Yesterday I wrote an article about how my 1989 Chevy K1500 Silverado’s motor blew up. I had tried starting it, the engine revved high, and then it locked up. Thereafter, cranking the mighty 350 V8 yielded a horrible noise that sounded like internal damage. Well, last night I charged my battery, and while the Chevy still made that awful noise while cranking, it fired up! And once it was running, it sounded OK. And yet… now it’s overheating. Someone please help me understand.
For the most part, if something doesn’t pass the laugh-test, you should always be wary, which is why I maintained cautious optimism when I chucked my newly-charged battery into what I thought was a blown-up truck. You see, motors don’t just throw rods for no reason, and certainly not two seconds after startup.
With the new battery in, I turned the key and listened to the horrible mechanical grinding noise still present, and I thought it was over. The truck sounded like it was filled with marbles. But after enough cranking, and a bit of pedal, the motor fired up and started idling nicely! Listen to this thing:
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For those of you anti-Instagrammers, here it is:
I drove the truck around, filled it up at the gas station, and marveled at the wonder that is the Chevy V8 — never doubt a 350! America’s unstoppable powerplaint! And then I noticed the temperature needle climbing, so I shut her down.
What the heck?
I haven’t driven enough to categorize the overheat-condition; does it happen only under load? What about at idle? But what I do know is that I’m not leaking any coolant, my oil looks nice and clean, and… hmm, does the heater work? I did try to turn the heater on on my way back to the house to help the truck stay cool; it cranks hot so that tells me that it’s probably not the water pump?
I mean, maybe the pump broke apart?
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The pulley still feels reasonably tight (then again, I still have the belt on there)… I’m confused. What do we think might have caused this horrible noise, and how is it related to my overheat condition?
I was getting a stuck ignition switch issue, which I suspected might have caused the starter to hang up, creating that awful noise. And when you turn the ignition, the temperature does max out on the gauge until you let off the key, but while I was driving, the temp wasn’t at max, it was at 3/4, so I don’t think the ignition hanging up is the issue.
The truck now seems to take quite a few cranks to start. Don’t see any white smoke. Water pump doesn’t sound loud at idle… hmm.
Does anyone have any ideas? This is a strange one.
I think I’ll just come back to this topic when you actually get it figured out.
This feels like an interim NTSB assessment of an airplane crash and a year later, we get something useful to learn from.
I don’t even fly anymore. But I do find the final assessment interesting. Maybe thankful that I didn’t end up in one of those situations.
And this site’s spelling checker is absolutely useless at the moment. Not offering suggestions how to fix typos. Fix it!
Take the belt off and try again. See if the noise goes away with the belt.
…and it starts. May the “My Unkillable Chevy that Almost Works” series commence!
I think you’d have gotten a bit more grace with the meter maid if you had wrote engine blew up will move asap or something instead of engine threw a rod. We know what you mean but if you asked 10 people on the street what that means I bet at least 7 of them don’t.