I stopped by the dealership on the way to work just to see how things were going on the repair, the tech shows me the head gasket and points out where the oil was leaking. He also showed me another little surprise, the #2 cylinder had blown the gasket out on the bottom side!! I never heard any unusual noises or anything, but I had noticed at times it had a rough idle and the rpms would flutter a little. Glad I took it in now!
Now for the final surprise. I noticed all the techs gathered around my L when I came into the shop and they were all laughing their asses off! Im thinking WTF? So after the tech finishes showing me the gasket and stuff, he asked(between his giggling and all his buddies laughing uncontrollably!) if I had any squirrels around the house.(I know I had that WTF look on my face!), I said yes, they're all over the place, why?
He pulls out his flashlight and shines it in the engine bay(the intake and passanger side head are off and sitting on the ground)
and there between where the intake sits and the top of the block were hundreds of freakin' acorns!!!! That damn squirrel was stashing his acorns in the Lightning!!! Oh well, atleast they didnt try to void my warranty for that mod! LOL!

 

I could imagine what was running through your mind. A room full of mechanics laughing at your motor. Almost a relief to see it was just acorns. But that is classic.


Mark

 

the source of the infamous marbles in a can noise? Maybe we should check under our intakes for acorns

 

Get a GAMO(made in Spain) single-shot pellet rifle to get those tree rats off your property. One pull-down of the barrel ****s it and now you have 1,000 fps power to knock the little rodents out-permanently. www.cabelas.com has them--get one with a 3X scope and you're in business.

Dan

 

litnfast-LMAO!! Never thought about that one!! LOL!! Now thats classic.

LIGHTNINROD- Thanks for the link, Ill check that out. It still amazes me how he squeezed into that small space and stashed so many acorns! It would be cool to have a NOS line pointed in there and spray him in the azz!! LOL!

 

Little tree-rat musta wanted some roasted nuts...

 

THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!!!!!!
Here in AZ we don't have squirrels, but we have snakes, lizards, and the always nasty pigeons. I opted for the G23 CO2 BB/Pellet repeater pistol with the trigger-mounted laser sight. Wonderful at eliminating pesky varmits from your property. The laser sight is too cool. When they look up, the little red light confuses them just long enough to plant a wadcutter right between their beady little eyes!

It's too much fun, & excellent for stress relief. . .not to mention greatly reducing the chances of the little bastards filling your engine bay with acorns.

 

2cool thats too funny

 

Well, got the Lightning back today and what a mess!!
Ever heard someone tell you,"they will screw up more than they fix?" Its the truth! Truck does run better now that the leaky gasket is fixed, but when they first started it up this morning, oil was pouring out of the engine onto the ground!!! They found that there was a missing plug in the rear of the head that they had just replaced and oil was spewing throughout the engine bay! So they had to remove the tranny crossmember, lower the transmission to install missing plug. To top that off, while pulling the truck into the stall, they ripped a nice chunk of metal off the right front wheel when it caught the hydraulic lift brackets.
All this along with numerous deep scratches on the fenders and front bumper!! Man, its enough to **** anyone off! Oh well, they ordered a new wheel and Im gonna try to buff out all the scratches and clean up the remaining oil residue, maybe it will take my mind off wanting to kill someone!!
Why in the hell cant dealerships be more responsible and considerate?? My truck went in there without a scratch on it. Inside of a day in someone else's care, it looks like ***!!!
Ill get off my soap box now!!

 

Mine is supposed to go in tomorrow. Could you tell if the head was new or was it indeed a remanned one? Did you have them inspect the intake? On my 99 the teflon on the rotor had peeled off and was plugging the intercooler. I plan on inspecting mine myself. Also was the new gasket the revised one. From what I understand they leak around the oil pressure hole. Any other noticeable problems with the head? How about oil in the intake?
Sludge of any kind. Thanks. I would make the dealership pay for the scratches. Was it just the gasket that was bad or what ?
Did you remember to have them pull out your aftermarket sparkplugs and stick em in the new head ? I have the $50.00 dollar set on that side.

Biting my nails....

 

Twisted- The head was a brand new unit, it already had the valves and everything installed in it. All they had to do was bolt it on. The tech said the problem was not really the gasket, but the milling of the heads at the factory. The bottom side of the head had lots of deep milling cuts in it, it was not a smooth finish. So the tech took a sharpening stone and "sanded" out the milling cuts on the new head to help get a better seal. As far as I know, they used the older style head gasket. My blower didnt have any signs of the teflon coming off and the intercooler was really clean, I figured it would be oil coated pretty bad but wasnt.
There was a little sign of oil in the intake but not much. As far as the head it looked good except for the #2 cylinder, it had a pretty thick coating of burnt oil on the valves! The tech didnt know what caused that, but it use to blow a puff of smoke out the exhaust at first startup, and it hasnt done that again since the repair.......yet! They did install my TR6's in the new head and also gapped all of them @ .44! So now Ive got to pull them back out and gap them back at .40 like they were. It feels like I lost some throttle response due to the larger gap. Hope this helps ya out som, and GOOD LUCK!!!