My up-pipes have been crap and leaking for about a week, been waiting for this weekend to tackle them with Razzi. Sure would've been nice for them to need replacing when I swapped out my trans, but oh well.

Dorman kit came in, looking shiny and promising. I had read Curtis's how-to on guzzle's site til I nearly had it memorized.

Get to Razzi's and have the top side torn down in less than an hour... Hot boots certainly are more pliable and easy to manipulate, I'll tell you what. Intake off, spider out, HPX off, yank turbo and pedestal. FYI, SeaFoam Deep Creep kicks ALL penetrating oils' collective butts. It's amazing.

Start on baby butt to up pipe bolts and discover the leak - baby butt can be easily manipulated by hand. Either way, the bolts are working out slowly. Spray more on the hardware and head underneath to start working on them - nope just ****ing kidding!!! All the hardware is stripped by someone else's previous handiwork. Can't get a tool on there to cut them either there just isn't the space on the passenger side with the 4" exhaust. Which the exhaust shop WELDED TOGETHER INTO ONE GIANT 18' LONG METAL PYTHON. Great. ****ing great. So my rig is going off to Dorian at PSE to get the uppies done along with CVD's while they're in there.

The plan is to borrow Razzi's 7.3 Ex while mine is in the shop, but the starter bangs and grinds and is assumed to be crap. No problem, I crawl under there to swap it out with a spare he has - takes all of 15 minutes. Go to start it up, spark show and the bendix drive is going crazy. So I pull off the flexplate inspection cover and find that his flexplate is absolutely obliterated and missing teeth here, parts of teeth there... overall unreliable, especially since I'll have my daughter next weekend.

So now I'm off to pick up my rental crewcab EcoBoost. Why an EcoBoost? Because the subcompacts are $260 for a week and I won't fit, and the truck is $315. Also because Houston, where small cars get NO respect or safe space on the roads.

I love this hobby, I really do. But today - today I really, really, REALLY HATE my Excursion.

Also, for a final kick in the nuts - as I'm crawling out from under my truck and bang my ****ing head on the ****ing trans dingleberry I lay on my back to relax (insta-rage when I bang my head) and I see rust. Not a little surface rust, like mother ****ing exfoliating rust that was hiding beneath the insulation around the trans (which I ripped off to further inspect the rust). Great.

I'm about to take out a loan so I can get the Chevelle on the road again and spend time restoring the damn Excursion. At this rate, I'd be done faster.

 

Sorry to hear of your bad luck. May try that penetrating oil out. I am in the process of making the ATF/Acetone mixture up though.

 

On the flip side, this little EcoBoost crewcab freaking scoots. Certainly slapped into the limiter with authority at 102mph, and it was showing an average of 23mpg cruising.

Still not sold on it, but it was a pleasant surprise.

 

Yep, pretty amazing what a six-cylinder can do when you add a fan to the intake.





Add a Kenne-Bell chip for more fun

 

Yep! I'm not a GM guy but those Buicks kicked ***! And they looked good doing it.

 

Saw the video on FB and had to come and see the thread... Really sorry you're having to go through this man It'll be done soon though and a smile will be back on your face! I'm talking about the chevelle BTW lol.

 

LOL, I just installed the Dorman up pipes yesterday and a couple of bolts kicked my *** too. Luckily for me though, the passenger side up-pipe fell right out the collector. My 4" stainless steel exhaust is also fused together from turbo-back, unfortunately from rust . Removing a few of the hangers downstream gave me enough room to move my down pipe out of the way.

All of my manifold to up pipe bolts were fused to the flanges. Those were fun to remove. And the front turbo-to-pedestal bolt was fused to the center cartridge which I nearly broke off. Kroil (THE BEST penetrating oil, BTW ) and mapp gas made short work of that. Gotta love working on rust buckets.

 

Good grief your turbo cartridge! That makes me cringe just looking at it, yeeesh.

PSE will be dealing with this stupid thing instead of me, I'm sick of it.

 

"REALLY HATE my Excursion."
Let's be clear, IT'S NOT the X IT's the 7.3
I have NONE of those issues with the 6.8
AND on the brighter side of things according to you 7.3 owners(of which I was one at one time) you only have 1 million more miles to deal with it

SORRY for your troubles Matt. After I hit my head a few times & get 1/2 a LB of rust in my eyes (Ohio X ) I'm no fun to be around. DO NOT be in the path of anything I can throw. My favorite phrase in those times is " S,F,P,C. ALL 4 letter words said very loud.

 

I feel like I can stand tall and yell.. "Yes, thank goodness, I have a 6.0 in my Excursion"

 

Mark, nice Grand National! Is it yours?

 

You hate the Ex now but when it is running great again you will have a smile on your face.


Your Chevelle is 40 years old, easy to work on but dang heater cores and rusty body cage nuts can cause you to cry too. (ask me how I know)


Sounds like most of the Ex's problems are from previous owners repairs, after all it is 15 years old, same as Razzi's Ex.


Hang in there.

 

Now now, after 265,000 miles something was bound to finally go awry. I also have none of the slow or MPG issues the 6.8 has

Oddly enough, mine came from Ohio as well where the original owner (also the PO, I'm the second) bought it new and kept it there for 10 years of torture.

Rude, lol. Beat on yours hard enough and get it over 1600° enough times and you too shall experience some form of PITA. Oddly enough I was watching Razzi struggle with an up pipe heat shield on a 6.0 the whole time I was working on mine...

 

I can't deny this is the truth. Luckily my cage nuts are all new, I replaced all the external hardware as soon as I had time to do so. Figured I'd get the real nasty jobs out of the way first, then enjoy the rest of the build.

 

It was, I had it for three years, rebuilt the transmission put some miles on it and sold it for more than I paid for it.

It was a cop magnet.