Air bubbles in the coolant reservoir

[Doubeleive]

Ticking at start up is a lifter(s) bleeding down and having to pump back up after the engine is started. They would be cheap, but since the strike a while back, the price for OEM ones has more than doubled.

I hope that $300 price is for refurbished heads! I got some low-mile 799s from a 2010 for my brother's LM7 for $300. We decided not to shave them and he hasn't noticed any loss in power. He wouldn't because it was so sludged up to begin with that it ran a little weaker, anyway. Maybe used parts in CA are more expensive, but you can find used Gen3 heads for dirt cheap around here at the salvage yards. Use your best judgement based on the vehicle and engine's appearances and yank the heads. Bring 'em to a shop to get cleaned and milled .020"-.025" and slap 'em on.

You'll need heads, head gaskets, exhaust manifold gaskets, exhaust manifold bolts and head bolts.

If the intake manifold and/or rocker cover gaskets are original, replace those as well. If they're not so old and aren't "flat" when you remove the covers or manifold, they can be reused.

Clean off the top of the valley cover when you remove the IM. Pull up the lip of the knock sensor seals and add RTV all around them. If you remove them, there's a good chance they'll break and you'll be replacing the knock sensor harness and maybe the knock sensors themselves as a preventative measure. It's one of those things that you either don't touch or completely replace. But peeling up the lip to add RTV is harmless and a good PM.

I've never had a problem with the $12 Dorman exhaust manifold bolt sets. Use high temp anti-seize on the threads (same with the spark plugs).

The cheap Summit Racing head bolt kit is a re-labeled OEM kit. Good deal here.



If it were me and I wanted to get by as cheaply as possible, I'd run used OEM lifters as long as they didn't have high mileage on them, maybe something around 150K. Maybe find two people that did an AFM delete on a NNBS and get their non-AFM lifters? Don't forget to replace the lifter guides- OEM ones are only about $25 for all four, IIRC. I'd get the cheapest but known good set of heads I could find and run 'em as-is. Worst case the valve seals are a little leaky, but burning a tiny amount of oil, maybe just at startup, is far better than having coolant leak into your engine or the engine overheat from being ran with low coolant.

knock sensors were done a couple years ago, I'll have to mull this over and take a trip to the junkyard and see what is out there if I don't find a fresh one there usually stripped pretty quickly and if there isn't signs of a crash impact then the motor is likely fubar also.

 

[mattt]

it's a LM7 looks like a set of heads is about $300? then what else I see a set of bolts is about $60, then gaskets both head and valve covers and probably intake, what else? it's got the tickey tickey at start up so probably a set of valves/springs?

The tick tickey could be from the water polluting your oil. I had it too, and once the water leak was sealed up, the tick went away after the oil was flushed. I used Barrs Leaks in my 300k+ high mileage 5.3 L59 to get me by long enough until the 6.0 is ready to drop in.

 

[Larryjb]

The tick tickey could be from the water polluting your oil. I had it too, and once the water leak was sealed up, the tick went away after the oil was flushed. I used Barrs Leaks in my 300k+ high mileage 5.3 L59 to get me by long enough until the 6.0 is ready to drop in.

On the topic of tick tickey, another possible source is the exhaust flange seal. I heard about this in another thread somewhere, although the guy had to have his exhaust manifolds changed too. You can use a mechanic's stethoscope to find where the tick is coming from.

Wes, if you're looking for a junkyard engine, I don't know what your junkyards are like but I wouldn't trust any junkyard engine in my area unless I was going to rebuilt if from top to bottom.

 

[Doubeleive]

The tick tickey could be from the water polluting your oil. I had it too, and once the water leak was sealed up, the tick went away after the oil was flushed. I used Barrs Leaks in my 300k+ high mileage 5.3 L59 to get me by long enough until the 6.0 is ready to drop in.

ya that's probably the case here

 

[mattt]

ya that's probably the case here

Yeah, I didn't believe it to be related in my case, but it proved otherwise. I would keep in mind though that a water compromised engine is a ticking time bomb longevity wise. That's why I went with a 6.0 replacement.

 

[Doubeleive]

On the topic of tick tickey, another possible source is the exhaust flange seal. I heard about this in another thread somewhere, although the guy had to have his exhaust manifolds changed too. You can use a mechanic's stethoscope to find where the tick is coming from.

Wes, if you're looking for a junkyard engine, I don't know what your junkyards are like but I wouldn't trust any junkyard engine in my area unless I was going to rebuilt if from top to bottom.

it's not a exhaust leak, I suspect the drivers side head is the one with the problem because that's where the startup tick is coming from, the search in the junk yard is just to possibly find a set of good used heads, generally if the vehicle was in a accident then the engine is more likely to be good

 

[Doubeleive]

I put in 2 bottles of the blue devil a few days ago, still have bubbles in the reservoir tank but the coolant level does not appear to have gone down since then but still kind of early to say it may have only reduced it a little I will have to keep driving it to really say for sure
this entire time I have been looking for another suburban, pickings have been slim but Sunday we picked up a 05 with 150k on the clock, clean interior, sport red, L59, 2wd
interior is pretty clean and paint is pretty fair some typical chips on the hood and couple small door dings, engine & transmission seems solid, no major leaks. I have given it a once over couple times since sunday, the AC pump sounded like a jet about to take off so I had that replaced yesterday.
needs minor stuff & a little tlc
one heater hose was replaced because it snapped off which is pretty typical but I am going get new T's and replace the other hose so those will be out of the way
needs wheel bearings which is also typical for the mileage there snug but making noise so they need to be replaced
needs a new coolant reservoir just because it's nasty looking lol so that will get done with the hoses & t's
one of the window washer pumps is cracked and dripping another typical thing should be able to ****** one out of the junkyard
rear hatch & glass gas cylinders need to be replaced another typical thing
needs one tpms sensor-confirmed only needs one
looks like the valve covers have a pretty minor leak on both sides probably typical also so those will get addressed down the road
everything works so far, doesn't smoke or have any weird noises, plugs are autolite and look ok so even though it didn't have any service records it seems to at least have had general maintenance, once I get the hoses and wheel bearings done I can take my time try to fix the 04 or sell it

 

[TJ Baker]

That looks like the same color my 05 Yukon is.

I used AC Delco brand leak seal tabs on my leaks pictured in this thread at that time. I never had the sort of bubbling Doubeleive has. I have intended to send off an oil sample to Blackstone but haven't done that yet. At any rate I have driven nearly 5000 miles since then and have not noticed any coolant loss. When I get around to Blackstone I'll post an update. I have two samples, The first is from before I found the leaks and another taken just recently.

 

[Doubeleive]

That looks like the same color my 05 Yukon is.

I used AC Delco brand leak seal tabs on my leaks pictured in this thread at that time. I never had the sort of bubbling Doubeleive has. I have intended to send off an oil sample to Blackstone but haven't done that yet. At any rate I have driven nearly 5000 miles since then and have not noticed any coolant loss. When I get around to Blackstone I'll post an update. I have two samples, The first is from before I found the leaks and another taken just recently.

ya I forgot about those, so far it seems to be holding coolant it's been about 6 days she's going to keep driving it for another week or two while I do some maintenance to this 05

 

[Doubeleive]

The blue devil stuff "might" be working, the bottom of the filler cap is now clean and dry before it had some small amounts of milky like residue and the clickity-clickity noise at start up is going away and coolant level hasn't gone down in about a week, it still has air bubbles in the reservoir though but preliminary results are promising.