Things are different now that I’m married and have a child. I have to be responsible, both with my time and with my finances. So when, last night, I went to move my 1989 Chevy K1500 Silverado to the other side of the street to avoid a street sweeping ticket, only to listen to my 350 V8 blow up for no apparent reason, I was really upset. More than I would be usually.
Back in my single days, if I blew up an engine, it wasn’t a major concern. In fact, as shown below, when I hyrolocked my first Jeep XJ’s 4.0-liter straight-six, I bought a new motor the next day and hat it installed within the month. I think the whole repair might have cost me $400, and yes, it took many hours, but that was just good content. And fun.
Nowadays, I’m responsible for a small family, and what was once a little setback is now a major problem.
I didn’t need the Chevy Silverado K1500 that I bought for $4,900, but I told my wife Elise it was such a great deal that I couldn’t lose. She trusted me, but I was wrong. Last night, something happened that I simply cannot explain — something so “out there” I’m still having a hard time believing it.
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It was late Monday night, and Elise had suggested I move my truck instead of waiting for the morning, since I’d have an easier job finding parking on the Thursday-street-sweeping side. So I walked up the street, installed the fuse I use as a kill-switch, put my key into the truck’s ignition, cranked, and listened to the engine rev to the sky — but before I could even think to shut anything down, the motor died making a horrible noise. I went to crank the motor again; no dice. I kept trying — nothing.
I put the truck in reverse, allowed it to roll backwards, and let off the clutch. The motor didn’t move. It was then that I knew I was screwed.
Elise knew right away something was wrong when I walked into the house, so she asked what was up.
“I… I think I just lost $7,000 dollars,” I told Elise as I stood there, clearly shocked. “What? How?” she replied.
“Yeah, the truck, which is worth at least $8000 is now worth probably $1000 because the engine just blew up.”
Elise was also surprised, asking me how a motor can just blow up for no reason. I had no answers. She was supportive, as she could tell how bummed I was.
I remained in disbelief, so this morning, I tried jumping the car myself with Elise’s Lexus (see above). The motor still wouldn’t crank.
So I called AAA, who put a high-powered jump-starter onto my battery, and got it to crank over! But the sound that motor made was absolutely horrific (follow our Instagram to listen, as I plan to rank it again as soon as I have my battery charged up). “Yeah… your motor is done,” the AAA driver told me.
I’m still stunned. The truck was driving great when I parked it last week. Now, just starting it up to move it 15 feet to the other side of the road, it just blows up? Why did this happen?
I hadn’t changed the oil since purchasing the truck in January, but the oil looked good, and the previous owner confirmed he was a religions 3000 mile oil-changer. What’s more, even if the oil were bad, the motor wouldn’t have failed like this. This was a catastrophic, abrupt failure.
It seems like perhaps there was something afoot with the Throttle Body Injection system; perhaps there was a major vacuum leak. And maybe it was the engine revving really high at idle that caused those rods to fail.
I suspect that’s what happened. For whatever reason, when I started the truck, it over-revved and the rods let go. Without warning. Or maybe the motor was flooded with fuel?
I’m not sure how I’m going to move forward with this truck. On one hand, selling it for a loss is going to be tough for me since I’m a cheap bastard, but fixing it will take many hours that I should be spending with my child. I also planned to use the truck this Saturday, as we are moving across the city. The timing couldn’t be worse!
I’m really bummed here. I’ll get through it, as I live a life of gratitude these days, but this is going to make future car-purchases more difficult to justify. I figured a 350-powered 4×4 manual Chevy truck was a low-risk buy that I’d actually be able to make some money if I sold it, but I figured wrong. Between the bondo discover on my old Willys Jeep and this, it’s a reminder that buying used cars can be risky, even for wrenching veterans.
Anyway, I will soon be getting a $75 parking ticket. Thereafter, I’ll tow this truck… somewhere and figure out what to do. I’m so tempted to just find a used truck and swap the motor in, but again — time!
Ahem….
