YES THAT’S OUR TRUCK! The engine is MUCH easier to work on when the cab is removed
At the end of my previous entry all was good with the truck and the next update was supposed to filled with all kinds of pictures of the cool sand sculptures from the Sandfest we were going to at the end of April.
We got halfway there, stopped for lunch but when we went back out and started the truck, this bad, rattling noise suddenly started coming from under the hood. WTF! Seriously??? Now what the hell could be wrong with it? After a quick consultation with a guy in the parking lot, Dave and he thought the truck must have blown a valve so we decided we better turn around and go back while the truck was still running. So much for Sandfest...crap!
Anyways, we made it back to Port O’Connor but it was a slow, painful drive. We couldn’t accelerate much without white smoke coming out of the tailpipe but thank god it wasn’t black smoke because that would be bad....
That happened on Saturday, April 27 and of course everything was closed for the weekend. So Monday morning Dave called the garage who did the previous truck work to see if they even wanted to look at it again after our previous 3 week repair. They did, good thing because our only other option in the area was the Ford dealer and their labor costs per hour were $125 vs. their $78. Dave drove the truck there April 29 and we don’t have it back yet and yes, it’s now May 16. WTF?
Well....the rattling noise was caused by a bad fuel injector. Not great news because it’s a labour intensive repair to get to that part. And, when one injector goes, it’s recommended you replace all 4 on that side because if you don’t, it’s not uncommon to continue to experience problems. On the bright side, if you can call it that, the injectors in the US are only $300 each vs. $600-$900 back in Canada. Estimate to fix the problem, ANOTHER $1700. Man that sucks but we need the truck so we say OK, go ahead and fix it.
In a couple of days we touch base and find out the injectors have all been replaced but the mechanic still isn’t happy with how the truck is running. Now that the rattling noise is gone, he now hears some other noise that he’s going to investigate. Next day he finds out it is one of the valves . Which means he has to take the head off. With the head off they discover that the Piston is damaged. They want Dave to come in and take a look at what they’ve found. He does, sees the damage and they tell him worst case scenario is that the lifter could be bent and they haven’t even looked at the other side of the engine yet. If it’s bad then the truck needs a new motor. The best thing to do would be to check the head and see if it is reusable then decide from there.
When they send the head out to have it machined for the new valves, they discover that there are 4 cracks in the head, which equals REALLY BAD, it’s the WORST F#$%ing case! Even better, it’s only going to cost us about $17,000 to $18,000 to get it and have it installed. F*#%! F#$&! F@$#!
So we each have our own meltdowns over the cost but what other option do we have? Sure we could use that money to buy another, newer truck but Dave checked in Auto Trader and the equivalent truck runs around $24,000 and it’s complicated for Canadians to buy vehicles in the US. If this happened at home, that definitely would have been an option. Plus, there’s no guarantee that anything else we buy will be problem free.
We decided to go ahead with the new motor for a few reasons...Just last year we
- -had new ceramic (expensive) brakes installed and they’re supposed to last a long time. (approx $2000)
- -installed 4 brand new tires (approx $1,000)
- -fixed the air conditioning (approx $1,000)
Plus the body and the interior of the truck are in really good shape so it’ll basically be like having a brand new truck....we hope!
With any luck we’ll have the “White Stallion” (that’s what the guys at the garage have nick named our beast) tomorrow (May 17) and that will be the end of our truck problems. All we can say is that they better F#$%ing be!
So although this very unexpected expense hasn’t broken our bank, it’s put a HUGE dent in it. As a result, we’ve determined it would be in our financial best interest to stop the hemorrhaging of money and cancel our plans to travel the west coast. That sucks because there’s still lots we want to see there but we know our expenses in that part of the country would only increase. Oh well, back to Ontario we go but we aren’t going to rush, we’ll take some time to see things on the the way back. When we get home (sometime in late June?) we’ll have to do something to replenish our funds...maybe buy a fixer upper house and flip it. We’ll see....
Enough depressing truck talk....
While we’ve been truckless we’ve been keeping out of trouble by fishing, although the catching in May has been minimal. In fact it’s become somewhat boring and frustrating but no one is having much luck lately. Even people with boats are coming back with empty coolers after trying all kinds of their favourite places. But we persevere....maybe we’ll catch something today????
Oh yeah we did volunteer at the 1st annual Crawfishfest in Port O’Connor on May 4th, that was fun, ate a ton of tasty crawfish!
Check out our pics from the past few weeks in POCO.