Hey Chris

tonycondon

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Mar 9, 2005
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Wichita, KS
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Display name:
Tony
Ol' Blue turned over 250,000 on the way to the airport last night.

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Your oil pressure's low, your temperature is low, and your fuel gauge is low.

You should only get another 250,000 out of it. Can't believe they don't build quality vehicles anymore. ;)
 
yea it's probably due for another quart of oil...

after i had the radiator replaced so that it quit leaking anti-freeze in the parking lot of my dog friendly apartment building it has been running nice and cool in the Kansas heat. Even when pulling a trailer. I like that.
 
Just add a mixture knob and run it full rich. That'll get the temps down.
 
Proof that all you need to make a car go a quarter million miles are extra fuses and an electrical circuit tester probe.
 
AWESOME!!!

If those are 'my' old fuses, that box has been sitting in that exact same spot for somewhere around 10 years.

If water temp gets above what it is at in the pic, check the thermostat - regardless of if you're pulling something or what the weather is like.

I doubt I'll ever find a vehicle that performs as well as 'ol Blue did for me (and now you).
 
yep the temp is rock solid. it used to creep up a little higher back when the radiator had a crack in it and the coolant level would get low. but now its just fine.
 
tonycondon said:
Ol' Blue turned over 250,000 on the way to the airport last night.
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So, take a guess at total time engine...

Probaby upwards of 6000 hours.

Running AT peak...

It pays to keep it throttled back to 15% or so almost all the time. :wink2:
 
Was talking to a fella with an 81 VW Diesel Rabbit at the gas station Saturday... It looked pretty rough... Turns out it has 405,000 miles on it... It is on the second engine, but that engine has 300,000 on it.... He is worried that the rust is finally going to cause the body to buckle in the center - but says it is OK because he has a parts car at home with only 200,000 on the body and he can swap the engine over to it... He works 7 days a week and drives just under a 100 miles a day...
I usually get 200,000 on my pickups, but they are really tired by then...

denny-o
 
50K later, oil pressure is up and it runs just a touch hotter.

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What fixed it? A quart of oil?
 
Man.. I remember when that thing hit 100k and I thought "I should keep an eye out for something else to drive, because this thing won't last much longer." 200k miles later, I was obviously wrong!
 
sometimes i do use the oil pressure gauge as a makeshift oil level indicator. its probably about time to change the filter anyway...
 
Well I took the pickup on an epic roadtrip a few weeks ago. Got home with nearly 308K miles. Temps were acting up towards the end and after putting the pieces together it is obvious the head gasket is compromised and exhaust gas is mixing with coolant. So there will be no more long trailer pulling trips for Ol' Blue in the near future. Around town stuff only until I get the time/desire to tear the engine apart.
 

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Are you going to tear the engine apart and do the head gasket or buy another truck?

I just did some work on Laurie's Avalanche that seems to have solved the cold weather idling issue. Next is putting on some new rear brakes and a new trans filter.
 
I would do a leak down test. If it is mainly valve wear, do a valve job and gaskets. Few hundred and a day's work. No biggie.
 
no decision on the path forward re: repair. Don't expect to make one for a while. We bought a Subaru Outback which will cover for glider towing. I won't make any decisions until I have the 2-22 out of the garage which will hopefully be spring. At that point I may or may not be busy getting ready for the upcoming soaring season.

i expect that I will probably eventually fix the head gasket and do any required valve work to try to lower the oil consumption while i'm there. A day's work for a competent mechanic will probably take me at least a week and a few PoA threads :D

I don't see any reason to buy a different truck, pretty much any repair option will be cheaper than buying a different pickup.
 
Yeah, if you pull both heads and do head gaskets and redo the heads then you'll probably get rid of most of the oil consumption issues. You could try putting on new rings and a quick hone job without pulling the engine, but that's probably asking for more trouble than it's worth.
 
Dr. O said:
Tony, you are one big cheapskate.








my kinda guy :D
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eh...well i have gotten my money's out of this one. But in response to this Leah and I pulled the trigger on a new Outback. We have been talking for a while about getting one as an eventual replacement for glider towing. Not exactly cheap...

However when I paid Chris $500 for Ol' Blue shortly after I moved to Kansas I figured that if I got one season of glider towing out of it I'd be happy. 4.5 soaring seasons later and 60,000 miles later, it doesn't owe me anything. I've learned a lot about working on engines thanks to it and we've had some good adventures. I'm sure at least 30,000 of those miles were pulling a trailer somewhere.
 
Did you trade Leah's Subaru in on the new one or is that an addition?
 
Its an addition. Leahs Subaru is still going strong and we figured trade in value on a 15 yr old car with 200k would be pretty low
 
Yet another fine example debunking the idea that at 150k-200k, a vehicle is completely used up and no good anymore. Just gotta perform the proper maintenance on a routine schedule.

We got 550,000 miles out of 2001 Silverado 1/2-ton truck with the original 4.3L 6cyl engine as our delivery vehicle before we retired it this past year. And we sold the engine to a local shop owner for his truck who needed a good price on something reliable.
 
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