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mll-bp38318ctc1d
Free shipping! For the Cheap Bastard, of course.
No way that’d pass California smog check, sadly.
Why not? IIRC as long as this engine as installed meets the emissions of the year of the chassis or block, whichever is newer it should be fine.
California generally only allows you to replace stock parts with stock parts unless they have a CARB EO #. At minimum the cylinder heads, carb, and intake manifold would fail because they do not have a CARB EO # for the vehicle they’re going in. More than likely the cam probably wouldn’t pass a tailpipe sniff test either.
I know this subject well. My 1985 Ford has a 347 stroker under the hood which legit passes CA smog check, but it took a lot of research and some creativity to get it to pass.
I’ve never replaced an engine on a smog compliant car so I haven’t had to deal with it. I have gone through many, many CA smog checks though and from what I’ve seen its not a TUV inspection.
The biggest issue is there is a visual inspection component to the smog check in addition to the sniffer. Your car can blow super clean out of the tailpipe but if they catch aftermarket parts that aren’t approved for that car, it’ll fail.
I’ve literally got a binder full of printouts of CARB EOs for my aftermarket cylinder heads, intake manifold, throttle body, headers, ignition box, air intake, etc. My cam is a custom grind to pass smog, so technically not legal but you can’t see it. And as far as the state knows, it’s just a 302 🙂
This is a story all about how, Davids truck seized and just let him down.
Now hes gonna get a ticket cuz its sittin there,
Like a rock on the street and the cop dont care
Chevy, like a rock.
Cue Bob Seger.
Who’s 80 yrs old today FWIW
The good news is you’ve got solid dailies – the worst part of wrenching as a time-crunched dad is when it’s on the cars my partner and I need to get to work.
If you have somewhere to let it sit a minute, tow it there and give yourself a bit to get through the move. Then do another write-up on all the cars you have with the new spin of being a new dad.
This sucks for sure, just bad luck. You probably don’t want to hear this but maybe it’s for the best. You and Elise already have daily drivers and this truck was just icing. Sometimes the universe has a weird way of telling you its time to move to dad and husband mode. These next weeks are for nesting and bonding anyway. Spend the money on movers and chalk it up to a loss and stop wasting time and worry on it. In the grand scheme of things $8000 is a memory that will fade. 10 years from now you won’t give half a thought to it.
Why is the plan to find an entire truck?
Buy a junkyard motor. Drop it in. Sell it. If there’s really $8k in this truck, you can pay someone to install the motor and still come out even.
Or, more reasonably, cut your losses and sell the truck as it sits because if the truck was worth $8k, you would have had to pay $8k.
It’s a serious bummer and I probably shouldn’t be a sarcastic ass, but I heard this was the greatest truck of all time. Apparently not.
Realistically, you rolled the dice on old cars and came out on top many times. It’s just part of the game.
Now that you’re a time-crunched family man with a couple of reliable everyday drivers, you should really consider dropping all the hobby vehicles down to just one or two. Ideally one.
Indeed; apparently not!
That sucks man, The good thing though is that it’s a tbi 350. One of the most common engines around. You shouldn’t have a hard time finding one on marketplace for a reasonable amount. The labor though is what sucks.
You were a cheap bastard, now you’re a family man, and time is much more valuable than money. Children and time with them is worth a lot more than $7,000 and from memoery you also don’t have 7K into this thing, so you never had that 7K. If you don’t have a solid plan to fix it quickly and get it running agin, dump it for what you can get for it and cuddle the litle one extra tight. You aren’t loosing money you’re gaining time for what’s important.
I watched my father obsess over money and DIY all of his projects on his days off. Their basement is still unfinished, and he wonders why we don’t have a good relationship.
I agree, I enjoy DIY, but also try to either include my kids, or limit it to solo time where I’m not ignoring them. They are teenagers so they don’t care too much, but I want to be there for them as much as I can.
Family men can be and often are cheap bastards as well.
“Children and time with them is worth a lot more than $7,000”
Hahahaha!!! Like he’ll remember anything that will happen over the next couple of years.
