These are the best family haulers on the planet, so you're in good company with other dads in here in wanting to make your rig safe and reliable for long-haul travel. We love them so much we have TWO Yukon XL Denali's and a Suburban. I can't bear to get rid of any of them. Lol. Just last night we had 4 kids plus my wife and me, taking our son's girlfriend home, about 45 minutes away in our '07. We were all listening to music and singing, and everyone was happy and healthy. It's those little moments of joy in our lives that these rigs make possible. And they're the memories that will sustain us when we get old.Thank you for all the replies,
@swathdiver I ended up finding him and purchased a manual (he has a different username on ebay now) I guess they cracked down on him selling them there but based on what he sold me (for $15 I might add) it's an amazing manual and a ton of pdf's
It's probably not as good as a subscription service in quality but for me I think it will work really good.
The car was purchased locally from the dealer here in northern Utah. the original owner eventually sold it to one of their kids. The kids just upgraded to a newer Yukon XL and we got it from them. So we're the third owner but feel like we got it from the originals as it's always been local here and there's no major rust that I have been able to find. They even wanted a family photo in front of the car before we drove it off. We feel it was loved and cared for and hope it ends up being the case.
They guy did all his own work and replaced the front struts with something less expensive - he said it was going to be like $1,600 a side to replace them so he went with something that wasn't as fancy. Maybe someday I'll figure out what was in it originally and put it back in but for right now that's not the priority.
It has 218k and we got it for $7,000
We just out grew our 5 seat cars so this was one the wife wanted and we picked it up a few weeks ago. The plan is this will be the entire family vehicle and we'll drive the other 5 seaters for day to day driving when we're not all driving someplace together. So it's been sitting in the driveway until this past week when I figure I'd have some time now to get it running properly.
The previous owners had been running Mobil 1 High Mileage in it and said they changed it roughly ever 3-5k miles.
As I mentioned it has 218k on it so the miles are high to some people but I'm a sucker for doing my own work and trying to do things right. Two of my vw tdi's have over 400k on each and I'd drive them anywhere no questions asked. I do all my own work. The only thing I haven't tried to do is an alignment. but everything from timing belts / clutches / tire repairs I do myself at home. I don't have a lift yet but plan on getting one eventually. Realistically that's a few years down the road though.
I don't have a car payment and figure a part of what I'd spend on labor to get someone done can go towards my tool budget. The wife has agreed to far so I have nothing to complain about
Anyway I tried cleaning off the oil from the bottom and it was all over. Looking in the inspection hole for the transmission I didn't really see much inside, maybe some damp seepage that can from outside the bell housing. but I wasn't certain one way of the other.
I did think I could see some oil coming down an inside cornet on the block from the driver's valve cover so I figured valve covers would be the place to start, I also picked up an oil pressure sender so thought I might try that as well. then continue to clean from the top down and see how things and the oil leak stopped.
when I removed the coil pack bracket it came out easy with the air ratchet but the smaller 8mm bolts (that have the same torque spec as the coil pack bracket bolts) seemed more difficult than my 1/4 air ratches wanted to handle. So my guess is someone has been in there and tried to tighten those to hopefully "fix" a oil leak.
So I started with the easier side and pulled the driver's valve cover off yesterday and this is what things looked like. In your guys' opinion should a vehicle with synthetic oil it's whole life look this bad after 200k?
View attachment 437366View attachment 437365
I run Mobil Turbo Diesel Truck in my vw's and the oil in those is black but things sure don't look like this bronze color. Maybe I've been living in a bubble and this is normal but I'm honestly not sure.
A couple other questions.
I'm thinking i should probably replace the pvc, possibly the plugs and wires, air and fuel filters and such.
I thought the pcv was pressed in the end of the driver's valve cover. However I can blow air though it (both in and out) isn't a pcv only supposed to be in a single direction? So should I replace this one? Do the hoses for it leak as well? - there seemed to be some seepage around the hose from the driver's side valve cover to the intake so maybe I should get a new hose?
What plugs do you guys reccomend? Rock Auto has a ton of options and in my diesel world I've never had to sort out what plugs are the right ones to use. I know NGK's are generally good for engines from Japan but this engine isn't fron Japan so I'm really not sure.
Rock auto has Copper/nickle, platimum, douple platinum, iridium, ruthenium. I mean I'd like good, but what's the good spot of quality (I don't want to put in cheap junk) end and where does being obsessive without any real benefit start?
Also, is there a good maintance schedule to follow? I look in the owners's manual and it shows some things to replace but @petethepug above mentioned transmission removal at 100k 200k I'm guessing I'm near that but I'm not seeing it mentioned in the owner's manual, so is there a different (I'd assume better) schedule I should be following?
Thanks for all the advice and welcome's
you guys are very nice!
-J
Anyway, those heads look great for 200K miles. That golden color is completely normal for an engine receiving regular oil changes. You would see black sludge beginning to accumulate if the oil change interval were insufficient. Here's what my heads looked like on my 2012 after 110K or so.
Also, +1 on replacing the valve cover with the revised part number that has the updated baffle. I use only Iridium (OEM-spec) plugs in ours, and have been happy.
Side note: one of the achilles heels of the L92's 823 heads is the potential for broken valve springs, and also dropped valve seats. They're rare, but they do happen. I had the heads off my 2012 for a cam swap to get rid of AFM (which you don't have), so I installed new springs and valve stem seals while I was in there. However I did not have any machine shop work done on the valves themselves or valve seats.
One thing you can *maybe* do to reduce the chances of dropping a valve seat is let the engine idle for a few minutes when you pull off the highway to get gas or visit a rest area, or immediately after any other time when you're running the engine hard. Aluminum expands with heat much more than hardened steel, and when you shut an engine off after running it hard, the temperature of the cylinder heads will continue to rise without coolant circulating through them. If the temp rises enough, it could weaken the press-fit between the valve seat and the aluminum head, increasing the risk of dropping a valve seat. The additional idle time gives the cooling system more time to dissipate more heat after hard running.
Finally, this Chevy commercial hits the spot for why these rigs are so loved by families. They last forever if you take care of them:
