Cobb County, GA Purchasing Dept.

[special-K]

Just thought I'd warn anyone who may find a listing for a vehicle being sold by them. They sell off their surplus through Ebay. In December I bought a '95 K2500 Suburban w/120k on it. Yes, sight unseen is always a risk. but I felt safe with the miles, the claim "Runs Good", fleet maintained, and the money wasn't going into the person I dealt with's pocket. They bought it with taxpayer's money, got their 20 years use out of it, so whatever they got from the sale is a boost. I just never expected an employee who has nothing invested and nothing to gain in this would have a reason to lie. It was an auction so they were good with whatever it would bring. Thy also had a van for sale listed as "needs engine". Well, after buying and on my way up the road a couple hundred miles or so I stopped to check things out. I had checked things before heading out from Marietta. Well, this thing guzzles oil. It was 3 qts down! It was sold "as is" but also as "runs good". I've done a compression check and it all looks good. So, even if I had done the test there, I would have bought it. There is no way they didn't know this. I asked all the questions (wasn't born yesterday) and left feeling good. This is something that should have been disclosed by my questions even if the person wasn't honest enough to tell me on his own. I put a catch can on it and it filled up. My guess is cracked oil ring. So, this engine that runs good needs a tear down, or rather I need to find a good motor, rebuild, or buy new. I hate getting burned!

[special-K]

It's a very basic model, which is exactly what I wanted. I bought it to use in my carpentry business as a low cost daily work truck. I could have bought a loaded model for same money, but this had lower miles, was on a maintenance schedule it's whole life, and had absolutely no rust ever thinking about starting. I didn't want power windows or all the doodads to deal with. It's a comfortable heavy duty fuel injected overdrive air conditioned vehicle for getting up and down the road. It has all the skid plates, towing mirrors, hydro-boost brakes, 4L80E, and even some serious mud tires that are like new. No need to buy a work cap or tool boxes. It's a dry secure place for my tools off the shelf that I can park anywhere that doesn't scream "I'm full of tools!". No restrictions on it as a commercial vehicle no matter where I go and when no working it's "C'mon everybody, let's climb in and go". It is essentially a crew cab shortbed all enclosed, so I can pickup 12' material on a rainy day and keep it dry. I found trucks tend to run about $1,500 more than the Suburbans. Anything at what I paid had over 200k on the clock...truck or Suburban. Well now I'm adding that $1,500, and then some. I'm buying a new GM Vortec long block and converting to TBI. If I had more funds I'd consider an LS swap. But, if I had more funds I would have bought a newer truck, hopefully with a utility bed. I've been going through tough economic times and just wanted something that would get me by for 5 years or until things went well enough to sell and get something better. Oh well, it's rust free and now it will have a new motor and I'll be stuck with it or take a hit if I sell. I've been around trucks long enough to know better, yet I still got screwed. My beloved old '92 K3500 blew it's engine at 335k and I decided it was time to move on. This has 200k less on it and I ended up with something that also needs a motor. I guess this is my vent thread more than a review. But, they do sell on Ebay and I want my brothers and sisters to know what they're dealing with if considering a vehicle they list.

[68c10airstream]

SpecialK, try this cheap trick: crankcase must be to the full mark, add i quart of naptha to the engine oil, drive casually for 50-100 miles and change oil. The naptha will help to free stuck oil control rings, soften seals slightly, etc. It has to be added to a full crankcase as the higher level in the pan helps to flood the backside of the pistons and clean them. During the 90's we were plagued with oil burning mitsubishi 3.0v6's. Our part manager was from gm lineage during the 70's, found the gm crankcase cleaner used on chevettes for stuck rings in the parts dept where he used to work. He got a case of it and handed it to me and said "try it" Cocky me said "yah right, a can of snake oil approach" Well i ate my words. My trick was to take a dime out of my pocket, put it under the throttle stop, add the cleaner and set my watch. 10 minutes later, engine running at about 1400rpms and surprise, no smoke. We would tear them down and rings stuck, but more than one employee bought these v6's, got the naptha job and oil consumption was reduces drastically. I stock a gallon of naptha at home as that is my fuel injection cleaner (50/50 mix-gas-naptha). I had the head off of a jeep inline 6. carboned pistons got an overnight dose of naptha poared on top of them. The next day the carbon looked frosty, and dull. Used paper towel and wiped the carbon completely away, nice shiny pistons. One caution, a buddy did this exact procedure on an old 6 in a nova and he filled the oil filter with crud and the lifters started to clatter. Changed oil, drove for 6 more years and no oil consumption. Good luck, Brian F.

[special-K]

Thanks Brian. Just saw you posted. How much would you use in the 350? I'm still stumped on why there's coolant in the catch can and why I see no smoke. This thing is using oil bad. The exhaust pipes are coated with burnt oil crust. I know it's burning the oil. Is this an example of just how well emissions have been lowered in these vehicles? And maybe I also have a bad intake gasket causing the coolant in oil? I've driven it about 5k and only needed coolant added once...and it wasn't real low. It's time to check again, just to be safe. when I was in my buddy's shop (thank God, it's been cold!) messing with it he ran a whole can of Sea Foam through the throttle body hoping to free the ring. My gut says the ring is cranked, but I'll try anything. I'm trying to get a wrecked '96 off his dad for the Vortec motor (I'll stick the TBI on) but world rather skip that whole ordeal if I can. I'm wanting (needing) to build a motor for my '72. I think the cam chipped when one of the butterfly screws worked it's way loose and took a trip down the intake. Idles lumpy now. She's held together a few years now waiting for me to fix her. She's a good old truck, but I owe her a motor.

[68c10airstream]

Put one quart into a full crankcase, another words fill the oil to the full mark, now add one quart of naptha. Again hang around town if things go bad. You must change oil soon, say in a day or two. Especially if the crud lets loose it can flood an oil filter and plug it, the first sign would be lifters starting to clatter. Do this test on the coolant in the catch can. A co-worker showed me this trick to decide if the milky stuff inside the engine was coolant or just moisture. Take a dab of it and put it on the tip of your tongue and if its sweet it antifreeze, if not it's just moisture. The fact that you added so little antifreeze prompted me to tell you about the taste test. Obviously don't do this often or you will get sick or die, antifreeze is nothing to mess with. I also must admit that your avatar name of special k made me think of the antifreeze safety issues because if i remember correctly vitamin "K" if given early enough can neutralize the damaging affects of antifreeze. Weird correlations i know. Please consult your physician before proceeding.

[68c10airstream]

Oh, the tbi intake on the vortec has me thinking of something to do with the bolts that attach the intake to the heads. Vortec has fewer bolts going into the heads at a different angle, not sure though. Most likely by now someone makes an adapter manifold.

[special-K]

It's all original TBI engine now. If I did put the Vortec motor in with TBI, there is no aftermarket intake that I know of for this set-up. But, GM has just what it takes and they are expensive, but can be found used. There were export models after '95 that were the current at the time Vortec motors but retained the TBI induction. I really like the idea of this set-up the more I think about it. You get the benefit of the Vortec while keeping the dead reliable and stupid simple TBI. I wouldn't count on gaining all the fuel mileage improvements of the 100% Vortec, but I figure the better power requiring less pedal for same power would give better than stock TBI results.

I've been pondering the ring theory and still not so certain that is the issue. If it is, then I also have another issue causing coolant in the oil. I just checked the coolant and it's tippy top. You see, my buddy is a mechanical genius compared to me and after checking the catch can he made it sound like it surely was an oil ring issue. I agree that solved the down from head or up from crankcase question and I left with that thought. I started wondering why it still couldn't be a bad intake gasket and sent him a text asking why he was sure it couldn't be that. He never replied and I didn't want to question his judgement any more, thinking maybe he was annoyed by it. I just talked to him the first time since just yesterday and asked again and he said he thinks it's a cracked intake, or at least check into that before replacing the engine. He laughed and said he just didn't want to get roped into replacing it that day. Funny guy, I told him. I've been going around depressed thinking about shooting myself while you laugh and don't answer my texts...LOL. We didn't have to fix it right then and there, and it sure would have eased my mind to hear that could be all it was a couple weeks ago. I am 99.9% certain this is what the problem is and hope I'm right. I doubted myself because this guy is the whiz, everyone who knows him agrees. I'm glad we're good enough friends that we can mess with each other this way. Otherwise I might have knocked him on his arse!
I really appreciate your helpful suggestion and will retain it for possible later use. I'll give an update once I get back into this. Man, I hope it's just this two hour job

[68c10airstream]

special k, i re-read your posts and i highly suggest you don't put a vortec engine into a tbi application. If i read your application you are going to put a vortec engine that would have originally had central fuel injection and adapt a tbi intake on this. One issue that will kill this is the tbi intake needs a exhaust port built into the head to route this to the intake for egr operation and between the 2 engine styles i don't think they line up and are interchaangeable. A tbi engine without egr is certain death, or retard the timing to keep the pinging down. I've been away from this generation of engines for quite a while but when you start crossbreeding things like this you need the advise from someone that has done it before. I will pm you my phone number and we can talk at length.

[72freak]

I have never heard of or known of anyone that has bought municipality surplus vehicles that were 100% pleased other than commanders cars for taxi cabs. I've tried it in the past with no luck myself. Sorry you had a bad experience.

[special-K]

They said they mostly sell the Crown Vics. It's not the end of the world, but you know how it feels when you ask all the right questions and base your decision on the answers, and still make a bad buy. The only thing I assumed is they were unloading it because it was 20 years old. That may be the case, but it's pretty obvious now they decided to unload when it started using oil.

Brian, I got your PM and I'll get in touch. But just to be clear, I'm hoping I can remove the intake and find it's cracked, bad intake gasket, or both and just fix that. If I do end up needing to replace the motor I will first try to get this parts truck with Vortec motor. There were export models that had Vortec motors with TBI. So the intake is made for Vortec heads but is for TBI not CFI. That's the one I would need