You obviously do not understand cheap bastards, nor the value of $7,000 saved, especially when that $7,000+ needs to be earned back with unpaid commuting time and taxes paid. I’d rather be wrenching at home than stuck in traffic or pounding on a keyboard in a souless office.
This should be easy peasy work for DT and the bed of the truck can be used as a crib.
Just fix the truck.
Yeah at this point they sleep a lot and they won’t remember anything from this point in their life, so as long as David has a place to do it near by he can crank this out in a week or two a little bit at time.
The baby won’t but David will.
Elise will remember!! This is the most important part. New baby (and a move!) is really stressful on a new mother. David’s time helping out will probably be worth more than $7k to her!
I guess you might instead use some money to pay for a maid and a nanny while you’re out working on the car…
THIS RIGHT HERE
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!
I very much doubt he’d miss anything memorable in the time this engine swap would take. He may be in a mild fugue state and won’t remember much over the next year anyway.
David is a veteran wrencher with a schtick of performing repairs under duress. This is EXACTLY his forte’, the kind of content he made his career writing about. And this event is gold as far as such content goes.
David knows how and where to gets parts, tools and whatever else he needs. He has an employer with a repair facility, a parts network, techs and transporters. He has a whole community of folks who can lend a hand wrenching, and local family who can help with the baby. Saving the money by DIY will be a lot easier than driving Uber or finding some other lame side gig.
“Family men can be and often are cheap bastards as well.”
Yes but it’s a different cheap in this stage of fatherhood.
David however is exactly the right kind of cheap bastard to make this happen.
As the Left Banke once sang, “Just walk away, Renee”.
I think you’re undervaluing this truck as it sits. The 5-speed makes it relatively rare, and any schmucko with a garage and half a set of tools can swap a new 350 in. I’d throw it on FBM for $3k and see what happens.
To be fair, if you are swapping an engine, a transmission swap on these isn’t that much harder. For that reason, I have a hard time a the transmission alone makes it that much more valuable.
Swapping in a replacement engine is much much hard than converting an automatic truck to a manual as there are a lot of things will also need to be replaced and they will be relatively rare parts since so few of these trucks came with the manual trans.
I’m a schmucko with a garage and half a set of tools, but I couldn’t swap a new engine into a truck.
you dont want to spend hundreds of dollars on an engine lift that you can use once on a multi-weekend project?
sometimes paying someone with all the tools to fix it right the first time is worth their labor rate.
Engine hoist, 4 2×4 x 10 ft a couple length of chain, a nut bolt and assortment of washers and a come along.
A HF toolbox and jack stands.
Next.
or I can drop off my car at the shop, get a loaner, and spend the rest of the weekend doing literally anything else.
your kids want to spend time with you doing fun things, not helping you find the 10 mm socket
This kid is an infant. “Time spent” is changing diapers or trying to get it to go to sleep. DT has in laws nearby whom I’m sure would love to do all that while he wrenches.
I’ve used garage beams and rope.
Rental places do exist and that was how I did my first few engine replacements, but I do believe that David brought his when he moved.
Ran when parked.
Damn, when it rains it pours. Sorry to hear about this, man.
I’m sorry to hear about this.
It may be the sign from on high to get something newer and less risky, allowing you to spend more time with your family.
Even for a 350, once it’s old enough to run for president, it’s always going to be a risk.
Should make sure I add:
This would only apply to daily driver vehicles. A project car or two is still fun, but I don’t take chances with anything my kids rely on to get around.
Bummer deal for sure. It can be a much harder decision as you stated. I suggest two things.
1) While you must be more deliberate about your wrenching time, don’t let it go completely, unless you are truly done wrenching. If its still a thing you want to do, keep some of that time aside doing what you love. It will make you a better you for all that majority of time you give to your family, so long as it remains a passion.
