Suburban: 3, Greg 2 - Game Over

Well, I reassembled the Suburban and fired it up.  I was ecstatic that it started and I drove it for the first time in months.  My heart sank as it lost power after about 15 minutes and I could almost not get it up to 30 miles an hour. 

I did a compression test.  No compression on cylinders 4 or 6.  All others appeared fine, so I tore into it again.  I pulled the valve cover off the passenger side and adjusted the valves.

No compression.

A quick phone call to my good friend Mike, and he confirmed what I feared.  Most likely when I over-tightened the rockers on the initial reassembly, the valves bent.  To repair this will require going even deeper into the engine, pulling the heads and resurfacing them.  Then, we hope there are no holes in the cylinders.  It's more than I'm up for, and I'm a little heartbroken and a little p***ed off.

Beaten by a $1500 truck...

Shucks...

Success

Now we'll get it timed and see if the knock is actually fixed.  I started this in May.

Gee, it will be nice to have this done.

About to try starting the truck

...again...had it down to the valley, and now I'm bringin' 'er out.  I'm a little anxious and hope to report success in a couple hours.

Just want to play

and not be working on this truck anymore.  Confound it, anyhow...

What you don't want pushrods to look like

Poop

Mission: Running Truck

The truck needs to have the lash adjusted.  I followed the Chilton's manual that said to tighten the rockers to 32 ft/pounds, but have since come to the conclusion that either I'm reading that wrong or the manual is unclear.  Either way, thanks to friends who have been here before I'm on the track again.

I took a couple days off work to get this project finished over the holiday weekend.  I just can't find time during my normal life, so now I'll burn a couple days of PTO and get it done.

My first step is to get the valve covers off again.  I was afraid it woe require tearing everything down to the manifold off, which would be a couple hours for a guy like me.  I have not been looking forward to it and procrastinating.

But I started today, and with some cautiously applied pressure and removal of a few wires, I got he covers off in 30 mi utes this morning.

Now to play some laser tag with friends and get back to it in a couple hours.  It's not often I over-estimate time for auto repairs and I'm grateful for the small mercies I receive like today.