A Pleasant Surpeise

[pmax]

I had the curse of the exhaust manifold bolts on my '01 Silverado 2500 HD. Three of them failed and the exhaust leak had grown worse. Although the truck was running fine, I was experiencing a flashing check engine light that came on at around 65 MPH. (I'm still not sure it was related.) I had read about others having success extracting and replacing their broken bolts but I was skeptical I could have it done at a reasonable cost. I labored over the best way to proceed thinking that I would just install remanufactured heads if the labor was going to be outrageous. Last month I noticed an ad from a local trucking contractor offering automotive repairs. They have a full time mechanic who wrenches all the excavators, dozers and trucks. Because the construction business is slow, they decided to offer auto service to keep the mechanic busy. Because this contractor uses GM trucks for all their smaller vehicles I figured I'd give them a shot. Bingo. The guy let me buy my own manifold kits which I got from NAPA for around $100 per side. He charged me 2 hours per side to install. As a bonus I got the summer shop rate @ $55.00 per hour. I thought I would be paying in excess of a grand for this.

 

Happy camper

[ColoradoSkiCountry]