radio and driving it until it blows up? I hate to see my girl cry, we have a wedding to try and pay for coming up, and I dont think I can legally work any more overtime lol.............HELP!!!

 

it depends if you want to keep it.. my advice would be search craigs list for another 4.3. if coolant is getting into crank case you are probably dealing with a blown head gasket.. i would not drive it.. if it has ate up some bearings or snapped a rod..

 

yep seems like you could put in a rebuilt cheaper

 

From your description I would think the mechanic is correct. The coolant in the crankcase absolutely destroys the bearings. Very common. Depending how severe the damage is when the pull the engine and open it up, it might be cheaper for your to just get a re-manufactured engine (they run from $1500 - $2,000) but you get a 3 year warranty. Still a lot of labor hours for your mechanic. So if you love this truck, consider what I stated. If it doesn't matter to you, for $4,000 you can probably find a pretty decent used Blazer for less than and is currently running.

I don't think I would drive it until it "blows up" because it is probably going to happen at the worst possible time IMHO.

 

Thank you very much for your responses. Shes dead. Just felt like I was being screwed considering the amount of work they've been doing around there. Hopefully I can sell it as a blazer parts store...er...parts vehicle