Connor M
Youtube Certified Master Technician
Figured I'd make a spot to peddle my sob story, tell a few jokes, ask a few questions, post my rants, and maybe even inspire another young man to make the same dumb mistakes I did.
I'm from the great state of Taxachusetts with our rust, camera inspections, tight modification laws, and general tomfoolery.
I was looking for a new truck. My 303k mile 2005 Yukon Denali from high school was tired, sad, kinda ugly, and I found out the hard way that the trans was on the way out. I looked for a while for a higher trim 6.4 and fell in love with a ******d 2008 job 3 HD in OKC. Had a few issues- The tail pipe was hanging oddly low, two small tears inside, but it seemed "OK" (pun intended) and the Ford dealership assured me it was in perfect shape and would make it back to MA. So I hopped on a jet and went to get my new perfect truck.
And it had a few small dents but nothing major. The EBP sensor was broken, and we rolled the end over to get some boost back and quiet the whistle. Then in Arkansas at 9pm I found the truck covered in oil when I stopped for fuel and I was down a couple quarts.
A dealer in Arkansas told me it was mostly from the front main and a little from a few other spots, but it was fine, I could just keep it topped off and I’d be fine. So I bought a case of oil and headed off. Then in Tennessee, we got a rocker tapping and limp mode with no codes and shortly thereafter a turbo decided that it wanted a two-piece shaft.
So I left it in a parking lot, got a ride to Knoxville (huge thank you to Jerry Duncan Ford in Harriman) and drove back to get my paperweight.
Took the cab off to replace the turbo and rocker and when I pulled the rocker I noticed pieces of the head gasket missing. I don’t know a lot but figured that wasn’t a good sign and since I was here I’d stud it. So I pulled the heads and shipped them off to get rebuilt by Dennis and the guys at All Cape Machine. Real great shop, and they did a great job on my heads. Had quite a few seats cracked and a lot of shot guides and a few valves.
As I was tearing it down I noticed it’s evident that someone’s been in here before despite a fairly thorough and squeaky clean car fax. Lots of silicone on pumps body mount nuts broken free, etc.
Once I finally got it going I put some switchbacks and LED heads in. I have resistors, reverse lights, and led fogs on the way from VLEDS.
I was showing a belt on the discoverer AT3’s that came on the truck so I used the tire machine at work to put some 35x12.50r20 Cooper STT pros on the truck with equal bags for balancing. Working pretty well so far.
I also fixed the tip a bit and pulled the stripe but it need some serious paint love and some more struggling to perfect the tail pipe, but I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the exhaust so I’m not struggling with it too much. Added new locking lugs since I was missing one (you can see it in the first tire pic) and they don't fit through the center caps, so I have to figure out what I'm going to do with that.
That’s where the truck sits now, I’ve put ~4k on it and I have some LE oil waiting to go in at 5k (with one of those awesome pails, thanks Jim), roughly 169,000 on the truck. I bought it at 163 and rebuild it at 164.
I’m pretty proud of how far I came. I didn’t have a lot of experience going into this but through a lot of reading and youtube I successfully stripped the engine down to the block face and put it back together and it ran on the first try. (I did mess up the front seal install and had to redo it).
Although I’m proud of my work, I’m now looking to squeeze a little more out of it, and polish out some issues. I need to sort out some tuning, it was “full diet” from the PO but I’m getting a P041D code.
I think I’m just going to get a license for a dashdaq I picked up and see If that fixes it.
A TMPS sensor of course went out 100 miles after I just had the tires off.
Other engine plans are a no limit intake and making my own CCV mod. I kind of want to do a venturi too, just for the cleanliness. IDK what I'm going to do for exhaust right now, maybe just straighten it out and add a tip. I have a new 5" mbrp from somewhere kicking around in my shop.
Thanks for reading, hopefully more to come soon.
Connor
I'm from the great state of Taxachusetts with our rust, camera inspections, tight modification laws, and general tomfoolery.
I was looking for a new truck. My 303k mile 2005 Yukon Denali from high school was tired, sad, kinda ugly, and I found out the hard way that the trans was on the way out. I looked for a while for a higher trim 6.4 and fell in love with a ******d 2008 job 3 HD in OKC. Had a few issues- The tail pipe was hanging oddly low, two small tears inside, but it seemed "OK" (pun intended) and the Ford dealership assured me it was in perfect shape and would make it back to MA. So I hopped on a jet and went to get my new perfect truck.
And it had a few small dents but nothing major. The EBP sensor was broken, and we rolled the end over to get some boost back and quiet the whistle. Then in Arkansas at 9pm I found the truck covered in oil when I stopped for fuel and I was down a couple quarts.
A dealer in Arkansas told me it was mostly from the front main and a little from a few other spots, but it was fine, I could just keep it topped off and I’d be fine. So I bought a case of oil and headed off. Then in Tennessee, we got a rocker tapping and limp mode with no codes and shortly thereafter a turbo decided that it wanted a two-piece shaft.
So I left it in a parking lot, got a ride to Knoxville (huge thank you to Jerry Duncan Ford in Harriman) and drove back to get my paperweight.
Took the cab off to replace the turbo and rocker and when I pulled the rocker I noticed pieces of the head gasket missing. I don’t know a lot but figured that wasn’t a good sign and since I was here I’d stud it. So I pulled the heads and shipped them off to get rebuilt by Dennis and the guys at All Cape Machine. Real great shop, and they did a great job on my heads. Had quite a few seats cracked and a lot of shot guides and a few valves.
As I was tearing it down I noticed it’s evident that someone’s been in here before despite a fairly thorough and squeaky clean car fax. Lots of silicone on pumps body mount nuts broken free, etc.
Once I finally got it going I put some switchbacks and LED heads in. I have resistors, reverse lights, and led fogs on the way from VLEDS.
I was showing a belt on the discoverer AT3’s that came on the truck so I used the tire machine at work to put some 35x12.50r20 Cooper STT pros on the truck with equal bags for balancing. Working pretty well so far.
I also fixed the tip a bit and pulled the stripe but it need some serious paint love and some more struggling to perfect the tail pipe, but I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with the exhaust so I’m not struggling with it too much. Added new locking lugs since I was missing one (you can see it in the first tire pic) and they don't fit through the center caps, so I have to figure out what I'm going to do with that.
That’s where the truck sits now, I’ve put ~4k on it and I have some LE oil waiting to go in at 5k (with one of those awesome pails, thanks Jim), roughly 169,000 on the truck. I bought it at 163 and rebuild it at 164.
I’m pretty proud of how far I came. I didn’t have a lot of experience going into this but through a lot of reading and youtube I successfully stripped the engine down to the block face and put it back together and it ran on the first try. (I did mess up the front seal install and had to redo it).
Although I’m proud of my work, I’m now looking to squeeze a little more out of it, and polish out some issues. I need to sort out some tuning, it was “full diet” from the PO but I’m getting a P041D code.
I think I’m just going to get a license for a dashdaq I picked up and see If that fixes it.
A TMPS sensor of course went out 100 miles after I just had the tires off.
Other engine plans are a no limit intake and making my own CCV mod. I kind of want to do a venturi too, just for the cleanliness. IDK what I'm going to do for exhaust right now, maybe just straighten it out and add a tip. I have a new 5" mbrp from somewhere kicking around in my shop.
Thanks for reading, hopefully more to come soon.
Connor
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