Jared Stangenberg

I tried getting the key out again with no luck. I can feel an imperfection going full circle around the end of the crankshaft, so it's probably not worth the effort of removing the key. I'm evaluating options right now as far as rebuild v replace. If I do a rebuild, I want to be fairly thorough.

I've had zero luck getting the keystock out. I'm afraid I've found out why it was fixed with JB Weld before. I've tried pulling, taping one end with a punch, using a torch, and PB Blaster but nothing has got it budge. I'm going to keep trying for a few more days before I concede defeat.

I took some pictures of the crankshaft as it was, and then wiped it clean. That's when I realized that it had been previously repaired with what appears to be JB Weld. The harmonic balancer didn't look too bad though, but that's pretty irrelevant at this point.

Oh well that's great :| when I get home today I'll check out the end of the crank and the balancer and take good pictures and upload them.

I got out there again today to take a look at the timing marks, To my inexperienced eye TDC for #6 didn't look too bad No matter what I did though I couldn't get it to look perfectly lined up for number #1 tdc, it wasn't too far off but wasn't perfect either (i added color to the marks on this picture) Also the timing chain seems really sloppy In hindsight I should have washed the under side of the motor off before starting this.

Good to know. I plan on just buying new pushrods, they're a $1 a piece on RockAuto and about $2 from one of the local stores.

I finally got the chance to work on the truck some today. I removed the timing cover, but it got dark before I could really check things out. I'll try tomorrow afternoon when I have daylight. The one thing I noticed was that the chain seemed like it had too much slack, but that was just a quick impression. As a hypothetical question, if I discover the timing has in fact jumped, what parts do I need to make sure I inspect for damage? Valves and Piston heads?

The truck does have about 204,000. It has backfired, but it was as I was running out of gas on the way home from work one day, would that alter the signifcance of that at all? I haven't had time to deal with this in a good while, my son was born unexpectedly on the 9th (he wasn't due until 11/3). He's healthy and everythings good. I just haven't had time to look at the truck in two weeks. I've got a good repair manual and I just looked at the section about finding top dead center. It looks like I'll need to do it in order to adjust the rocker arms anyway. I do have a zero mark on the time cover, so I'll check that soon.

Ok, we've not found any obviously damaged rocker arms, just a little wear from contact with the push rod. Speaking of pushrods, so far we've pulled 3 and 2 of those appear to be slightly bent. With the valve covers off (and all rods and rockers still on at this point) and cranked the engine without the ignition coil connected so that the engine rotated from the starter motor without starting. All of the pushrods did appear to lift and move the rocker arms, is this a valid way of checking the lifter movement?

No tick at idle. The idle isn't perfectly smooth, but it's not violent either. I've got some loose bits in my interior, so they vibrate pretty good. I can say the whole truck does though. The exhaust sound does kind of "lope" at idle. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I may go record it to show what I mean. I've decided against the Risoline additive route. I've got a friend who's supposed to come up tomorrow and help me check out the rocker arms and lifters. He's got more experience with this kind of thing than I do. *EDIT* The sound does occur during "power braking". At around 1750 rpm, also coincidently the highest the engine will rev while power braking. I've not been driving it save to try and diagnose things. I took it out for a short spin tonight and it can cruise at 1500 rpm all day long with no obvious trouble. Go above 2000-2500 rpm and that's when things seem to hit the fan (Figuratively). I did notice that there's a bit of "lag" between when you push the throttle down and the engine decides to do something about it. In a literal sense, nothing is hitting the fan, I checked. You can't see anything in this video, but this is the exhaust sound at idle (in park) after I took it out for the drive to night.

97Sierra, any particular product you had luck with?

By "power braking", do you mean putting it gear and standing on the brakes while revving the engine? If so I haven't tried it.

The oil pressure never drops during the tapping. At idle pressure is a little about 30 and when I'm on the gas it goes up to about 45.

Thanks, hopefully I'll get to fool with it some in the next fews days. We've just been using my wife's car for everything in the mean time. We've got our first baby due in less than four weeks, so I've been pretty short on time and money to mess with this recently. At my wife's request, I did change the spark plugs this morning to see if that made a difference. I hadn't changed them since I got the truck and had no idea how long they had been in (looks like a long long while). the new plugs haven't changed the tapping noise at all, but have brought some power back into the truck. I know you can supposedly "read" plugs, and I've got the chart to look at for it. I also took pictures of each plug by cylinder to get opinions. Other than they were obviously "vintage", does anything else stand out? Hopefully I can take the valve covers off later this week and check out the rocker arms. I also have a question, "What is this and should it be connecting to anything?". It was underneath the air intake pipe/silencer box when I pulled them out.

Not dramatically, it's read on the gauge between 30 and 45 psi ever since I've had the truck and I haven't noticed any dramatic change.