Catastrophic engine failure avoided by a hair....

[Gray Ghost]

I am lucky to have made it home today. Vern and I were unloading the truck....[hauled a whole bunch of demo lumber home] and afterwards I hooked up the trailer for it's trip into town tomorrow. While I was attaching the chains and lights, I noticed my left leg getting a bath...an oil bath....oil was spraying out of the tailpipe and dripping like a bad faucet. I knew the rings were a problem but today it escalated.

So it's official....I got 24,156 miles out of the rebuild and the motor has to be re-ringed. All this after 9 broken pushrods, 4 cracked rocker arms and a bad balancer SINCE THE REBUILD! It's gotten so comical I can't even get mad anymore.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford the 5.3 swap yet so we'll have to re-ring and put the motor back together instead of going camping this weekend. I sure hope this ends the bad luck trail with this motor.