***** on this one

[Jon Chimpo]

hey all,

New here, Im new to the tahoe platform. I own a 98 chevy silverado z71. I'm 34, married no kids, live in Sacramento CA. no im not a *******. we love everything about CA, but the government, taxes, the way taxes are dispersed, stripping away of rights, nanny statism. in my free time I work on my house, ride my super moto, dick around in the garage. enough about me, on to my story.

last week my wife and I were needing another suv, I've always loved the 04 tahoe body style, so does my wife. so we bought one. I shook it down, found a few issues nothing major. bought it for 8500.
04 tahoe 4x4 z71 129k fully loaded with 2nd row captains. stoked!

well tonight I was doing the new used car maintenance, oil change, plugs, tranny service, diffs/the case, brakes ect.. well I noticed when I pulled off the filter it was full of sludge. ******** it. OKay, pulled the R valve cover, caked with sludge. damn it we got *****. this car was neglected, its sad someone would do this to their car. I'm over being pissed, I've hit the acceptance stage, soon I'll want to negotiate.. being our options are pretty limited, im thinking of replacing the motor, rebuilding myself, do nothing and driving till its dead, or parting it out. I'm leaning towards rebuilding.
I'm not a mechanic, I've never tackled a job this big, but I think i can do it. I've been wrenching for awhile, and have learned a lot.

I don't really want to try and flush it out, I think I'll be asking for it. I think my first point is going to pull the valve covers, and the oil pan and start cleaning. if I'm going to try and save the motor.
or crate Motor, or pull it apart and rebuild.

well I'm going to be asking probably a lot of newbie questions. sure I'll search, but please be patient.

any input you guys have is always valuable about my new situation, and my new stationary garage sculpture.

well thanks in advance. and if anyone is in Sacramento, i have a fridge full of whatever you drink!

 

[PG01]

Welcome. Truck looks good. If your gonna rebuild or crate motor it anyway.....try flushing while you get all the parts together , or try to find a low mileage junkyard motor...i used to run trannyfluid in motors to clean them out and years ago they used kerosene.... you got options man.

 

[Miami-Dade]

Welcome from Miami Beach Cordell!!

Your 04 Tahoe looks awesome..Very sad that it was seriously neglected.

 

[NathanJax]

That stinks. Good luck in whatever you do with it

 

[cmc76]

Ill be an optimist. Welcome and nice ride. I was looking for white but couldnt find one when i went to buy.
My thought though. If you are already prepared for the nuclear option of rebuilding and replacing. What harm will some cleanup and a flush do? I admit, it looks bad. But i would do what your doing, some tlc. Pull all that sludge you can from it and try and flush it out.
Ive got the same truck, pushing 180k. Unknown service record and minimal repair so far and continues to do what I need it to do.
Good luck

 

[Tonyrodz]

Welcome. Sad when people neglect the simplest of things. I'd scrape all the sludge out and run some kind of cleaner through it first. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Good luck.
Here's another neglected motor. 4.8 that ran great.

 

[jarydM]

Yeah, I'm in the camp of trying to salvage what you got. If you're prepared to replace if necessary, I'd do a flush.

sharp looking Tahoe, love mine. These motors are solid, even if neglected.

 

[Jon Chimpo]

I'm going to back to the shady ass dealer I got it from, and show him what I found. I'm going to plead for mercy, then negotiate, then if that doesn't work I'll print out 8 1/2 x 11 photos and spend a few weekends down there passing them out to his perspective car buyers, and take to social media. in the end, im sure I'm on my own, never know ow if you don't try though.

thank you all for the advice, your right. I have absolutely nothing to loose by trying to clean the crap out of the valves, timing chain, and drop the pan. I spoke to my wife, and it could just be my project if we need a new engine. at that point we will drive it till the wheels fall off.

I'll start a thread soon so I can keep the group updated. it's good to be here, just wish I was only complainingredients about creaking suspension..

 

[iamdub]

Tahoe looks beautiful!

If it runs fine, I vote that you clean it. That mileage is easily half or even a third of that engine's lifespan. You already have the valve covers off- pop off the heads and clean anything you can reach by hand until it's spotless. Use a shop vac to suck up the chunks as you scrape them away with a plastic scraper instead of letting them fall into passages. I'd just replace the lifters and push rods since they're cheap enough. Use a solvent to clean the oil galleys and let everything run down into the bottom. Take the oil pan off so everything can run straight out as it dissolves and runs from the top end. The lifters and push rods are about the only parts in any real danger of being clogged by chunks since they have small oil passages. Remove those and flush all the "big holes", drop in new lifters and push rods, new oil pump, button it all back up. Run some decent conventional oil with a strong concentration of flush and a cheap-but-decent filter (I'd run a Super Tech from Walmart for this) for a few trips around the block. Park it and pull the oil plug while it's still warm and let it drain for a couple hours. The oil will probably be black, so go another cycle with the cheap-but-decent filter and conventional oil. Check the color of the oil on the dipstick and change it when it gets brown. It shouldn't go black after a short drive but it probably won't stay clean for the length of a normal oil change interval, either. Change it again but use a quality filter (i.e. Wix) and fill it with your choice of a quality synthetic oil and you should be good to go from there on.

 

[MadDogDelpho]

That's unfortunate to hear, but I hope all works out with the truck, man. Excited to see where this goes, and welcome to the site!