The Lair

Hey OP, keep me up to date on the weatherproofyness of your new Softopper. Trying to determine which direction to point my build as I look forward to starting it.

 

Of course! It may be a bit though as my truck is now garage kept

 

Checked the cooling system today for exhaust gases, which would confirm head gasket leak. Supposed to turn yellow but instead turned a little green. My conclusion is that there was just a small amount of gases present, aka just a small HG leak.

 

Ugh. I've got to get my garage built. My wife keeps countering with all this crazy talk about me having to finish the house first or some shit like that.....

 

Subd

 

Get a Red soft topper. Would make things right

 

It'll turn green if contaminated with coolant. It has to be fairly low to get as accurate a test as possible. They are hit and miss even at that.

 

Weld it.

 

There was no coolant in there. The fluid level remained exactly the same from before and after. I drained about half of the radiator so I wouldn't get coolant in there.

 

Gotcha as long as it wasn't steaming then yeah your assessment is probably good! There is no real definitive test for HG sadly. A gas analyzer is the closest you can get but not many shops even have them.

 

I was thinking a leak down test would be a pretty good one too. I found a local mechanic (based from online reviews) sounds like he'd be a good guy to work with. Sit down and discuss what's going on, my diagnosis, and see if he wanted to do his own diagnostics or just dive right in and either repair or replace the engine. I'll probably get that ball rolling this week.

 

Hemivan?

Also TLDR.

How's the lair? Seems #RandyFab is in a new location now.
Daniel missed out on a T4R which makes me a sad panda, but at the same time dodged a rusty bullet.
Randy has a soft topper now.

Anything else I missed?

 

Leak down test may show it but it may not also. So you going to try and have a new engine in before ATR?

 

Randy's head is leaking. May weld it together.

 

LS Swap. Was on snap & you missed it chief

 

Yep that's the end goal, and it's gonna happen. I don't want to have to drive that far while worrying about my cooling system the whole time. I want to get it taken care of sooner rather than later so I can work out any kinks that may arise.

 

Sounds like a solid plan!

 

Don't have time to resurface the heads and put in a new head gasket? I did it on my Pontiac in a day + the time to have a machine shop machine the head. $600 later my POS Pontiac was back on the road.

 

Oh god no, I wish it was that simple on these trucks. For a pro to do it is around 16 hours. It'd take me a month to do it if I worked on the weekends. And parts alone is around a grand if you buy OEM gaskets and head studs, and other misc stuff.

 

Yikes, I probably cut corners. Bought a gasket kit and pulled the head and sent it to a machine shop. No new studs.