I went up to see my truck today, and I saw the engine without the heads on it, and to be honest, I was extremely blown away, the size of those pistons was incredible. I cant believe I drive this truck around every day with an engine that enormous, absolutely stunned me. Anyway back to my point, while mesmorized of the size of the engine etc, I put my hand on a couple of the pistons, and on the tops of them, there was a pretty descent layer of gritty oil on all of them, I dont know if that was normal or not. Since I have had the engine I do regular oil changes with Mobile 1 synthetic so I dont think I would have been the cause of any sludge problems, and the truck didnt have any sludge like symtoms, but I was still curious though if this was normla or not. I mean, I cant imagine a enigne would run too efficiently with that extra film of oil on top of the pistons. Could this maybe even require having to change the pistons out if they have been damaged over the years, or am I over reacting? I also was thrown because one of the pistons that was all the way down in the block, had a liquid in the cylinder hole, I couldnt tell if it was water or coolant, but either way, why would that be there? Sorry for all the questions, but I would love to learn.

 

I definitely think you are overreacting. The black stuff is probably just carbon buildup from the years of running. The inside of a motor after a few rpms of running never looks like it did when it was new. And as for the liquid in the cylinder, their is water running through the heads so when they removed them they probably just spilled some of it. Nothing a paper towel can't fix.

If you keep up this pace, you'll be putting in a new motor soon... ;-)

 

lol thanks for the calm down, I just had never scene an engine with its heads off. I do snowmobile engine repairs, and thats nothing compared to this, so it was pretty incredible. Should those pistons be cleaned though? Or is it not worth it? I was looking at the camshaft too, and if I am not incorrect, it looks as though you would need to take the raditor out and grille in order to be able to pull the camshaft out through the front of the truck right? Thank you for reply.

 

Yes, to remove the cam, you would need to remove everything from the front of the motor, radiator, condenser, probably including the core support. I am making my modifications a little easier, on an engine stand. I pulled the motor instead of breaking my back leaning over the truck for weeks on end.

It is amazing what they look like inside, most of my experience comes from motorcycles but they tend to look the same after awhile. When you compare them though, look how many more hours are on the truck vs. a snowmobile and the amount of fuel, etc. burned.

As for the carbon, unless it is substantial, I wouldn't mess with it. You definitely don't want it falling into the cylinders when cleaning them off and risk messing some more up down the road.

 

great point, yeah I am sure if the mechanic thought it was bad he would of said something by now. I dont understand howcome he says putting in a camshaft is no problem at all and that it shoudlnt take to long at all, but that still sounds like a big project even with the heads off...This cam better give me some performance or I will be really mad after this huge bill I am going to get....All this just because I wanted to add some headers, ahh it never ends with this truck, but I love it so much, I gave it a big kiss when I left the shop, its been 2 weeks without it, and prob another week to go cuz the headers done come in until this friday and I am sure he wont have the heads and cam in until next week