2) Wife and child can still be in your company while you work. A book or a tablet in Elise’s hands while the baby plays nearby, or Elise just hanging out in a lawn chair playing with the baby. There are ways to create family time while dealing with random fallout and learning to properly manage your whole new dynamic and your passion at the same time.
Obviously, I can only speak for my marriage and family, but keeping a portion of time aside for my passion, even if I have to express that passion putting a new engine in my wife’s truck (done that) is critical to the health of my relationships because I destress. Without that outlet, I tend to buildup and get angrier as a person, damaging my family relationships. My wife is the same, where I have taken the kids since we had kids and let her be free to pursue her passions outside the house as well. We are both happier healthier people for it. Of course, all things in moderation.
Having kids is amazing. Giving up that time for them isn’t pure sacrifice by any means. But I do not believe giving it all up is the better decision. So give it some breathing room, get an engine, get it fixed up in the further future, instead of this month.
I just want to see the engine’s autopsy report
Maybe it was the timing belt. /s
He did say something about bad timing…
This engine doesn’t know what a timing belt is
That stinks, DT. Welcome to the phase of your life where skill is not the limiting factor in being able to wrench – it’s time. I haven’t had the time to do more than oil changes, spark plugs, and brakes in, oh, 11 years. Whereas before marriage/family, it was “lets go spend 11 hours swapping headers because what the heck else do I have to do?”
But the kid will be worth it. Just wait until they can yell “daddy!” when you come home from a day at work. 🙂
Bad timing. I know it doesn’t make it any easier but sometimes, these things just happen.
Heck, even new trucks can just blow up randomly.
I had a GMT400 Yukon a few years ago and the transmission started failing (4L60E, lost 4th and lockup), the engine developed a rod knock (5.7, low oil pressure) plus the rear diff got loud.
All this within a few weeks of normal daily commuting. Bad luck.
Well, you have a truck with a Chevy 350. I hear there are a lot of those motors around. A decent used replacement should be findable.
Heck, in Cali, you should be able to find a modded replacement.
Sorry David, what horrible luck, maybe send the engine to Idocars on youtube for a teardown and analysis, he hasn’t had a SBC on the channel for a while. Unpopular opinion, SBC’s aren’t that good to begin with. Cheap crate 350’s are still out there though!
Ouch.
It sucks that it broke, and the timing makes it 10x worse. There’s no worse feeling than having something come up that you’d be normally 100% ready to take on but it comes when your plate is already 110% full.
Car-ma
Too soon.
I’ve Been Putting My GMT400 Chevy K1500 Pickup To Work; I Think It Might Be The Greatest Truck Of All Time
I knew he was on borrowed time after this one.
So you’re telling us it’s just stuck there, dead on the road, immobile, like a rock.
COTD
Procedural question: since you’re the boss, does this comment automatically become COTD?
Mercedes is the boss of COTD.
It broke down on main street, when he was trying to make his night moves. It won’t be moving against the wind on any of the hollywood nights.
Born in Mexico, died in the USA. At least it didn’t catch on Fire.
It hits different when you’re a dad and your car breaks down.
F
Call the police to explain so you can save the $75 ticket. At least I’ve had luck with doing so in the past.
And sorry this happened.
I hear that works well in California. However, sourcing a replacement engine for that truck should be relatively cheap and easy, and it’s so cheap and easy that it really shouldn’t affect the value as much as you think.
And he has a dead reliable truck to go pick up the…. ah, poop.
Or just don’t pay it, since you’re moving and possibly selling it . . .
This is bad advice. Why let $75 or a phone call to explain the situation dog you?
In these situations, the ticket will still follow you. Either it will get forwarded to the new address by the USPS, or it will be flagged as an unpaid ticket in your name, and then you will be in even more trouble the next time someone in authority runs the plates of anything belonging to you.
They’re more generous than I probably would be. Calling to tell me you’re storing non-operational vehicles on the street wouldn’t get very far.
I’m a jerk by nature, I can only assume I would assume my final jerk form as the guy you need to call for illegally parking.
They gave me the ticket. $73.
Bastids!