Watch the game tonight, Alabama is HOT!

 

Sleeve installed. No drips or oozes thus far. Still smell diesel in the cab, but it's most likely due to the fuel which had already spilled in the valley Saturday morning when I removed the small fuel line, and it just hasn't had enough time and temperature to fully evaporate yet... especially with me running the heater and pulling in ambient air through the heater core.

 

You might want to accidentally spill some Simple Green into the valley, then do a rinse to speed the de-stink along.

 

I was thinking the exact same thing, Rich, and will probably do that this weekend. This morning, though, NO SMELL at all! I ran the truck for a good 45 minutes last night running some errands, so I think it may be pretty much taken care of, but I'd still like to get rid of the residual, and after all, it's only been about 4 years since I last washed down the engine bay. I did give the valley a good wipe down last January when I had everything out for the EBPV delete and up-pipe replacement (and all the other stuff I did at the same time), but it's getting a little grimy again.

My next task is to find exactly where I'm losing coolant. Not sure if the water pump gasket is going (now about 90-110K miles old), but that's sort of where it looks like the very minor drip is coming from -- passenger side, right at the front cover, near the top.

As for the "cold" start this morning (a mild 27°F here in B'ham), the truck started like it WANTED to run after a good night's rest. I guess the DS battery was a slow death, because I almost don't remember the truck starting this well since... well.... since... well, I'm not sure when.

Longer term plan for my fuel sleeve is to hard line that particular slip joint. I know it's low pressure, but I just don't want the joint movement which can't help but facilitate an "earlier than should be" death to the sleeve. I'll leave the soft lines in place which cross over between the heads, but will probably remake them as well since they are now 8 years old and no longer have the flexibility they once had.

Then again, if I end up replacing the truck with a lower mileage 4WD unit before hand, that particular issue will not get addressed at all (by me).